Cooperatives and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Cabinet Secretary Wycliffe Oparanya has asked youth to embrace entrepreneurship to help tackle and contain the bulging population of unemployed youth in the country.
Speaking at Kakamega Youth Polytechnic in Kakamega County during rollout of the National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (NYOTA) project, Oparanya observed that the MSME sector constitutes a vast majority of businesses, with close to 98 percent of all jobs in the country found in the sector.
“This is a crucial sector and thus why the Kenya government has partnered with the World Bank and allocated Sh33 billion for a period of 5 years to give startup capital of 50,000 shillings to each youth to start an income-generating activity,” he said.
“With 70 percent of Kenya’s population being youthful below the age of 35 years which translates to about 35 million youth, 20 million of them are able-bodied and can work,” he added.
The CS said that the informal sector currently has 17 million of the youth working in the sector and helping towards contributing to 40 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Oparanya said the programme received 1.4 million applicants from youth aged 18-29 years and up 35 years for those with disability adding that after vetting, the numbers were reduced to 110,000 spread across the 1450 wards countrywide.
“The programme focuses on addressing youth unemployment and creating a national platform for young people to realize their aspirations,” he added.
He said the beneficiaries would receive their start-up capital in phases and continue receiving hands-on support from business development experts as they establish and grow their businesses.
The CS however, called for individual effort and discipline by the beneficiaries but challenged them even form strong groups to get contracts from national and county governments agencies of the 30 percent Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO) designed to ensure enterprise owned by the youth, women and People Living With Disability (PWD)
By George Kaiga
