NAIROBI, Kenya, May 6 – The Association of Startups and SMEs Enablers of Kenya (ASSEK) now demands startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) business support be decentralized to counties to support innovations.
In its recent report, ASSEK recommends that innovation and entrepreneurship support should be decentralized, as up to 87 percent are based in Nairobi and the top cities across the country.
The Association claimed that commercial activities within Kenya’s startups and SMEs’ can be expanded by availing necessary financial assistance and innovation support at the county level in order to give recognition to remote entrepreneurs who struggle to access business support services that are located in major cities.
According to the Ecosystem Entrepreneurship Report highlights presented during a one-day Policy Roundtable entitled ‘Building An Enabling Environment For Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Actors’, the county innovation centres should also be upgraded to offer digital services, grant funds, advise startups on tradeoffs of price, enhance their access to clients, and improve their availability at a recognized physical location.
Speaking during the event attended by 120 founder-chief executives of entrepreneur support organizations, Mercy Kimalat, Chief Executive, ASSEK, said this support from a formalized entrepreneurship support system is key to taking Kenya to its next phase of growth.
Kenya’s innovation scene, which is ranked third in Africa with energy and environment sectors being the best performing industries, has room for further growth that will enable more startups to scale up creating new products while opening up more job opportunities, said Kimalat CEO ASSEK.
We need to come up with programmes that improve access to affordable capital, digitisation, access to best fit talent as well as tradeoff of price and access to clientele, enablers and services, she added.
The event also highlighted valuable insights into the ongoing projects under the Kenya Industry and Entrepreneurship Project that are jointly funded by the government and the World Bank to support the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Kenya.
It also focused on promoting collaborative actions involving ASSEK, key government agencies, and Enterprise Support Organizations (ESOs).
