US $1.3 million program to boost capacity of Kenya’s IT and ITES firms

The International Trade Centre, the joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, has launched a project of the Netherlands Trust Fund (NTF) III program, focusing on enhancing export competitiveness in the Information Technology & Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) sector.

The project is a three-year initiative that will provide in-depth capacity building and market-penetration support to 33 small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as well as local exporting and export-ready companies. The project is specifically designed to enhance the capacity, competitiveness and exports of SMEs.

The project will provide training and advisory services on topics such as export marketing and access to finance and facilitate business-to-business events in Europe and Africa between international buyers and Kenyan companies

The NTF III programme will play an overall coordinating role to help stakeholders to network and exchange experiences with each other, as well as with other international networks, so that they can find new ideas, strength in numbers, and an international network to support and encourage this important work.

In addition, the NTFIII programme aims to build capacity of the ITES industry association – Kenya IT Outsourcing Services (KITOS). One of the outputs in this regard was to build a database of IT and ITES firms operating in Kenya for KITOS to enable KITOS to strengthen its position as a key source of information on who is doing what in the IT and ITES sector in Kenya. This database is now complete and has been officially handed over to KITOS.