Kenya Football .:. Story - A Brief On The Kenya Youth Empowerment And Employment Initiative

A BRIEF OF KENYA YOUTH EMPOWERMENT AND EMPLOYMENT INITIATIVE (KYEEI) TO BE HELD ON 2ND AND 3RD MARCH, 2010

OBJECTIVE OF THE INITIATIVE

The objective of this Initiative is to enhance public-private partnerships in empowering and creating employment for the youth of Kenya. The Kenya Youth Empowerment and Employment Initiative will launch a three-year plan with a summit to present tested strategies and projects for public-private partnerships that will promote education, job training, job creation and moral development in the support of the goals of Vision 2030. This summit will build upon existing Youth Empowerment initiatives working on behalf of Kenyan young people and will emphasize measurable and tangible outcomes designed to prepare young people for the world of work. Summit participants will be exposed to strategies found in the power of public-private-partnerships in Kenya and around the world. the establishment of a Youth Employment Levy whose aim is to sustain youth employment programmes that aim at reducing the challenge of unemployment in the country.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION OF THE INITIATIVE

On 7th August, 2009, the Minister for the Ministry of State for Youth Affairs and Sports Hon Hellen Sambili in partnership with the Africa Nazarene University launched a joint secretariat to initiate/design and implement activities towards the preparation of a Summit and the follow-up activities . As such, the Ministry was to provide the relevant infrastructure and information on youth issues. In addition, the Ministry is expected to; empower the youth to participate in the Initiative at all levels; promote networking and collaboration among youth organizations; provide youth information and research services; initiate design, plan, implement, monitor and evaluate youth activities, programmes and projects agreed upon by the secretariat and the summit participants.

The Africa Nazarene University (ANU) with its emphasis on holistic education that embraces character, competence, and community as its core values will serve as the Summit Secretariat. ANU will facilitate the monitoring and reporting of the outcomes between October of 2009 and October of 2012.

ANALYSIS OF YOUTH EMPOWERMENT AND EMPLOYMENT

The youth defined as young person’s between ages 15 and 30 years, are about 12 million and constitutes 32 % of our population. With an increasingly young labour force, limited economic growth provides for only 25% absorption capacity in the labour market, leaving majority 75% of approximately 750,000 youth unemployed. About 70% of all those who are unemployed are young people below the age of 30 years old and 45% are below 24 years. High unemployment levels make the youth vulnerable to exploitation by employers.

The majority of the unemployed youth have formal education without training. Primary and secondary school graduates account for 82% of the unemployed and university graduates for 1.4%. When looking at productivity and unit labour costs in a comparative context, it is clear that the mismatch between labour supply and market demand is negatively impacting on employment opportunities. Currently, the educational system often produces graduates who lack the necessary skills to compete in the labour market. Structural changes tend to create the demand for new types of knowledge, skills, and expertise that are lacking in the existing labour force. Therefore, unemployment is not just lack of jobs, but also lack of job skills due to inadequacy of training infrastructure and means to acquire skills because of high levels of poverty. The successful transition of youths from school to work will not only contribute to economic development but also help reduce the incidence of social problems.

Youth unemployment is essentially a time bomb that calls for urgent redress. The Government in collaboration with stakeholders needs to put in the heart of every strategy appropriate measures to curb joblessness among the youth. As Kenya is not well endowed with natural resources; people are the nation’s most valuable resource. The forgone national productivity due to mass unemployment is therefore large.

The unemployed youth are an economic burden on the employed and by extension the Government. This has the effect of depressing savings, investments and consequently economic growth. Due to rapid increase of skilled manpower, inability of both public and private sectors to accommodate this work force and low economic growth, there is rampant unemployment situation in the country. Employment creation for the youth therefore, will raise national productivity, and by extension economic growth and poverty reduction.

The Government has attempted to address youth unemployment in Kenya through several initiatives such as Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) which extensively elaborates on youth employment strategies through youth entrepreneurial training, micro credit schemes, vocational training and career guidance service development, youth leadership training, and ICT skills training. Other policy documents geared to address youth unemployment in this country include: Sessional Paper Number 2 of 1992 on Small Scale and Jua Kali Enterprises, and the Development Plan 1997-2001, Sessional Paper Number 4 of 2005.

