New DECP country manager meets FKE
The new DECP country manager for East Africa, Arnout De Koster, on August 19th visited the Federation of Kenyan Enterprises (FKE) mainly to determine the future agenda of collaboration with DECP.
Kenya is one of the success stories in development in Africa, characterized by rather high growth and developing itself as a communication and financial hub in Africa. Dutch companies continue to invest importantly, in several sectors such as manufacturing, horticulture, port management, water management etc.
But also some important challenges remain: the business environment still needs lots of improvement; the informal sector, at present employing more than 80%, needs reform and formalization; the political stability needs to be maintained in the framework of the upcoming elections.
FKE is the most representative employers’ organisation in the country: it focuses on labour and industrial issues, with a strong reputation as service deliverer in these areas, and with growing attention to act as voice of business (lobbying – advocacy) in these areas. DECP has supported FKE for already 10 years, with remarkable results: with DECP support FKE defined a national agenda for improvements in the business environment with some concrete proposals in the field of skills policies, labour law, social security. Additional focus is now on increase of productivity.
The new plans will build further on previous actions, and focus more strongly in profiling FKE as a representative and outcome oriented organisation, which acts as a dynamic voice of businesses, which has also the intention to become activate social dialogue in which it represents the employers voice, as a tool for creating a better business environment.