On March 29th and 30th, we pitched our research findings on the impact public and private policies have had on youth skills development and entrepreneurship in Kisumu . This was at the Kisumu ICON Data Summit where various state and non-state actors were in attendance.
According to Kisumu CIDP (2022-2023), the county’s youth is estimated to account for approximately 60% of the total county’s population which comprises 1,155,574, with 556, 942 males; 594,609 females; and 23 intersex persons. Alarmingly, 40% of youth remain unemployed. There currently exist government, private sector policies, programmes and interventions such as Uwezo Fund, National Youth Service, Kazi Mtaani, AGPO, KYEOP, Ajira Digital, County Revolving Fund for Women, Youth and Persons With Disability and Women Enterprise Fund that address the issue of youth unemployment in Kisumu County. However, there are unfavorable conditions that hinder the youth from accessing the aforementioned interventions.
In consequence, we embarked on a study to investigate the impact of government and private policies on youth skills development and entrepreneurship in the county.
We have been one of the ICON participants in the county leveraging implementation research to cocreate solutions to enhance youth work readiness in the area. The other participants included Arise and Shine, Dala spaces, Nyalenda Bread Power, Njema Disabled Self-help group, Sustainable Rural Initiative, Young Women’s Christian Association, Wise Kenya, Steve Wonder and Tinada.
They focused on other areas of work readiness i.e inclusion; women and finance; youth digital skills; policy development and implementation; technical vocational and education training and youth in agriculture. You can check their findings here.
The ICON commenced in July 2021 and youth participants have been taking part in capacity strengthening workshops and conducting evidence-based research between 5-9months.
The Kisumu ICON is co-led by IREX and LakeHub. It engaged youth participants from 9 youth-led and youth-serving organizations alongside Individuals ,namely Steve Wonder and Nelson Onyimbi.
*ICON refers to Issue-Based Collaborative Network (ICON). To learn more about Youth Excel’s Kenya ICON read here.
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