Who cursed programmes meant to help vulnerable youth?

When former National Youth Service trainee Stephen Wachira Ngariko was arrested in Somalia in February, questions were asked about the fate of young people with paramilitary training but who have remained jobless.

Police said the 29-year-old was arrested by Somali security officers alongside two Tanzanians in Dhobley, over Al-Shabaab-related activities.

In Nairobi, Brian Ngala told the Nation that he had applied for the Uwezo Fund loan on numerous occasions without success although he met most of the requirements and needed the loan facility to boost his struggling mitumba clothes business.

The two cases bring to the fore concerns of many that failure by governments to establish deliberate and sustainable empowerment programmes for the youth can easily generate feelings of marginalisation and social exclusion. This is all the more worrying considering that the youth constitute a big segment of the population.

But just what does it take for youth programmes to succeed in Kenya?

While the government has always come up with special programmes to support marginalised groups, including the youth, through training, different funds and apprenticeship programmes, the jury is still out on whether these programmes, serviced through taxpayers’ money, have succeeded.

Most importantly, these projects — usually launched in highly politicised environments — have become easy targets for manipulation.

UNEMPLOYMENT

The most recent corruption scandals at NYS have exposed the government’s unpreparedness to address the problem of youth unemployment, further putting into question its commitment and capability to tackle joblessness.

NYS was this year hit by a new Sh469 million scandal, with 44 suspects already charged in court. The first scandal in 2015 involved amounts totalling to Sh791 million, which led to the resignation of then Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru, now the Kirinyaga Governor.

The NYS, first created in 1964 to provide education and voluntary work for young people, was relaunched in 2013 after being abandoned in the late 1980s at the height of agitation for political pluralism.

Besides the NYS saga, another scandal was reported at the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) where seven employees were sent on compulsory leave in March pending investigations into irregular loan disbursements.

The seven, among them two senior managers, were suspended following an internal audit, which established that more than Sh10.7 million may have been lost.

In 2011, a Sh4.3 billion World Bank project intended to boost the Kazi Kwa Vijana (jobs for youth) programme was cancelled after an audit review revealed that officials in the Office of the then Prime Minister, Mr Raila Odinga, had misappropriated millions of shillings.

SCANDALS

A financial management review found that the money meant for young Kenyans was instead paid to senior officials in the PM’s office in contravention of the agreement between the World Bank and the government and in breach of procurement procedures.

The bank had offered to support the Kazi Kwa Vijana scheme, which was to reduce the vulnerability of about 190,000 unemployed youths, by offering a line of income for participation in infrastructure projects.

Out of this misappropriation, the kazi kwa vijana, pesa kwa wazee (make the youth work, but pay the elderly) slogan was birthed.

These and many other scandals bring to the fore questions on why projects and initiatives for the youth are vulnerable to manipulation and if they are doomed to fail.

In the last decade, youth unemployment has been rising. Indeed, recent data from the Ministry of Education indicates that of the thousands entering the job market from universities and colleges every year, only one out of five is likely to get a job in the formal sector.

According to experts, in many cases, the youth are viewed as a problem or as people with a problem. They are not viewed as an asset or a resource essential for economic growth and development.

Dr Thenya Muchiri, the Director of Administration, State Department for Planning in the Ministry of National Treasury, said management instabilities is one of the top causes why special programmes fail. Youth empowerment and development, he said, are important, but they require time, resources and good strategies.

“The youth should be engaged in policy and even budget reviews which are critical in such programmes. They have the responsibility to hold national and county governments accountable to the youth-centric processes and developmental programmes,” said Dr Muchiri.

He proposed that there be creative ways of institutionalising absorption of the youth into the economy. This can be done by the government — at both the national and county levels — adopting a mainstreaming strategy to harness youth participation and involvement in the development agenda.

“Youth as a function remains exclusively the mandate of the national government according to the constitution. However, county governments, which are in charge of youth polytechnics, have an equally important role in ensuring youth development,” Dr Muchiri said.

And, according to Mr Raphael Obonyo, a Global Young Diplomat and the external adviser on the UN Habitat’s Youth Advisory Board, the origin of the crisis is poor leadership and lack of professional and committed staff.

PROBLEMS

Political interference and exclusion of young people in the conceptualisation, implementation and evaluation of the projects also predisposes the programmes to abuse and manipulation.

He also cited political expediency and poor coordination as contributing to the failure of the special programmes.

“Initiatives started to empower the youth have lacked good leadership, face problems of poor institutional design and support, and have been affected by corruption.

“Also, the assumption that the youth are homogeneous, and that one size fits them all, make the projects unsuitable for many of them. Initiatives started to empower the youth have lacked good leadership, face problems of poor institutional design and support, and have been affected by corruption,” Mr Obonyo said.

According to him, a majority of youth special programmes have failed to learn from past mistakes. They are also not innovative enough to nurture an entrepreneurial culture based on emerging trends.

Additionally, Mr Obonyo questioned the role of the National Youth Council, one of the State corporations domiciled in the Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs, which came into being after the enactment of National Youth Policy (2007) and the National Youth Council Act (2009).

One of its top objectives is to regulate and coordinate activities and initiatives relating to the youth being undertaken by youth groups and other organisations. It is also required to lobby for legislation on issues affecting youth besides promoting the inclusion of the youth in decision-making bodies, boards, agencies and other public institutions and organisations.

But has it done its work?

Not so, according to Mr Obonyo.

“Six years since the council was put in place, it has not been effective. Most of its members have transitioned and are no longer youth, denying young people an opportunity to effectively participate in policymaking and implementation,” he said.

Interestingly, acting NYC Chief Executive Officer Irene Odindo declined to comment when contacted by the Nation.

Mr Obonyo said the recent threat by the Parliament to consider diverting the resources meant for NYS to other youth-related areas due to corruption should be a red flag.

“Although it may sound plausible going by the gravity of the graft that has characterised the NYS in the recent years, it misses a crucial point. What the agency needs is a strong insulation from capture by cartels.

Ms Matilda Sakwa, who was recently appointed the NYS director-general, agrees that there were weak checks, planning systems and spending modules that allowed cartels to thrive in the youth service.

The fact that NYS used to be a department in the Youth Affairs Ministry was a problem as officials elsewhere could access the organisation’s accounts.

But the government is keen on changing this trend and has announced plans to raise the employability of more Kenyan youth with at least Form Four certificates by training and providing job and internship opportunities for them.

The 280,000 youths to benefit from the World Bank-funded Kenya Youth Empowerment and Opportunities Project (KYEOP), which has been piloted for the last one-and-a-half years, are expected to acquire skills that will help in nation building.

This is one other programme the public would do well to keep a keen eye on.