Over the last several years, Kenya’s profile as one of Africa’s economic hubs has risen substantially. From being touted as the “Silicon Savannah” to being called the “Gateway to East Africa,” Kenya has become an attractive destination for both investors and businesses. Doing Business in Kenya: Opportunities and Challenges is a handbook that offers readers a detailed overview of Kenya’s history, current geopolitical position, and business environment. The authors aim to help internal and external actors overcome information asymmetries through contextualizing Kenya’s business environment within broader business and management literatures. The authors, who have extensive academic and professional experience in these areas, intend the book to be suitable for academics, business school students, policymakers, and domestic and foreign investors.

The primary purpose of this book is to establish Kenya as an ideal place to conduct businesses. Even though the authors do address challenges, their main takeaway is that Kenya has many more opportunities of which businesses and investors can take advantage. The secondary purpose of this book is to use Kenya as a case study for understanding the opportunities and challenges of conducting business in Africa more generally. The authors, careful to avoid overstating Kenya’s representativeness of the entire continent, highlight the business possibilities of other countries with similar profiles and histories to Kenya. The authors do this work across nine chapters that focus on different aspects of Kenyan history, politics, and economics.

Where this book really succeeds is in its analysis of how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted Kenya’s business environment. In each chapter, the authors provide examples of Kenya’s business opportunities and challenges before, during, and after COVID-19. This helps readers have a better sense of Kenya’s resilience in the face of worldwide economic challenges. Most compellingly, this book avoids a common pitfall of comparing Kenya to dissimilar cases. Often, Kenya and other African countries that experience economic upswings are compared to Singapore and the other “Asian tigers.” Through assessing Kenya on its own terms and using it as a reference for other African countries with some common history, the authors make room for more people to take Africa seriously on its own merit. Lastly, this book does a good job of explicating the various institutions with which one might come into contact while doing business or investing in Kenya. Not only do the authors explain the role of each institution, but they also provide a high-level overview of how they interact.

Although this book is successful in several regards, there are areas where the authors could more explicitly explain how aspects of starting a business in Kenya is different for Kenyan nationals versus foreigners. For example, the price sensitivity and greater difficulty in accessing starting capital, disadvantage Kenyan nationals in starting businesses. Additionally, the Kenyan government has instituted many changes to its foreign work permit policies. Just before the pandemic, there were concerns of foreigners overstaying their work permits or working on tourist visas due to various administrative backlogs. However, some of this may be eased given the introduction of the digital nomad visa and the foreign investor visa. The authors could include more data on the number of foreign-owned versus Kenyan-owned enterprises to provide a clearer picture of who exactly is doing business in Kenya.

Throughout the book, the authors discuss Kenya’s young and well-educated population as an opportunity for investors and businesspeople. While this is true, the authors should temper this advantage with the varying differences in school quality across the country. This could be addressed in Chapter Six where the authors talk about various cultural issues affecting doing business in Kenya. The authors should also mention the wealth disparities between Kenya’s rural and urban areas. Another minor critique is the author’s use of the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index following its discontinuation amid critiques of some countries attempting to gamify their rankings. In addition to citing this discontinued index, the authors could strengthen their case for Kenya through critiquing traditional business risk assessments. While Kenya is trying to further ingratiate itself into the global economy, it should be noted that Kenya and other African countries face additional scrutiny for risk. To truly include Kenya and limit exploitation of its potential, business leaders and investors need to reckon with the ways in which racialized global capitalism harm countries like Kenya.

Overall, this handbook is a good starting place for students, investors, and other stakeholders alike to understand Kenya’s potential in the global economic order. The authors cover a wide array of topics and explain various institutions in a short, yet rich handbook. Readers should come away with the ability to ask deeper questions about Kenya and its continuously burgeoning business environment.