Furthermore, by the late 1980s, the failure of the Kenyan cotton industry and the move toward greater use of synthetic fibres put textile producers at the mercy of fluctuating global markets (Coughlin 1991). Effective rates of protection ranging from 72 to 93%, however, allowed the firms to compete in the domestic market, despite their inefficient cost structure as compared to firms operating in international markets. The development crisis characterised by heavy debt burden, falling income, unemployment and political instability experienced by African countries in the 1980s prompted a rethinking of development concerns. The Bretton Woods Institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to which African countries were heavily indebted prescribed reform programmes popularly referred to as Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) which were intended to enable African governments to put in place measures that would help to revive their economies. SAPs embraced various monetary stabilisation and market liberalisation programmes. The stabilisation programmes included civil service reform, foreign exchange deregulation and currency devaluation. Market reforms were aimed at opening up local markets through the reduction of import duties and tariffs. The latter measure had a significant impact on the previously protected firms, which were operating inefficiently, producing sub-standard goods, overpricing their products and producing below their output capacity. The opening of markets in the early 1990s had a major impact on the industry. The availability of cheap imports - both new and second hand - drastically reduced demand for Kenya made garments. Retail chains such as Deacons and Njiris chose to import their products from South Africa. Hordes of other small-scale clothing retailers emerged and started retailing their products in what is popularly referred to as exhibitions. These small-scale traders travel to such places as Dubai, South Africa and Britain from where they source ready-made garments and shoes. A large majority of these traders are women. The garment industry faced competition from a new form of trade in second hand clothes. The garment industry could not cope with the new competitors. For example, a garment making factory based in Nakuru which was making women’s garments for a major retail chain in Nairobi closed down when the retail chain stopped sourcing products from it. It laid off its 200 workers, and shifted to making bed sheets for the low income market. Major players in the garment and textile industries such as Kenya Textile Mills, Rivatex, Raymonds and Kisumu Cotton Mills closed down. Kenya’s garment production has declined significantly since the 1980s (McCormick et al. 2001). 5