Harambee Business, Belonging, and Adaptation in Kenya
Harambee: a Swahili term meaning “all pull together,” emphasizing collective effort, unity, and shared responsibility.
Kenya’s business culture is often described through the lens of Nairobi; fast, informal, network-driven, and more recently described as entrepreneurially spirited. That description is accurate, but incomplete. To understand how business truly functions in Kenya, one must look beyond the capital and into the ways minority communities and contested spaces conduct trade, manage risk, and build trust.
Nairobi
In Nairobi, business is driven less by formal process and more by relationships. Connection, trust, and familiarity often determine how quickly opportunities emerge and how smoothly transactions move forward. Networks function as informal infrastructure, replacing rigid systems with personal accountability. In this environment, the relationships one builds can matter more than titles or credentials, and adaptability becomes a competitive advantage. The city rewards those who can move fluidly between formality and informality, adjusting to context rather than insisting on process.
The Rendille Tribe
Far from Nairobi, the Rendille tribe, which is a nomadic pastoralist community in the northeastern region of Kenya, conducts business under entirely different constraints. Geography limits access, and the climate (dry desert) dictates planning. Economic activity in this area is intermittent. As a result, the Rendille community’s economic behavior is prioritized around preservation over expansion.
Livestock functions as both capital and insurance. Trade is relational and slow, embedded in kinship and long-term reciprocity. Risk is assessed not quarterly, but seasonally. Where Nairobi optimizes for speed, adaptability, and scale, the Rendille optimizes for survival. This contrast is not an objective judgment of inefficiency, but a rational insight into how humans operate as products of their environments through adaptation and or scarcity.
Migingo Island Ecosystem
Migingo Island is a rocky, 22,000-square-foot outcrop on Lake Victoria whose economic life revolves almost entirely around fishing. Space is minimal, infrastructure is fragile, yet commerce thrives.
Business on Migingo is transactional, cash-based, and immediate. There is little room for long-term planning; capital cycles quickly, and trust is functional rather than relational. Where uncertainty is high, liquidity dominates. Ownership matters less than access.
What This Reveals
Across Nairobi, the Rendille community, and Migingo Island, a clear pattern emerges: business behavior in Kenya is shaped less by culture in isolation and more by structural conditions. In Nairobi, density and access reward speed, adaptability, and expansive networks. Among the Rendille, environmental scarcity and mobility prioritize preservation, continuity, and seasonal risk assessment. On Migingo Island, spatial limits and uncertainty compress business into immediate, transactional exchanges where liquidity matters more than ownership. None of these systems are backward or inefficient; on the contrary, each represents a rational response to constraint.
To engage Kenya economically, whether as an investor, partner, or observer requires moving beyond the idea of a single business culture and recognizing instead how trust, risk, and strategy adapt to the environment in which one operates. With more than 47 ethnic groups, widespread use of English and Swahili, and over 60 tribal languages, Kenyan society should not be perceived as a monolith but as a culture defined by vastness, diversity, and complexity.
Business here is not about looking back; it is about surviving forward.
Lastly, this piece was inspired by conversations with a dear friend, Brian Njoroge, whose perspective and influence helped shape it.