How investing in young people is going to keep them off bloody politics

The youth in Kenya form about 62 per cent of the total population. Certainly, the social and economic returns of investing in the youth are vast. However, the economic marginalisation of young people is considered a major driver of social instability and increase in crime, radicalisation, ethnic and political tension as well as violent conflict.

The 2007/08 election demonstrated that young people provide fodder for election violence and widespread property destruction. Politicians galvanise young people along ethnic lines to visit violence on their perceived enemies - mainly members of the other tribe who belong to a rival party. Yet the explosion of youth violence is fed by many other socio-economic factors that have remained unsolved since the 90s.