YOUTHS, THE VITAL KEY TO OUR COUNTRY'S ECONOMY

.                     Photo courtesy of Google  

We have a great advantage as a nation of young, vibrant and highly creative youth. They account for about 75% of Kenya’s population, according to the World Bank. Countries like Kenya, which have a relatively youthful population, stand on the runway of economic take-off if they find the correct formula to harness the energy, creativity and entrepreneurship that young people have to offer. The youth are an economic force that can both drive and create demand for goods and services especially due to the growing digital economy.

How then can Kenya position itself to benefit from its youthful demographic while avoiding the potential political pitfall?

One of the answers is to be found in the government’s Big Four Agenda. When the government invests directly or facilitates investment in attaining food security, building affordable homes, accelerating manufacturing and ensuring affordable healthcare, young people are in direct line to benefit from these investments. All these are youth-facing investments. Creating jobs through manufacturing will create demand for food and housing, and once the young people start families on account of having disposable incomes, they will automatically require healthcare that meets the needs of their households and those of their dependants.

                      photo courtesy of Pinterest 

My view, however, is that for Kenya’s youth to benefit from the Big Four Agenda and other investments in infrastructure development, we will need to inculcate a culture of self-dependency in a critical mass of the youth demographic. There needs to be a shift from the historical socialisation of young people that education will position them to get well-paying jobs. Now, more and more, we need to make them understand that education ought to prepare them to create jobs by harnessing their creativity, starting with small start-ups that the government and its agencies can hand-hold to achieve scale. Secondly, we need to teach young people that what they call ‘talent’ can be monetised and professionalised to make it profitable for them to engage in the activities they are passionate about, be it acting, music or sports.

                    photo courtesy of Google 

  

Without a doubt, the policies and systems put in place to encourage young people to take this route hold a lot of promise were their broad goals to become self-evident to the intended beneficiaries. This, however, calls for training of the youth at all levels, starting at the grassroots, so that they can gather the courage to chart out a path different from the one their parents walked. We need to disabuse them of the idea that one has to tarmac for a job, work till the age of 60 and then retire in the village. That model is no longer applicable in the modern economy. The future of work means that the people starting out on a small scale today can grow their enterprises to a point where they can become self-sustaining and professionally run businesses. 

                  photo courtesy of Pinterest 

Studies conducted in rural Kenya have shown that when women or youth groups are trained in basic business management, better packaging of their produce and are then connected with a market for their goods, the profitability of such groups increases, leading to the ripple effect of higher incomes for members and better quality of life for their families. This is a model that can be scaled across the country.

For the model to work, however, we will need to invest in the mental retooling of young people so that they can be socialised to embrace skill- and knowledge-based jobs going into the future.  This, coupled with the incentives offered for youth enterprises ought to start bearing fruit as Kenya marches steadily towards achieving its Vision 2030 goals.

                  photo courtesy of Pinterest 

It is worth reminding Kenyans that the goals envisioned in this national blueprint are not an event. Rather, they are a journey, and every step we take individually and collectively helps us as a country to walk that journey together. At the end of it, the hope is to create a country that is progressive and cohesive and that creates opportunities for self-advancement for all citizens irrespective of where they come from. 

This also calls for greater synergy between the national and county governments so that they collaborate in meeting the infrastructure and policies that will spur investments and open up the country for growth. The youth are and will always be strategic players in our growth and development. We must, therefore, empower them to be part and parcel of our goals as we look to ensure the sustainability of industry in the country.