Paper long abstract:

Youth unemployment is a leading crisis in Kenya. Recent evidence establishes that youth unemployment correlates with gender, geographic location, level of education and household socio-economic status. In some areas in Kenya, over 80 percent of youth from the lowest wealth quintile are unemployment. The lack of access to information exacerbates the situation, especially given that two thirds of youth in rural areas receive information through the word of mouth, and only a third through all the other media combined. Receiving this evidence, Safaricom Foundation, a Kenyan Foundation has established a scholarship programme to counter this crisis. The programme focuses on the most excluded youth, and uses evidence to define these. Among the key markers are a 60:40 gender ratio in favour of female, and at least 5 percent disability target. The program then targets partnerships with two civil society organizations, 12 training institutions and over 100 industry actors to equip 700 youth with skills, train them in life skills and employability competences, place them into internships and link them to industry for employment. The two-year program has developed a digital data and feedback platform, to track the youth over the training period, and into their post-training engagements. This paper proposes to share this Kenyan innovation for youth employment, raising at least four critical questions: 1) What works in linking research evidence to inform and nudge large interventions? 2) Which considerations are necessary in increasing success prospects for cross-sectoral collaborations? 3) What space does the self-agency of youth occupy in driving the success of employment initiatives? 4) How best can one navigate the complexities of systemic bottlenecks, to yield bigger impact and sustainability? The paper will share evidence from two national studies on youth capabilities in Kenya, conducted in 2019, and move to share emerging evidence from the scholarship programme, drawn from the digital platform. It is hoped that this paper and the sharing of the innovation may inspire other locally-generated and locally-funded initiatives to turn the youth bulge crisis into an opportunity for Africa.

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