The Kenyan government deserves an applause for supporting her citizens on freelancing. Indeed freelancing is an option to help reduce the rate of unemployment in Africa. Unlike in other African countries where citizens mostly fend off for themselves on securing freelancing jobs, the Kenyan government took the lead and set up a website where its citizens can visit to pick freelancing jobs to do for a pay. I believe that a number of them have used the government platform to learn the freelancing skills that they now use to run their own freelancing businesses.
I will start by the environment created by the government of Kenya at national and international levels.
National and international levels
In 2016, the government launched the Ajira programme that focuses on providing tools for the online freelancing trade. The programme has been running ever since, providing training, eLearning, service delivery studios, training centres, creating support clubs and jobs. All these services are supported by the government. The listed jobs are not only provided by Kenyan companies but also from external employers.
This initiative has produced positive results with a number of Kenyans that have become financially independent today. Many enjoy the benefits of saving costs on transport while getting paid at home. Having this spearheaded by the government has lots of benefits and they include:
- Unlocking freelancing tools at national level, thus opening closed doors that only the government can open. Thus providing the required infrastructure such as internet access, wireless connection ports, functional internet cafes, security for the working tools, etc.
- It becomes easier for governments to get support from bigger markets that will send job requests specific to that country. The government has power to influence both local and international companies to choose the local job market.
- Creating a good name for the country. When a promise of supporting freelancers is declared by a government, it carries more weight and companies have more confidence in the promise. I have seen at least one website, I believe there are a lot more, that only accept freelancers from Kenya in Africa. Not even South Africa has been listed in that freelancing website. Similarly, Hustle Academy which is supported by Google Grow program offers a week-long boot camp to only four African countries; Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya. I believe that this is an exclusive advantage that Kenyans enjoy because their government took the lead in opening the online job market.
- Opening international doors for the citizens to access a fully functional freelancing service. Freelancing involves a number of things that must run seamless to complete the cycle. At a high level, the freelancing process takes the following steps:
- Training
- Marketing yourself/applying for jobs
- Pricing your job
- Getting the job
- Fulfilling the assignment with the use of all relevant tools
- Delivering the orders
- Getting paid
- Gaining access to the funds
Payment is one area that is often a challenge with most African countries. Even when a freelancer can be paid into an online wallet of choice such as PayPal, it becomes a challenge to withdraw the money into a local bank for most African countries. It is daunting that some African countries do not have a national payment gateway that provides seamless payments online. Thus freelancers from these particular countries are rejected in some freelancing platforms because of this. I have noticed that Kenyan freelancers use some payment wallets to transfer their money into local bank accounts that many other African countries do not have access to.
5. Understanding of the demands of the trade and thus providing the necessary support. I am certain that when a freelancer goes to the bank for funding in Kenya it is easier than in many other African countries. With the right equipment and skills, Kenyans are relatively a lucrative job market at a global level. In turn, the inflow of cash that citizens get paid from external jobs improves the economy of the country. According to the Business Daily Africa, Financial payment solutions such as Amazon, PayPal, M-Pesa and other digital lending apps are already capturing the attention of this sector by providing solutions that allow seamless transfer and remittance of funds from all over the world.
It is undoubted that the freelancing trade, commonly known as the gig economy, is part of an answer to the many challenges African economies face today. Clearly to make a meaningful change in this space the call is for the influential structures to do more than just providing internet connection to the citizens.
Individual level
The level of confidence in the freelancing trade for individual citizens is high in Kenya. Examples of successful freelancers are walking the streets right in the face of multitudes in Kenyan streets. When you browse the internet for successful freelancers in Africa, you come to realise that Kenya has a good story to tell about this trade.
Those who decided to take their freelancing carrier to another level by going solo make a good case study for other African countries to learn from. I watched one video on YouTube where a freelancer said that some of them in Kenya are investigated for crimes of money laundering because they are successful yet they stay at home. This seems awkward yet it is possible to be financially independent while working at home.
According to medium.com in a post dated July 2020, the Kenyan online gig economy employs a total of 36,573 gig workers. An estimate of the growth indicated that in five years to come, the freelancing trade was predicted to grow at an annual rate of 33%, with the total size reaching reaching $345 million and employing 93,875 online workers by 2023.
Conclusion
May I conclude by stating that as much as the government has a role to play in improving the gig market in a country, as demonstrated by Kenya, there is still a lot that an individual can do to tap into this lucrative future job market. There is still a lot to be done in this space because employees are exposed to all sorts of unfair practices with bankers and customers.
The government might not do anything anytime soon to help you get started on the gig market and therefore waiting might not be worth it. I want to encourage you to keep visiting this blog for more inspiring content on the freelancing trade. I have some experience too in earning dollars online yet I also grow daily as I continuously explore this market. You can register your email with us to get notices on important updates from me. I will soon be publishing a periodic newsletter that I will be sharing through email.
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