Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Kenya's (Unofficial) Ironworks Industry

TED fellow Erik Hersman reports at Afrigadget:

Gikomba is a part of Nairobi that is well known for metal working. I had been meaning to come this way for a while, and today afforded me the perfect opportunity to drop down into Gikomba and see what kind of enterprising activities Kenyans were up to...I ran into a George Odhiambo, a bulk fabricator of everything from wheelbarrows to chisels. The chisels caught my eye, primarily because one of them looked a lot like a shaft straight out of a Land Rover. It turns out that they reuse multiple types of iron for their goods, including leftover pieces from old vehicles. Nothing goes to waste here.

The question then becomes where are the microfinanciers for these types of fundamental enterprise?
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