Reducing Poverty Among The Youth The Kenyan Experience

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Reducing Poverty Among The YouthThe Kenyan
Experience

• Presented by Hellen. Tombo
• Executive Director, Kenya Youth (KYCEP)

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Introduction

• Youth in Kenya constitute over 60 of the
  population.
• They have, in the past been on the forefront of
  the countrys development.
• However since the late 70s they have been
  systematically excluded from the decision making
  process of the country.
• The majority of the young people are now
  languishing in abject poverty

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• This youth sector bears the brunt of free trade
  inequalities and political ineptitude.
• They face a bewildering collision between
  traditional culture and modern technology
• as well as likely long life under-employment and
  an education system that makes it hard to attain
  university entrance standards.
• The few bright or extremely privileged go abroad
  for higher education and often stay there for
  work, thus depriving Kenya of its most valuable
  resource.

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RECENT INTERVENTIONS

• National Poverty Reduction Plan (1999)
• Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (2001)
• Economic Recovery Strategy foe Wealth and
  Employment (ERS) (2002), (2003)
• MDG Need Assessment Report (2000), (2005)

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Poverty Reduction Strategic Paper

• Structural adjustment programmes SAPs stagnated
  Kenyas economy
• The failed mission of the enhanced structural
  adjustment facilities ESAF to jump-start
  economic growth is acknowledged in the late 1990s
  shift to the PRSPs.
• The PRS approach offered a genuinely new
  opportunity to bring together a broad coalition
  of reformers (private sector, NGOs, government
  and civil society) to implement the reforms
  needed to address corruption and secure sustained
  poverty reduction and economic growth.

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PRSP in Kenya - Cont

• TAKING IT TO THE PEOPLE
• Shared power and decision-making achievable at
  district levels
• Establishment of district steering committees.
• District Fora and consultations
• Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs) done in
  10 districts
• Priorities and proposals from citizens
  incorporated
• Difficulty in putting together an implementation
  and policy matrix
• Difficulty agreeing on indicators and targets
  based on citizens
• perspectives
• The need for citizens capacity-building not
  adequately addressed
• e.g budget literacy and monitoring
• Participants in the district consultations were
  drawn from all sectors and
• interest groups in the various districts, with a
  representative target of at
• least 30 women, 10 youth, 20 government, 10
  private sector,
• 10 disabled and 20 community leaders.

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• January 2003 Enter NARC
• June 2003 Arrival of ERS minus PRS
• NGO involvement leads to ERS for Wealth and
  employment creation
• ERS mostly private sector involvement
• ERS poor communication strategy. Little
  participation and ineffective
• dissemination.
• By end 2003 MDGs gaining prominence
• MDGs in Ministry of Planning National
  Development and UNDP and
• a few NGOs NGOs coalition on MDGs is formed.
  Initially a lot of
• activity, but limited reach.
• Mid 2004 Slow down on MDGs activity in NGO
  sector. Talk of MDGs
• in government, focus still on ERS.

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So what difference does the PRSP make?

• The PRSP has been on the table since December
  2000. None of the donors has seen any immediate
  prospect of supporting its implementation.
• Nevertheless, the PRSP process was a highly
  positive experience for Kenya in a number of
  respects.
• A relatively thorough consultation exercise
  around the drafting of the document widened and
  deepened constituencies for pro-poor policy
  change between and within some parts of
  government and civil society.
• Synergies between the PRSP, budget reforms and a
  mainstreaming approach to aid delivery were
  also revealed.

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• In a relatively short period, the PRSP has made a
  considerable impact in the management of the
  national economy.
• The 2000/1 and 2001/2 budgets laid more emphasis
  on the theme of poverty reduction than previous
  ones.
• The 2001/2 budget presented in June 2001, soon
  after the full PRSP draft had been presented at
  the national stakeholders forum, made greater
  efforts to incorporate poverty issues in the
  budget.

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Possible second-round effects.

