Innovative policy Kenya: Kenya Policy innovations in small-scale milk markets in Kenya and East Africa

The policy innovation described in this paper is the proactive engagement of government, regulatory and service delivery actors in supporting the previously informal raw milk market actors in Kenya and more widely in East Africa. The way this engagement has happened in Kenya suggests that alternative models of dairy development, relevant to local conditions and needs, could successfully be applied to bridge the informal-formal gap in the region and elsewhere. Lessons drawn are as much about the particular approach taken by actors seeking to achieve the policy change as they are about the specific policy change itself.

Conventional views of dairy development and regulatory policies have been successfully challenged. The attitudes and behaviour of all sector actors have clearly changed, and aspects of legislation changed ahead of a new Dairy Policy. This paper concludes that collaborative, evidence-based stakeholder action can not only result in policy changes supporting better linkages between small-scale farmers and markets at national level, but also help stimulate regional-level policy change for pro-poor dairy development.

This publication forms part of the Regoverning Markets project.