Law Growth Nexus III: Labour Law and the Enabling Business Environment for MSMEs in Kenya

The project beneficiaries are MSME owner-managers and their workers. The project will reach these beneficiaries through local intermediary organizations, thus multiplying its outreach and boosting the prospect for a sustainable local market exchange. The principal intermediate beneficiaries of the project are ILO constituents in Kenya, both on the national policy levels and in priority sectors. The project will furthermore work with selected local BDS organizations. The project will also target priority sector cooperative organizations with awareness messaging and build their capacity to sustainably promote knowledge and enforce compliance amongst their members. The project will cover Kenya, a country with a large MSME sector and strong policy emphasis on MSME development. The project will, building on the interventions in the earlier Law-Growth Nexus project, continue working in the transport MSME sub-sector since the baseline survey conducted reconfirmed that this sub-sector holds significant business growth and employment creation potential for MSMEs but is likewise also characterized by a large decent work deficit, including non-compliance with the labour law. However, the project will also adapt training and awareness materials prepared for the sub-sectors reached in LGN II so that they are made relevant for the broader MSME sector and useable across a wide range of other MSME sub-sectors. As this structured and controlled cross-pollination of learning across the broader MSME sector occurs, the tripartite in Kenya will be strengthened to support the take-up of these lessons. Key in the new MSME sub-sectors reached with this learning will be those sub-sectors that have major contribution to job-creation as well as significant levels of decent work deficits, including non-compliance with the labour law. The immediate project objectives are to: (1) nurture respect for the rule of (labour) law among micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Kenya with particular emphasis on the transport sub-sector, (2) strengthen the capacity of ILO constituents to engage in social dialogue on the nexus between Labour Law compliance and MSME development and to facilitate sector-specific regulatory reform, and (3) strengthen the capacity of MSME to comply with the revised labour law and regulations. The project will deliver the following outputs ¿ MSME in the transport sub-sector in Kenya have increased knowledge of the labour law; ¿ MSME in the transport sub-sector in Kenya have increased levels of compliance to the established labour law; ¿ Increased knowledge among MSME about the cause-and-effect relationships between labour law compliance and business growth; ¿ Increased knowledge among tripartite constituents and other sector stakeholders about best practice in facilitating an enabling policy environment for MSME growth; ¿ Proposals for sector-specific regulatory amendments endorsed by tripartite stakeholders and submitted to Government; ¿ Increased female involvement at all levels of participation in the transport sub-sector in Kenya; ¿ Compliant MSME have been rewarded with access to organizational capacity development or growth finance or access to business contracts.

Project symbol

RAF/13/03/NAD

Admin unit

CO-Dar es Salaam

Start date

01/12/2013

End date

31/08/2016

Total allocation

1369557

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

1344017

Development Partners

Norway, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation

Country/Countries

Kenya

Outcomes

Promoting sustainable enterprises