It is often said that one must not waste a crisis but use it to create a new and brighter future. The current Covid-19 pandemic presents such an opportunity.
A number of creative initiatives have been developed to confront the pandemic, mostly in the healthcare sector.
China, which has been the world’s manufacturing centre, is facing hostility from developed nations, with many threatening punitive trading sanctions for losses arising from the Covid-19, which originated from Wuhan city.
Nobody quite knows what the new globalisation model will look like. But many agree that it will be mainly inward looking trade with distant supply chains shunned.
Where is Africa in these moves? The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed Africa’s poor health systems. Necessity is the mother of invention.
In the wake of the biting shortages of medical and pharmaceutical products worldwide, innovative new manufacturing units have sprang up where non existed.
In Kenya, students invented a ventilator at Kenyatta University and face masks are being manufactured by various textile factories and sanitiser being produced by beer breweries.
In the US, car manufactures – like GM – retooled to manufacture of ventilators. In Senegal, affordable rapid test kits are being manufactured.
The big question is, are these short term fixes or the birth of a new local sourcing? Establishing new manufacturing centres is easier said than done.
Actualising the same on a sustainable commercial scale requires a convergence of national policies, a steady pipeline of skills, competitive pricing and quality in the market.
Considering that existing capacities are not likely to shut down in China and India, with their production costs at a fraction of what industries in Africa can achieve, that becomes the first roadblock to overcome.
The government’s Big Four agenda has manufacturing as one of the key pillars. Kenya has bolstered local manufacturing by entrenching local sourcing in the Public Procurement and Disposal Act of 2015. This is the intent.
The reality is something else. Procurement from local businesses for the reserved 30 per cent preference is far from being achieved.
Much of this local purchase quarter is often filled with imports by unscrupulous businessmen.
Kenya, however, is best poised as one of the countries in Africa to take advantage of this crisis. Kenya is the manufacturing base for East and Central Africa.
The government needs to encourage innovative technology that resonates with our requirements.
