The Government of Kenya and the World Bank Group has partnered to cushion the Kenyan youth from vulnerabilities through the National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (Nyota) Project.
The Nyota project aims to create employment opportunities, increase earnings, and inculcate a savings culture among the youth. In a meeting held yesterday at State House Nairobi Friday, all principal secretaries joined President Dr. William Ruto where Principal Secretary Susan Mang’eni and her counterpart Fikirini Jacobs appraised their colleagues on the NYOTA project rolloutahead of county-level consultative forums.
The President directed all Principal Secretaries to participate and lead in leadership sensitizations and validation forums on Monday 6th and Friday 17th October,2025 respectively. This is aimed at fulfilling the constitutional mandate on public participation to give the country a chance for all the youth to benefit from the empowerment initiative.
The Principal Secretary State Department for Science Research and Innovation Prof. Shaukat Abdulrazak commended President Dr. William Ruto for offering a sustainable and scientifically proven solution to the problems faced by vulnerable youth who are all innovative, energetic and with time resources on their side.
NYOTA is an upscale from the Kenya Youth Employment Opportunities Project designed to improve the livelihood of vulnerable Kenyan youth through a multi-agency implementation approach on a national scale.
The levels of interventions include improving youth employability, expanding employment opportunities, supporting youth saving, strengthening youth employment systems, capacity and project management.
Other interventions are enhancing youth entrepreneurs’ access to market through digital AGPO and e-GP training as well as the provision of e-commerce platform (Marketplace) to ensure sustainability and scalability of businesses.
The Project Scope Targeted 820,000 vulnerable youth countrywide from every ward including Refugees in the gazetted Garissa and Turkana camps.
The demographic requirements are vulnerable youth aged 18-29 years (and up to 35 years for PWDs) who are unemployed with a Form 4 level education or below from all genders.
The Nyota Project Components will improve youth employability, provide socio-emotional skills development, support intermediation through a skills craft model, provide skills transfer through on-the-job experience, review additional apprenticeship standards and testing instruments, operationalize labor market observatory, and provide linkage to foreign labour market.
Expanding employment opportunities by supporting youth entrepreneurship through start-up capital results-based financing partnership with social enterprises. Supporting youth saving through monetary incentives and nudges, enhance NSSF operations by upgrading processes, systems and communications and supportingmaternal health.
Strengthening youth employment systems, capacity and project management Support national and county governments’ capacity to invest in youth employment.
Digitally skilled youth on AGPO and catalytic funds, monitoring & evaluation and delivery systems, and project management and coordination.
By Joseph Kamolo Mutua
