SUPPLY CHAIN
N
airobi – described as East Africa’s most cosmopolitan city and the beating industrial heart of Kenya. Nestled in the central highlands around 480 kilometres from the port city of Mombasa, Nairobi is responsible for more than a fifth of national GDP and home to around 6.5 million people, or one in eight Kenyans. Indeed, the city’s rise has been a remarkable one given its relatively young age. Established in the late 1890s as a colonial railway settlement, the ‘green city in the sun’ became Kenya’s capital in 1907 and enjoyed a period of turbocharged growth post-independence. But there was a problem. Nairobi, when designed by British colonialists, was only ever supposed to house around 500,000 people, a fraction of the several million that reside here today. “The infrastructure cannot accommodate the needs of the population and various real estate sub-sectors that are now in the city,” explains Dean Shillaw, Chief Commercial Officer at Africa Logistics Properties (ALP). “Even prior to independence in 1963, Nairobi was growing at such a rapid rate that the infrastructure was left behind. Instead, things were being retrofitted and quick fixes were being applied – it’s like building a LEGO house with the wrong pieces.” However, the picture is changing once again. Governing authorities have realised the boom in industrial activity must be supported by enormous infrastructure upgrades, and several game-changing developments are beginning to bear fruit. These include the A2 highway which runs to Ethiopia, the A104 which heads northwest to Uganda, and the Chinese One Belt One Road-inspired LASPPET corridor, which is helping Nairobi to position itself as a regional transit hub. Further still, the Standard Gauge Railway to Mombasa and special economic zones (SEZ) are creating Africa Outlook issue 83 | 97
