Kenya does not suffer from a shortage of industrial policies. Over the past two decades, successive governments have launched ambitious programmes to transform the country into a manufacturing and export-oriented economy.
Vision 2030, the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda, Special Economic Zones, County Aggregation and Industrial Parks, and export promotion initiatives all reflect a clear commitment to industrialisation.
Yet manufacturing's contribution to GDP has remained largely stagnant. This raises an important question: Is Kenya's industrialisation challenge really about policy, or is it increasingly about governance?
Much of the debate focuses on what government should do. Far less attention is paid to whether institutions possess the coordination, infrastructure and administrative capacity needed to translate policy ambitions into economic outcomes.
Industrialisation is not simply about building factories. It requires reliable infrastructure, efficient logistics, affordable energy, supportive regulation, access to markets and effective coordination between national and county governments. In practice, industrial transformation is as much a governance challenge as an economic one.
The rollout of County Aggregation and Industrial Parks illustrates this reality. While the initiative could stimulate local value addition and job creation, its success will depend on collaboration among counties, national agencies, investors, utilities and transport authorities.
Industrial parks without reliable infrastructure, market linkages or management systems risk becoming underutilised investments.
The same applies to Kenya's opportunities under the African Continental Free Trade Area. Trade agreements alone do not generate exports. Firms must be competitive, export-ready and able to meet international standards, supported by regulators, financiers and export promotion agencies.
As Kenya seeks to accelerate industrial transformation, the conversation should shift from designing new policies to improving implementation. The country's greatest challenge may no longer be strategy formulation, but building the state capacity, institutional coordination and governance systems needed to make existing policies work.
Prof Collins Miruka is the Deputy Vice Chancellor - Administration, Finance, Planning and Development at Tharaka University. He can be reached at [email protected] or @prof_miruka on Twitter.