The ministry has developed a Youth Employment Marshal Plan which is aimed addressing the challenge of youth unemployment in the long term. Meanwhile, the Government has implemented the Kazi Kwa Vijana Programme as a short initiative which is aimed at employing more than 300,000 youth. The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports is undertaking the “Trees for Job” component of Kazi Kwa Vijana programme.

Despite the above, there are a number of challenges faced while implementing youth policies. These include:

i. High population growth rate among the youth exerting pressure on available resources.
ii. Low economic growth rate.
iii. An education system in the country that produces graduates who are neither properly equipped for entry to the job market nor possess the necessary life skills.
iv. Lack of adequate resources to run youth programmes.
v. Existing structures within public and private sectors and the prevailing attitudes that do not provide an enabling environment for the youth to participate in decision-making, planning and implementation processes.
vi. Government Ministries, youth organizations and international agencies that have their own individual youth programmes and policies which are not harmonized. This leads to duplication of efforts and limited impact.

In view of the above challenges, there is need for the Government to enhance partnerships with the private sector. The KYEEI will ensure that youth are empowered to influence their own lives through choices they make and skills they possess.

An investment in building the capacity of the youth through addressing their specific needs in terms of education, skills training and gainful employment is not only crucial for the nation’s economic development, prosperity and social stability but also as vital for enabling each individual to develop their full potential and to live in dignity. This will go a long way in alleviating the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in Kenya by 2015 and Vision 2030.

SUMMIT DESIGN

Context: The developers of Vision 2030 have made it clear that the economic, social and political pillars of Kenya will be “anchored on the following foundations: macroeconomic stability; continuity in governance reforms; enhanced equality and wealth creation opportunities for the poor; infrastructure; energy; science, technology and innovation (STI); land reform; human resources development; security and public sector reforms.” (vii)

Under the Social Pillar of Vision 2030 is the commitment to invest in the people of Kenya. Education and Training is a core activity of this effort. The creators of Vision 2030 have written: The vision for the education sector for 2030 is to ‘have globally competitive quality education, training and research for sustainable development.’ (81) Education, business development, government integrity and reform and the moral and value foundations of the country’s constitutional democracy are strongly linked and necessary for economic, political and social development.

Design: The initiative will be launched with a summit, and the organizers make a distinction between a Summit and a Conference. The summit process is designed to stimulate engagement and create ownership by developing outcomes crafted by Summit participants.

Domains: The participants of the Summit are policy makers from four key domains: education, business and the private sector, government, and faith and community-based organizations. Youth and youth involved programs will be an integral element of the agenda.

Summit Event

The Summit will be held March 2-3, 2010 at the Safari Park Hotel. The Summit will include key plenary presentations and breakout sessions. The Summit will produce action steps in each domain that will advance the work of Vision 2030. Participants will be invited to engage in facilitated conversations around proven or tested policies and practices and then asked to commit to taking action and make specific recommendations for moving forward the work of Vision 2030.

The facilitated conversations will have approximately 75 participants and each domain will be in “rounds” of ten to twelve people. Each table will have a trained and briefed facilitator.

Breakout sessions will focus on the following:

1. Kenya’s assets and strengths – what have the people of Kenya accomplished to engage the empowerment and employment of youth. What is working right?
2. Review of current programs available for public/private partnerships – exchange of ideas on what is available and what is possible.
3. Identify barriers to policy and program implementation – what cultural norms, policy practices or funding barriers exist that prevent the full implementation of Vision 2030? What do we need to fix?
4. Each domain will make commitments to advance the educational, vocational and moral needs of our nation’s young people. What role can I play to move the agenda of Vision 2030 forward?

Each session will report out to the group to allow groups to share their recommendations and the audience to seek clarification. At the conclusion of each facilitated discussion, participants will have the opportunity to both clarify and vote on the top five action steps for each topic and each domain.

Follow-Up: This event is NOT just another conference on youth employment but the launch of an initiative to create specific and measurable outcomes with metrics to benchmark progress. The activities and follow-up actions related to this event have been identified and designed to implement the recommendations emerging from the Summit.