The government has called on young Kenyans and other relevant stakeholders to work together to ensure peaceful, credible and inclusive elections of the National Youth Council.
The long-awaited polls are expected to provide young people with a stronger platform for representation and create more jobs.
The election, which is scheduled for October, regrettably, comes 14 years after the last National Youth Council elections were held in 2012, but stakeholders are seizing the opportunity to establish functional structures through which young people can participate in national development.
Speaking during a consultative engagement with the National Youth Council Steering Committee at the Kenya School of Government, Lower Kabete, Principal Secretary for Youth Affairs and Creative Economy Jacobs Fikirini said the government was committed to supporting the electoral process and had received strong backing from President William Ruto.
“We may be late, but better late than never. We have to do this election so that our young people can get proper structures of representation,” Fikirini said.
He urged youth leaders and administrators at both national and county levels to actively participate in preparations for the elections rather than remain passive recipients of government programmes.
Fikirini said the State Department would work closely with county commissioners, county executives responsible for youth affairs and other stakeholders to ensure young people are adequately informed about the electoral process.
He further appealed to the youth to maintain peace before, during and after the elections, noting that differences in political views should not undermine national cohesion.
“Let’s speak peace, let’s spread the message of peace to the young people,” he said, stressing that peaceful elections would provide an opportunity for young people to express their views and exercise their democratic rights.
The PS said an active National Youth Council would also enable Kenya’s youth to participate more effectively in regional platforms, including the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and other regional youth platforms.
He cited the National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (NYOTA) programme, which targets 820,000 young people across the country, saying it was designed particularly to support youth who did not progress beyond secondary school.
According to Fikirini, NYOTA provides opportunities in areas including skills training, business grants, recognition of prior learning, access to government procurement opportunities and social enterprises.
He said the programme had adopted an equitable ward-based approach, ensuring young people from different parts of the country benefit from similar allocations regardless of their geographical locations.
The PS said the government was also investing in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) as a critical pathway for young people to transition from learning to earning.
Fikirini said such reforms were particularly important for young people from marginalised areas where transition rates to universities remain low.
He urged county governments to work with the national government to modernise vocational training centres and ensure young people are trained using equipment and technologies relevant to the current labour market.
The PS further encouraged counties to link trained youth to opportunities under the government’s labour mobility programme, noting that young Kenyans with employment opportunities abroad could receive support from the Youth Enterprise Development Fund to meet pre-departure costs.
He said the government was also exploring ways of creating more opportunities for young people through infrastructure development and other major national programmes.
Fikirini disclosed that more than 5,500 young people had already been placed as interns in various affordable housing projects.
He said the proposed Creative Economy Bill, alongside reforms in copyright and intellectual property, would help protect young people’s creations and encourage investment in the sector.
“The creative economy space is very rich today,” Fikirini said, adding that the government was seeking to increase the sector’s contribution to the economy by creating a more structured and supportive environment for young creatives.
“Once the Parliament passes that Bill, we are going to create direct employment of more than five hundred youth under the creative industry among them General Manager, Chief Executive Officer with several departments and also county managers as well as county secretaries to attract a poll of innovative and content creators into the newly formed economic hub,” he disclosed
Fikirini said Kenya’s growing attractiveness as a destination for film production presented opportunities that could be deliberately harnessed to create jobs and businesses for young people.
He urged county governments to work closely with the State Department to develop creative economy hubs and spaces where young people could showcase their talents and earn from their work.
The PS said the country’s youthful population should not be viewed merely as a challenge but as an economic opportunity that could drive innovation, production and development if properly empowered.
Fikirini called for greater investment in skills development, employment, entrepreneurship and creativity to enable young people to take advantage of opportunities locally and internationally.
By Aron Kinyamasyo
