[kictanet] A good piece by Dr. Bitange Ndemo

[Dorcas Muthoni]

Adam...I guess the two points were not to be taken literally but meant to
provoke thinking.


On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 10:03 PM, Adam Nelson <adam at varud.com> wrote:

> The first sentence does not lead to the second and third:
>
> "We cannot have high unemployment, and at the same time import clothes
> from Sri Lanka or mitumba, when we can grow cotton and make our clothes.
>  We must defy economic explanations on what works and what does not work.
>  If we deployed thousands of youth digitizing land records, we would reduce
> caseloads in courts, become more efficient, and create more wealth to grow
> our economy."
>
> Kenya should go towards counter-cyclical employment of youth doing
> productive infrastructure work: being teachers, building railroads,
> digitizing land records, etc...
>
> However, you can't forget Adam Smith who talked extensively of Comparative
> Advantage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage).  Sri
> Lanka (or really Bangladesh) has a far more economical solution for
> producing cotton clothing than Kenya has.  This mostly has to do with the
> port of Mombassa being a stranglehold and the fact that a 40M person
> economy (Kenya) doesn't have the same economy of scale as a billion person
> economy (a guess at the number of people a Bangladeshi factory can export
> to easily).
>
> Kenya is a small country and a small economy and if it wants to bring in
> more money and reduce unemployment, the solution is around creating an
> amazingly well-educated population and doing more knowledge work - not
> producing more clothing.
>
> --
> Kili.io - OpenStack for Africa: kili.io
> Musings: twitter.com/varud <https://twitter.com/varud>
> About Adam: www.linkedin.com/in/adamcnelson
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 9:21 PM, Kivuva <Kivuva at transworldafrica.com>wrote:
>
>> Dr. Ndemo has struck a cord that has been played in this list
>> countless times before. I  remember him saying in another thread "you
>> cannot have unemployed youth yet we have countless garbage lining our
>> streets and estates!"
>>
>> His argument on us importing cloths yet we can do it here is basic
>> economic that any country can master. India went that way through the
>> leadership of Mahatma.
>>
>> But Dr. Ndemo, in the previous administration that you served so
>> ardently, the government shipped billions worth of capital on works
>> that could be done by Kenyans. I'm talking about the massive
>> infrastructure development that took place in the last 10years. That
>> capital could have done our unemployed generation justice if it was
>> utilized here home. I believe Kenyans can build decent roads, brides,
>> buildings and ports. What happened to national pride? It's the same
>> argument of importing cloths or planting cotton and producing our own
>> garments.
>>
>> We're still not out of the woods yet, remember the Korean firm
>> implementing the PKI?
>>
>> My cent-less
>>
>> On 18/11/2013, Dorcas Muthoni <dmuthoni at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > A good piece by Dr. Bitange Ndemo
>> >
>> >
>> > *We must be more pragmatic to resolve Kenya's high unemployment*
>> >
>> http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/dot9/-/1959700/2077756/-/oodsogz/-/index.html
>> >
>> > --
>> > Muthoni
>> >
>> > My Blog: http://rugongo.blogspot.com/
>> > --------------------------------------------
>> > Mahatma Gandhi once said:-
>> >
>> > First they ignore you,
>> > Then they laugh at you,
>> > Then they fight you,
>> > AND THEN YOU WIN!!!
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>> ______________________
>> Mwendwa Kivuva
>> twitter.com/lordmwesh
>> kenya.or.ke | The Kenya we know
>>
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> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>



-- 
Muthoni

My Blog: http://rugongo.blogspot.com/
--------------------------------------------
Mahatma Gandhi once said:-

First they ignore you,
Then they laugh at you,
Then they fight you,
AND THEN YOU WIN!!!
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