Kenya's Refugee Settlements Are Quietly Solving the Country's Talent Shortage
Kakuma, 30 May 2026
A Nairobi roundtable on 28 May 2026 revealed that Kenya’s 300,000-strong refugee communities hold skilled, loyal, and adaptable workers that businesses are only just beginning to notice.
A Roundtable That Changed the Conversation
On 28 May 2026, a private sector roundtable held in Nairobi brought together representatives from 21 companies to confront a challenge that has quietly persisted across Kenya’s business landscape: a persistent and widening skills gap [1]. The event, co-hosted by the Amahoro Coalition and the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), was designed not merely as a policy discussion, but as a practical demonstration of how forcibly displaced persons (FDPs) can be recruited directly into formal employment through a digital platform known as the Skills Hub [1]. What emerged from the gathering was something more significant than a networking afternoon — it was a reframing of who, exactly, counts as a skilled worker in Kenya’s economy [1].
From Charity Visits to Boardroom Strategy
The journey for HACO Industries — one of Kenya’s oldest fast-moving consumer goods companies — began not in a recruitment office, but on the ground in Kakuma [1]. In April 2025, the company’s ESG and Education Lead, Collin Namayuba, visited the Kakuma refugee settlement, home to over 300,000 forcibly displaced persons [1]. What began as a routine Corporate Social Responsibility engagement ended with the establishment of a ‘Kwa Mtaa’ salon and retail container hub, designed to support income-generating work for displaced women in the settlement [1]. The visit proved to be a turning point in how HACO’s leadership understood the community it had entered. Mary-Ann Musangi, Managing Director of HACO Industries, reflected candidly on what the experience revealed: “The trip to Kakuma showed me that it is just another community with people who have needs, and those needs come with opportunities” [1]. That shift in perspective — from viewing Kakuma as a site of need to recognising it as a source of opportunity — has since translated into a concrete business strategy [1]. “One of our strategies is to expand to other markets, so we are recruiting refugee interns based in Kenya, training them, and sending them to their countries to spearhead those operations,” Musangi explained [1]. In other words, HACO is not simply offering charity; it is building a regional expansion model with refugee talent at its centre [1].
The Skills Hub: A Digital Bridge Between Displacement and Opportunity
At the heart of the roundtable’s practical proposition was the Amahoro Coalition’s Skills Hub — a digital platform purpose-built to connect FDPs with economic opportunities across the African continent [1]. Daisy Bartlett, Amahoro’s Strategy Developer for Private Sector Engagement, described the event’s ambition clearly: “The event convened private sector members to showcase the untapped FDPs talent and how easily it can be accessed through our Skills Hub platform, alongside the wider business case for inclusive hiring” [1]. The platform is already demonstrating measurable results. In 2025, bilingual children’s storybook publisher NABU used the Skills Hub to recruit 16 creatives for a UNICEF Sudan project [1]. Clara Masinde, NABU’s Regional Director for East Africa, was unequivocal about the quality of the talent sourced: “We were very impressed by their skillsets and excellence and are retaining five creatives” [1]. By early 2026, the platform had also facilitated placements through a Premier Internship Programme, with fractional HR consultant Margaret Wachira among those who had hired refugee interns through the system [1]. Her reflection on the experience cut through years of institutional hesitancy with admirable directness: “You don’t think about FDP talent until someone talks about it. Once you remove the ‘refugee’ tag, they are just people like us” [1].
Resilience as a Professional Asset
What makes the business case for hiring displaced talent particularly compelling is not simply that it addresses a social good — it is that the qualities forged through the experience of displacement align closely with what modern employers say they need most [GPT]. Bartlett made the commercial argument with precision: “FDP talent is often resilient, thinks outside the box, is culturally aware, and in many cases has experience navigating different countries, cultures, and languages” [1]. She added: “They also tend to show strong loyalty and adaptability” [1]. These are not abstract virtues. For companies like HACO, which are actively pursuing regional market expansion, a workforce that is multilingual, culturally agile, and accustomed to operating under conditions of uncertainty represents a genuine strategic advantage [1]. The roundtable, attended by representatives from 21 companies as of 28 May 2026, suggests that awareness of this advantage is growing — even if the pace of formal hiring still has significant room to accelerate [1]. For the residents of Kakuma and Kalobeyei, the shift is already being felt. The movement from being perceived as recipients of humanitarian assistance to being sought out as skilled professionals marks a profound change in social and economic standing — one that, if sustained, could reshape the long-term prospects of hundreds of thousands of people living in Kenya’s refugee settlements [1].