• Despite the short time allocated to the PRSP
  process, there are indications that it initiated
  changes that are likely to have a long time
  impact on national institutions and on the
  attitudes and activities of a wide cross-section
  of actors in the development process.
• The PRSP has elevated public participation in the
  debate on poverty and wider socio-economic
  development issues.
• The PRSP process significantly enhanced media
  coverage of poverty and related issues, raising
  awareness of the problem among the general public.

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KENYAN YOUTH INVOLVEMENT IN THE PRSP PROCESS

• Youth VERY critical in development process
• PRSP process included Youth Thematic Group
• Formed at a later stage of discussions(This is
  the Problem in many processes)
• Youth Groups participated in district
  consultative forums-made the best contributions
• Youth Policy Paper
• Youth in Poverty Eradication Commission

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POVERTY AS SEEN THROUGH THE VEIL OF YOUTH

• A youth in Kibera Slums in Nairobi described
  Poverty asPoverty is ME, Look at me!Look at my
  clothes, No job, No food, Am not in school and
  should I fall sick, I will not afford to go to
  hospital

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CAUSES OF POVERTY AS IDENTIFIED IN THE KENYA PRSP
PROCESS

• Different communities have different perceptions
  of what causes poverty, the PRSP came up with
  different causes and the focus here will be on
  those ones involving the youth.
• Unemployment and low wages
• Failure by youth to secure meaningful employment
  due to lack of opportunities and crucial
  resources for production
• Lack of credit-facilities due to inability to
  acquire collateral was seen as a hindrance to
  self- employment for the youth.
• Recent reforms have led to retrenchments
  especially in the public service, this has
  worsened the problem of unemployment especially
  to the youth.
• The music industry, which the youths are highly
  involved, could make a lot of money for them but
  with no proper policy on piracy and poor pay for
  the young artists, the youth are lagging behind
  in development activities.

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CAUSES OF POVERTY CONTD

• ) Bad Governance
• This manifests itself in lack of transparency and
  accountability in management of the resources
  meant for the youth e.g. bursaries, programme
  development funds, etc.
• Sports also play a major role in poverty
  reduction especially among the youth in poor
  countries in promoting their talents The main
  challenge to this arises due to poor governance
  of the facilities and of the teams, poor
  remuneration for the players and lack of
  recognition.
• c) Insecurity
• This manifests itself through banditry,
  hijacking, raids, robbery and looting,
  mutilation, rape, and murder.
• Most of these crimes are committed by the youth
  due to lack of other means of keeping them busy
  as well as a means to a necessary end.
• Politicians also use the youth to instigate
  violence leading to increase in poverty levels
  among them.

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CAUSES OF POVERTY CONTD

• d) HIV/AIDS
• The disease has aggravated the situation of
  poverty since most of the dying are the youth and
  productive people, leaving behind widows and
  orphans who become dependent on the other members
  of the family.
• The young people lack the knowledge and resources
  to counter opportunistic diseases when they
  arise. This is due to the stigma associated with
  HIV/AIDS scourge.
• e) Gender Imbalance
• Lack of property ownership especially by women
  and youth and little control over productive
  assets such as land has contributed to their
  continued impoverishment.
• Young women suffer greatly first because they
  have no right to property inheritance and have no
  right to the property of their husbands when they
  eventually get married. Their continued
  dependency levels increase the poverty rates of
  the young people in the country.

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YOUTH THEMATIC GROUP

• Agriculture Rural Development
• ISSUES
• Uncontrolled rural-urban migration
• Lack of access to agricultural land
• Lack of appropriate modern technology skills in
  agro-industry
• Limited access to credit facilities
• PRIORITIES
• Review Land Policies
• Promote Youth friendly agricultural extension
  services to enable acquisition of skills
• Allocate funds to provide skills in
  agro-processing
• Facilitate the provision of micro-finance
  facilities

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Cont.

• HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
• Education
• Issues
• High School drop out rates
• Weak Linkage between training market demands
• Lack of essential facilities technology in
  training institutions
• Priorities
• Retrain youth to provide market oriented skills
• Upgrade equip youth polytechnics with modern
  facilities technologies
• Labour
• Issues
• High unemployment/underemployment
• Priorities
• Review employment policies to encourage companies
  to establish internship for youth
• Provide infrastructures for youth business
  activities
• Sports Culture
• Issues
• Untapped/underutilized potential in sports
• Negative Media Influence on Culture of Youth

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Cont.

• Health
• Issues
• High Prevalence of STIs, HIV/Aids
• Teenage Pregnancies
• Priorities
• Establish youth friendly health care units for
  STIs HIV/Aids
• Encourage youth to carry out advocacy thro. Peer
  group concelling
• Promote behavioral change
• TRADE, TOURISM INDUSTRY
• Issues
• Limited Access to Credit Facilities
• High Interest rates
• Priorities
• Establish Credit Institutions for financing youth
  enterprises
• Institute youth friendly macroeconomic policies

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Kenyas Experience On Reducing Poverty Among the
Youth

• The greatest gain for the youth from PRSP is in
  that it informed the Economic Recovery Strategy
  that has resulted in the following quick gains
  since its inception following the general
  elections in 2002.
• Labor and Industrial Relations Employment growth
  Unfortunately, the Government has not started a
  revolving youth fund for promotion of
  self-employment providing mechanisms to manage
  transition from school to work, career guidance,
  industrial attachment mentoring and coaching and
  rendering business counseling advisory services
• Science and Technology -The Government recognizes
  the economic value and benefits of information
  and communications technology services both in
  the rural and urban areas. ICT is important to
  the realization of the required improvement in
  productivity and empowerment of the citizenry
  esp. youth. The government will equip all
  secondary schools with computers
• National Youth Policy Developed in a
  consultative process with the support of the
  government the Policy outlines the strategies by
  Kenyan youth to reduce poverty

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Kenyas Experience cont.

• Due to urban migration, the youth are in the
  slums faced by unemployment, poor housing and
  lack of basic amenities.
• To fight this, the government in line with the
  MDGs has come up with a slum-upgrading programme
  that aims at constructing 150,000 houses per
  year.
• This has not been achieved due to lack of
  funding, lack of proper planning and mistrust
  between the people and the government.
• Constituency Development Fund has been set aside.
  This is however affected by corruption and
  nepotism in allocation of positions in the
  committee planning its implementation

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Education

• The introduction of Free Primary Education in
  Jan. 2003 led to an upsurge in enrolment from 5.9
  million in 2002 to 6.9 million in 2003, i.e. 99
  of Gross enrolment rate.
• Challenges include
• overstretched facilities
• overcrowding in schools
• high pupil-teacher ratio
• diminishing support by parents

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Education cont.

• The government is now trying to build low-costing
  boarding school for ASAL regions to curb effects
  of nomadic life on education.
• Its also increasing support to slum schools as
  well as improving schools health and nutritional
  programs.
• This has led to an increase in the number of
  youth attending formal and informal education.
• No attention to those who cant afford to attend
  secondary education

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HIV/ AIDS

• The HIV/AIDS Strategic Paper 2000-2005
  established the constituencies Aids Fund.
• The results are a reduction from 700 deaths per
  day due to HIV/AIDS to 400 deaths in 2004.
• Contraceptive use by the youth has increased to
  39, this however is by the male youth. Females
  are still largely conservative

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Environmental sustainability

• Eradication of the shamba system in forests and
  water catchments areas, to protect these areas
  and other territorial eco-systems
• Has led to thousands of people left homeless and
  the youth left with no places to earn a living.
  The ban on logging affects the youth since they
  are the ones mostly involved in this trade.
• Although these efforts are right, there is need
  for a settlement plan before such radical actions
  are taken.

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Governance

• Involvement of youth in a few decision making
  processes e.g. PEC, MDG process

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Gender equality and women empowerment in Kenya.

