Kenya develops services industries as part of efforts to transform economy

In recent years many developing countries have moved into service industries to counteract eroding trade preferences and minimise the risks associated with exporting just goods. Among these services are professional services which cover a wide range of business activities, including legal, education, health, and information technology services.

With this in mind, the Commonwealth Secretariat has been offering technical assistance to its member countries, helping them make the transition easier to such service industries as well as looking at ways of strengthening their competitiveness.

One such country is Kenya, whose Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Board contacted the Secretariat in July 2008 requesting assistance to develop a strategy for the country’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector. BPO involves contracting the operations and responsibilities of a specific business function to a third-party service provider.

This request followed an assessment of Kenya’s professional services sector, which identified BPO as one of the services with potential for growth. Transforming the Kenyan economy through the promotion of ICT is one of the country’s key long-term objectives.

The Secretariat’s project manager, Estella Aryada, said: “There is a growing trend for companies and organisations to outsource processes in order to focus on their core business, gain efficiency, widen the skill and talent pool or as part of a wider business strategy.”

Starting in January 2009, the Secretariat will assess the existing capacity of the BPO sector in Kenya; provide research on the services that are currently and projected to be in demand in the world; determine the expertise that will be required and areas of training available or that need to be available in Kenya to fulfil those demands, and then develop a framework for building the ability of lead organisations in the sector to institutionalise key tasks.

“Kenya has a few young professionals who are successfully exporting their services to clients abroad. This is an encouraging trend. Through this project, we hope that training institutions will be made aware of the skills and competences that professionals must have in order to compete in this market,” explained Ms Aryada.

During 2008, the Secretariat also completed a study on the feasibility of exporting health educational services from St Lucia. Furthermore, at the request of the Ghana Export Promotion Council, a project to develop a strategy for the export of professional services was also completed. In the same year, the Secretariat also assisted Mauritius to design a roadmap to enhance the competitiveness of four sectors: health, ICT/BPO, health care, and human resource development.

Key Links:

• Special Advisory Services
• Country Profile: Kenya