Millicent, 44, and Amos, 45, live in Eldoret with their 17-year-old daughter. Amos has been working as a matatu driver and bus conductor for many years. Millicent ran a small restaurant during the Diaries, but is now selling plastic wares from a small Mali Mali shop and knitting sweaters, which she sells mostly at back-to-school time.
Shujaaz Inc. is a Kenyan communications research and production company. Formerly called Well Told Story, the company is the producer of “Shujaaz,” an award-winning media platform that provides open spaces – including online platforms – for youth to discuss personal and societal issues often considered sensitive or taboo within their communities.
We were huddled in a routine team discussion at FSD Kenya when we received news of the first confirmed Covid-19 case in Kenya. Like many others, we wondered what this might mean for our work, our families and our country in the days ahead.
During a recent visit to Sierra Leone, I was fascinated by the country’s rich history, friendly people and the beautiful beaches of the Freetown peninsula, with miles and miles of white sand – albeit almost empty.
Today, I am honoured to represent FSD Kenya at the UK Africa Investment Summit in London. I am inspired by the potential of the entrepreneurs, investors, government officials and civil society organisations who are full of ideas, solutions, and drive to leverage connections and learning across the continent to grow Africa’s economy and wellbeing.
The first article in a blog series examining the Kenyan credit market by FSD Kenya drew an analogy between the recent forest fires in the Amazon Jungle and the explosion of digital credit in Kenya.
Natasha is a young woman who has a cake baking business on the outskirts of Nairobi. She has a bank account for her business which she uses intensively. Natasha’s business was doing well and she needed a loan to expand.
The focus on the potential and real risks of digital credit, while commendable, runs the risk of taking our collective eye off the wider credit market, which has a much more significant impact on Kenya’s economy.
On the 5th of September 2019, the Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Kenya and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), held a stakeholder validation workshop in Nairobi, where they presented the findings of a research study that identified seven key financially underserved segments of the Kenyan population and discussed the potentially viable business cases and policy implications that financial market players could tap into.
In April 2019, the 2019 FinAccess Household Survey revealed that Kenya had made extraordinary strides in financial inclusion. While FinAccess 2019 shows that financial inclusion has peaked at 83% among Kenyans, its findings also evoke poignant questions.
The use of an alert system that flagged Twitter conversations on consumer protection topics, when they rose above certain thresholds, shows promise as a new consumer protection market monitoring tool that we could use in Kenya to address the substantial gaps in consumer protection monitoring and enforcement.
Manufacturers of cars or microwave machines are duty bound to ensure that their products are safe for use. Why can’t financial regulation introduce a similar obligation to ensure financial products and services are not negligently developed and sold, causing harm to consumers?
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