About this conversation
Welcome to Episode 74 of The AfriCAN Do! Podcast
🐄 Kenya is home to one of Africa's largest cattle herds, close to 19 million head, yet the country still leans on imports to clothe and shoe itself in leather. Episode 74 of The AfriCAN Do! Podcast sits down with Yassin Awale, Executive Director of Sagana Tanneries Ltd, to ask why that gap exists and what it will take to close it.
In this conversation we get into: 🐮 The real state of Kenya's leather sector today, and how far it has drifted from where it should be 📉 What happened to the extension services that used to support the industry, the gap between what was and what is 🌍 The scale of the opportunity sitting untapped, given the size of Kenya's national livestock base 🇪🇹 Why local supply of finished leather keeps falling short of demand, and why Ethiopia is pulling ahead while Kenya isn't ⏸️ Yassin's case for pausing, reflecting, and doing better before chasing more growth 🏛️ Policy, policy, policy: what has to change for the sector to work 🐄 Why improving the quality of the animals is the starting point for improving the quality of the leather 🏷️ The case for branding Kenyan leather, and why almost nobody is doing it
Sagana Tanneries CAN Do it, but only if the whole value chain moves with it. Watch the full conversation with Yassin Awale.