Naivasha, 7th July 2021
Nairobi City County Government Executive Committee Members; Winfred Gathagu (Commerce, Tourism and Cooperatives), Lucia Mulwa (Food, Agriculture and Forestry) and Charles Kerich (Lands, Urban Planning, Urban Renewal, Housing and Project Management joined other stakeholders in Naivasha for a two day consultative session to develop the National Markets development Policy in Kenya as well as make recommendations on the design of the Smart Markets concept.
The workshop is organized by the State Department for Housing and Urban Development in partnership with Eastern Africa Grain Council with support of Rockefeller Foundation.
Said Ms. Gathagu “Currently there are about 50 formal County owned markets in Nairobi City and hundred informal markets. Therefore the National markets development Policy seeks to;
- Standardize and formalize markets across the counties.
- Enhance synergies amongst traders, trade associations and regulators.
- Carry out Zoning and market segregation.
- Introduce gender friendly infrastructure.
- Introduce food value addition and storage facilities to ensure commodities availability all year round.
- Increase the number of trading spaces and enhance utilization of market spaces.”
Ms. Gathagu also called upon the policy makers to consider other emerging issues like; provision of nurseries for nursing mothers and ease of accessibility to People with disabilities. Ms. Gathagu further said that Nairobi City County is at the tail end of developing Market Management models applicable to existing markets and new upcoming markets. “This policy is aimed at creating physical, environment and business friendly trading infrastructure, enhance functionality and utilization of public markets and trading facilities, inculcate and strengthen entrepreneurial skills among traders and establish cohesive and effective management models for public markets.”
Ms. Gathagu said that, H.E Ann Kananu’s administration is very keen and committed to ensuring that the proposed interventions would look into the following:-
- Deliberate plans to add trading spaces by designing and building markets guided by research and development
- Legislate and implement new market management models applicable to existing markets and new upcoming markets
- Enact legal framework for trading spaces application, allocation and management of county market facilities
- Allocate a considerable percentage of the revenue for development, operational, management and maintenance costs of the public markets.
- Introduce gender friendly infrastructure
- Introduce food value additions and storage facilities to ensure commodities availability all the year.
Nairobi County Chief Officer Tourism, Mr. Abdi Mude, Director Markets; Joyce Kyengo and other technical officers in the Trade sector are also in attendance.
Nairobi County is amongst the seven pilot Counties involved in this policy development process. The other counties are; Meru, Kiambu, Uasin Gishu, Nyamira, Nakuru and Kajiado. The new Council of Governors’ Chief Executive Officer, Mary Mwiti is also in attendance.
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