When Kenyans talk about becoming “first world,” the conversation often stalls at two extremes. Either it turns aspirational — glossy images of cities we admire — or it becomes cynical, a reminder of why such progress supposedly cannot happen here. Between dreaming and dismissing, the real work of development is frequently lost.
This week in Hola, Tana River County, I encountered a different conversation.
Hola is a quiet town. Economic activity does not announce itself loudly, and on arrival, one might honestly ask why anyone would come here. Yet Hola sits within the wider geography of the Lamu Port–South Sudan–Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor, one of Kenya’s most ambitious infrastructure projects. That contrast stayed with me: a place that feels peripheral, yet is strategically positioned; rich in land, water and livestock, yet short on visible opportunity.
It sharpened a critical development question — what actually attracts people, capital and enterprise to a place?
I was in Hola for a Chanuka Jipange na Business Opportunities training by 20X Entrepreneur, focused on helping micro and small enterprises move from survival to productivity. In the room were farmers, traders, women running small kiosks and young entrepreneurs. They were not asking for handouts. They were asking how to make their businesses work better.
That distinction matters. Countries do not transform from the top down alone. They transform when millions of small economic decisions begin to align with markets, systems and value creation.
When leaders speak about Singapore, many people hear comparison or travel. But Singapore is not a place Kenya is meant to go. It is a record of deliberate decisions made over time — to organise producers for markets, reduce waste, reward value addition and connect effort to demand.
In Hola, this logic resonated.
Farmers spoke about producing without knowing who would buy, at what price or in what quantities. Traders asked how to prepare for predictable demand. Women entrepreneurs spoke not as beneficiaries, but as business owners seeking systems that would allow them to grow.
One practical example anchored the discussion: school feeding programmes. These programmes already exist and purchase food daily. Yet many farmers produce without any link to these guaranteed buyers. The question was simple — what would change if farmers were organised into groups, contracted in advance, and produced to known quantities and standards?
By the time I left Hola, my question had changed. It was no longer why someone would come to this town, but what would make them come. The answer was not sentiment. It was systems. People move toward opportunity — where demand is predictable and infrastructure supports enterprise.
This is where large projects matter, if designed intentionally. Projects such as the Galana–Kulalu irrigation initiative can be more than food security interventions. Properly structured, they can anchor demand for transport, inputs, processing and services, drawing enterprise into surrounding communities.
The issue is not whether MSMEs can benefit from such projects, but whether systems are deliberately built to include them. Without aggregation and contracting, large investments bypass local economies. With them, they become magnets.
One participant summed it up simply: “We are ready to do our part. What we need is organisation.”
Kenyans are not short of effort. What we have lacked are systems that make effort productive. A first-world mindset is not about wealth or perfection. It is about discipline, coordination and alignment.
Tana River did not ask to be rescued. It asked to be organised. And that may be Kenya’s most hopeful economic signal.
The writer is Eunice Wagithi Mburu, Founder of Bismart Insurance and CEO of 20X Entrepreneur.
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