Don’t lose sight of struggling economy

The process to change Kenya’s governing infrastructure is an invitation to think about our economic infrastructure. Economic development requires significant amounts of private and public coordination. Private coordination can be in the form of cooperatives, business associations, trade unions, and chambers of commerce. Public coordination comes in the form of policy, regulations, infrastructure, and support for innovation and risk-taking through the budget process.

Most successful economies, however “market-oriented” they may be, invariably have these important features of private and public coordination. Unfortunately, for us, for too long our political and economic elites have operated with a narrow conception of their roles.