Nairobi, April 25 -- Any investor intent on venturing into Kenya usually has a checklist, which invariably includes relevant technical skills available in the country, an enabler that allows investors to hit the ground running.

My focus here is on extractives sectors (mining, oil and gas), which for various reasons slowed down significantly over the past six years. We have recently seen strong indications of a mining sector on a revival path, and this calls for adequate mining technical skills.

Before the two sectors slowed down, significant groundwork had been done to establish extractives skills through programmes that partnered with UK's DFID, Germany's GIZ, and the World Bank. The same support enabled mining legal, regulatory, and i...