President’s agenda spot on for his biggest constituency

By Machel Waikenda

Mainstreaming the youth agenda across all government ministries and departments is not only welcome but if properly executed, will go a long way in resolving challenges facing the youth in our country.

The greatest obstacles to youth-led sustainable development in our country has predominantly been the poor education system, inadequate policy framework and strategies, poor implementation mechanism of policies strategies and planed that focused on youth among others.

But the greatest of all is the lack of means by our biggest constituency created by inefficient policy frameworks, which then subject youth into poverty, effectively making them impotent in the face of many other challenges.

The tradition in Kenya, which the Jubilee governmental should throw away, has been that government structures don’t support young initiatives and actions about sustainable development.

For successive governments, such structure constructs assume that young people are not idle, not responsible enough and are only useful in political situations.

But even worse, because of diverse political affiliations young people subscribe to, successive governments have continuously kept them at disadvantaged levels. Indeed, the Old Guard resist giving younger people an opportunity and cling to power because the youth themselves refuse to speak in one voice.

Therefore, going forward, we need to have the young speaking the same language which is well researched, demand-based, and a rights-based approach not calculated to govern but rather, strive to become educated to take the lead by right.

Henceforth, we need to prioritise policies and programmes including youth advocacy and peer-to-peer programmes for marginalised youth, such as out-of school and out-of-work youth, to offer them opportunity and motivation to re-integrate into mainstream society.

Clearly, we must develop macroeconomic policies that focus on job creation particularly targeted at youth; for young women to foster greater linkages between the labour market and the education and training system to ensure curricula are aligned to the needs of the labour market, and that youth are being trained in fields where employment opportunities are available or are growing.

There is a yawning need to change the work ethic of our people. We must learn to identify and develop entrepreneurial ability starting from childhood and firm the same into the age of majority.

As we break from the past, we need to have a Kenyan vision for the youth first. We need government plans to involve those highly impressionable men and women to know and comment on that policy. In effect, there is need for legislations that strengthen these initiatives.

This is why mainstreaming the youth across government ministries as suggested by the president is a bankable way to get the youth out of this difficult situation.

President Kenyatta said there will be no ministries solely for youth and women, and that their issues will be spread into all line ministries.

In the last Ministry of Youth Affairs, there was duplication of roles performed by other ministries. The ministry had eight thematic areas: Youth education and training, Youth and health, Youth and environment, Youth crime and drugs, Youth leisure, recreation and community service, Youth and ICT, Youth empowerment and participation and Youth and employment.

Empower youth council

The area of youth and education encompasses youth polytechnics across the country. The department of youth training, which is responsible for youth polytechnics, can be placed under Ministry of Education. Indeed, the curriculum used in these polytechnics was developed by Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, an agency of the Ministry of Education.

The thematic area of youth and employment is implemented through the Youth Enterprise Development Fund could comfortably fit under Ministry of Enterprise Development. I have also noted that one of the functions of the Fund is to facilitate youth to get jobs abroad. This function can be placed under either Ministry of Foreign Affairs or Labour, so that the Fund can concentrate on entrepreneurship.

All the other thematic areas are functions of other ministries as can be discerned from their names. They would fit comfortably in ministries such as Education, Sports, Labour, and Health, among others. 

The government will need to come up with a mechanism of mainstreaming youth issues into line ministries. The president has already stated that he will establish a youth advisory function in his office. This function, working with the National Youth Council, could come up with youth-focused indicators various ministries would be required to implement.

Then youth desiring service from government will have to walk into a youth office for direction. One possibility is to empower the National Youth Council, which government actualized last year and have the council report to the President.

The council should also take up infrastructure that was put up by the ministry, such as youth empowerment centers.

To empower the Youth Fund to play a bigger role in empowering young entrepreneurs and create employment, government will need to focus on it, to deal with the challenges that limit its effectiveness.

South Africa has recorded progress in black economic empowerment. Kenya could use the same model to mainstream youth issues.

The writer is TNA Secretary of Arts and Entertainment.