• Gross gender especially among young women
  inequalities persists due to prevailing
  discriminatory practices, leading to inequality
• The prevalence of HIV/Aids has slightly declined
  though its still higher for young women than
  men.
• Gender based violence is a serious problem
  especially among girls
• Due to Free primary Education enrollment of girls
  has increased. However some regions especially
  rural ones have low enrolment and high dropout
  rate occasioned by customary values, limited
  infrastructure limited amenities.

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Gender equality cont

• Limited secondary schools opportunities for
  girls,
• University cut off points for female is now lower
  by one point to their male counter parts
• The ratio of female youth in public universities
  has increased from 27.8 in 1995/1996 to 30.8 in
  2003/04.
• Very little progress has been made through the
  ERS and PRSP by increasing young women
  participation in leadership, parliament, the
  judiciary e.t.c.

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cont

• Sanitary pads are still unaffordable for most
  girls and young women. This has affected
  education of girls. The main challenge is on the
  government is to zero- rate them.
• There is need to address adolescents mothers and
  programs focusing on youth reproductive health.
• Key targets should be
• Education
• stopping FGM
• benefits of delaying onset of marriage and
  childbirth

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YOUTH IN THE MDG PROCESS

• Represented in the National CSO Steering Team
• Represented in the National team working on
  Country Report
• Responded to Country Need Assessment
• Chaired the Civil Society MDG forum
• Participated in development of Youth MDG paper
  and the Tool Kit
• Organizing youth National district forums

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• Country Report incorporated youth Section
• Two For a held to sensitize the youth on MDGs
• Youth gave Speech on Youth 7 MDG during African
  Women Conf.
• Responded on the Secretary Generals Report

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How To Integrate MDGS in the PRSP/ERS Process
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• Challenges
• Securing of adequate resources
• Successful capacity building to facilitate the
  transfer of MDG interventions to community and
  other sub-national levels.

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RECOMMENDATIONS QUICK GAINS

• Youth Policy to be passed in parliament
• Implementation of youth proposals in the PRSP
  process
• Immediate and urgent strategies and interventions
  for youth
• Funding for youth Programs
• Involvement of Youth in development processes and
  programs
• National budgets to include youth empowerment
  programs
• Review Land Policies
• Promote Youth friendly agricultural extension
  services to enable acquisition of skills
• Allocate funds to provide skills in
  agro-processing
• Facilitate the provision of micro-finance
  facilities

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• Retrain youth to provide market oriented skills
• Upgrade equip youth polytechnics with modern
  facilities technologies
• Review employment policies to encourage companies
  to establish internship for youth
• Provide infrastructures for youth business
  activities
• Establish recreational facilities and provide
  trained personnel
• Censor harmful media information reaching the
  youth
• High Prevalence of STIs, HIV/Aids
• Teenage Pregnancies
• Establish youth friendly health care units for
  STIs HIV/Aids
• Encourage youth to carry out advocacy thro. Peer
  group concelling
• Promote behavioral change
• Establish Credit Institutions for financing youth
  enterprises
• Institute youth friendly macroeconomic policies

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• Creation of mechanisms that ensure young people
  are involved in the Economic Recovery Strategy
  (ERS) Processes
• Young people to be included in the implementation
  of new projects identified in national
  development and poverty reduction plans and
  strategies, as well as support existing youth-led
  development initiatives.
• DEBT CANCELLATION
• TRADE REFORM
• MORE BETTER AID TO YOUTH PROGRAMS

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• It is TIME that Kenya, Africa, UN All
  development Partners keep their promises on Youth
  Issues and should realize that Africa Development
  CANNOT BE ACHIEVED without YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
• The achievement of MDGs largely depend on the
• involvement and participation of young people, WE
• CANNOT AFFORD TO MISS THEM OUT
• THANK YOU FOR YOU HAVE ALL DECIDED TO FOCUS ON
  YOUTH FROM TODAY!