Developing economies often have high numbers of low-capital enterprises that manufacture similar products and are located in close proximity to one another. While industrial clusters of very small firms provide some economic benefits, such as reducing input costs, firms operating in these clusters often operate inefficiently, use limited capital, do not consolidate or differentiate, and fail to grow significantly. Though various factors constrain the growth of small firms, several prominent impediments to growth are a lack of access to physical and human capital and access to markets. This RCT will evaluate the impacts of an intervention to address these constraints for low-income furniture manufacturers. In a multi-arm RCT, the Busara Center will evaluate the impact of providing human capital (training), physical capital (access to high quality industrial tools) and marketing support to furniture builders in Nairobi.
