When Miss Hope chooses MAC over a local makeup brand, she isn’t just buying foundation, she is purchasing a promise. She trusts that the chemicals are safe, the quality is tested, and the outcome is guaranteed. But why do we inherently trust foreign supply chains we cannot see over local manufacturers in our own backyards here in Kenya? This dilemma framed the Private Sector Roundtable for The Trust Summit 2026 held on 18th August, organized under the theme “Trust as an Economic Asset: Strengthening Public-Private Dialogue, Regional Economic Cooperation, and Digital Trust for Market Resilience and Sustainable Growth.”
During the round table, Eng. James Mwangi, Board Member of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), emphasized the financial weight felt by investors due to the trust gap in Kenya. “Trust is not a soft value that we invoke when it is convenient,” Mwangi noted. “It sits at the center of our businesses and our government. When trust is in short supply, the cost shows up directly in the numbers, in delayed decisions, friction in transactions, and growth that falls short of its potential.” Ultimately, for the private sector, trust is far from an abstract ideal; it is the ultimate driver of investor confidence and market resilience. During the panel discussion, experts unpacked the broader trust landscape, highlighting the specific gaps and solutions facing entrepreneurs today. A key takeaway was that while “cash is king,” its flow in Kenya is rarely just a financial issue. It is fundamentally a trust issue. When local entrepreneurs supply goods or services on credit, they face mounting uncertainty over whether clients will honor 30 or 45-day payment terms. This breakdown in trust creates a devastating ripple effect: small businesses struggle to pay staff, default on supplier obligations, and fail to service loans, ultimately driving viable enterprises out of business.
Beyond cash flow, regulatory and operational unpredictability further compounds the trust deficit for both local and foreign investors. When setting up operations, business owners often find that the efficiency experienced in year one evaporates by year two, or that promised policy incentives vanish.
From tax regimes to Special Economic Zones, there remains a persistent gap between policy on paper and practice on the site. Nothing captures this reality better than the popular Swahili saying, “Vitu kwa ground ni different”, a stark reminder that until official commitments mirror actualized experiences, trust will remain the missing catalyst for sustainable growth. Prof. XN Iraki of the University of Nairobi’s Faculty of Business and Management Sciences painted a compelling vision of how Kenya can build a “Trustconomy”. Institutional trust lays the groundwork for thriving markets, increased investment, and economic resilience which is the foundation for innovation and sustained growth. By strengthening and strategically leveraging our regional economic blocs, we can position Kenya and the broader region to compete effectively on the global stage. Doing business with the government also remains critical for enterprise scaling, making the digital transformation of public systems essential for market trust. To facilitate seamless trade, emphasis was placed on strengthening digital infrastructure such as piloting distributed ledger technology and blockchain between Kenya and international partners.
Integrating trusted digital certificates and linking export-import declarations via smart systems builds reliable data patterns and transparency across sectors. Furthermore, minimizing human interference in public processes is vital to ensuring a neutral playing field; entities like Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) demonstrate how automated, seamless systems build credibility for entrepreneurs. Ultimately, rebuilding this foundation requires cross-sector collaboration. As Jotham Njoroge, Chief of Staff at Strathmore University, reflected, the roundtable underscored that trust cannot be rebuilt in isolation. What emerged clearly from the discussions is that no single actor holds the full picture whether it is government, business, or civil society.Bound together by interconnected challenges, progress demands shedding the insular mentalities that have long kept these sectors apart due to a trust deficit. Crucially, this conversation cannot stop at the institutional level; the general public, as the ultimate recipients of public and private goods, must be brought into the fold as active partners in rebuilding trust.
As the Private Sector Roundtable drew to a close, momentum built toward the main Trust Summit 2026, scheduled for October 21st–23rd. The roundtable was convened as part of the summit journey by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), the Institute of Public Finance (IPF), and the State Department for Foreign Affairs (Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs), in partnership with the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI), Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), TradeMark Africa (TMA), and the COMESA Business Council (CBC).
Strathmore University is proud to serve as a co-convener for the Trust Summit 2026. Rebuilding trust requires every voice. Be part of this transformative national conversation by registering your interest today.
This article was written by Anne Njoroge, Communications Officer at the Strathmore Energy Research Centre (SERC).