Private enterprise development

K-MAP is a fairly efficient organization which has achieved most Project Paper targets. As of 4/92, K-MAP has registered 412 clients (va. a target of 600), 228 volunteer management counselors (vs. a target of 100) and 121 sponsoring member companies. The number of counseling sessions by both the K-MAP secretariat and the volunteer counselors -- 847 in 1990, 987 in 1991, and 273 from January-March of 1992 -- surpasses the project goal of 2,000. In addition, K-MAP has organized a total of general and sectoral workshops with a combined participation of 166. While sectoral workshops are more expensive, they are also more effective, because they attract clients with a specific need. K-MAP"s cost per counseling hour is about $40, and that per workshop per participant is about $94 in Nairobi and $128 outside of Nairobi (although clients pay far less for either kind of assistance). Although K-MAP commands a large skills bank, some counselors have not been called upon to serve. Nor has K-MAP yet conducted trainer of trainer courses for volunteer counselors. Due to the multiplicity of the services it provides, K-MAP is thinly spread. To improve efficiency, the secretariat should do less direct counseling and instead should work mainly as a clearinghouse for client-counselor matching. Further, K-MAP should ensure that any future program be complementary to its core activity of business counseling. In regard to institutional development, the evaluators recommend that technical counseling be added to K-MAP services, and a research and information function be initiated to provide an information base on workshop and counseling activities. K-MAP"s financial and administrative systems are adequate, but better systems for collecting service data are needed. The main lesson is that project lacks precise, relevant indicators of impact (not merely the number of clients to be served). However, this is difficult to do as client performance depends in part on a host of external factors, both firm-specific and economy-wide.