Undoubtedly, the country’s population is dominated by young people. Persons below 15 years made up 39 percent of the population based on the 2019 census.
The labour force which is widely considered to be persons falling between 15 – 64 years accounted for 57 percent of the total population. Based on the recent events it will be the in the interest of every citizen to ensure that the youth are engaged to minimise chances of falling in crime and other undesirable activities.
Given experiences in other countries, there are various factors that have proved to be critical in a country’s realisation of a demographic dividend.
They include skills development, entrepreneurship, employment, youth empowerment, health and wellbeing.
Notably, the current administration promised to put in place measures that are geared towards empowerment of the youthful population.
These include the roll of DigiTalent which is a programme that provides internships to graduates to improve their ICT knowledge and skills through collaboration between the public and private sectors.
Technology is major economic driver across the world and has the capacity of transforming the country.
Kenya stands at a vantage point due to the wide roll out and considerable coverage of internet infrastructure.
Several technology companies have set up their operating hubs in Kenya with many IT start up’s starting their operations in the country.
There is no doubt a reliable pool of educated and skilled persons who are able to take on challenging tasks.
The government must continuously invest in digital resources that should be available to the underprivileged in the society.
This will enable many unemployed youths who currently may not have a reliable source of income to engage in productive economic activities.
The gig economy presents an opportunity for the youth who can offer their services remotely to organisations across the world.
The world is undergoing transformation which may reduce demand for permanent employees with organisations preferring to hire on-demand basis thus spurring the gig economy.
Inevitably, the economy may not produce sufficient employment opportunities to absorb all the young people who are actively seeking jobs.
It will thus be critical that the government relentlessly promotes entrepreneurship.
This will largely entail spurring growth of small and medium enterprises who make up a large proportion of the informal sector.
It is notable that the informal sector accounts for a substantial proportion of the total employment outside of small-scale agriculture.
It thus plays a critical role it plays in employment creation, production, and income generation.
Small and medium enterprises face numerous challenges that at times hinder their growth and potential of transforming into large enterprises.
Requirements to have multiple licenses, payment of fees and permits that are issued by the national and county governments are some of the issues that need addressing.
While revenue collection is critical being a key source of finances it should strike a healthy balance between revenue collection and supporting entrepreneurship.
The country’s agricultural sector is still the biggest source of job opportunities though both forward and backward linkages.
The government should step up efforts to support value addition, share information of market opportunities, set up aggregation centres, among other targeted initiatives to make agriculture a viable option for the youthful population.
It must also encourage greenfield local and foreign direct investment. This is because the set-up of new factories, hubs, organisations create new employment opportunities.
It must also work closely with existing businesses to address their challenges so that the current employment opportunities are protected and even expanded further to accommodate the youthful segment of the population.
The government should also consider charging the Kenya Investment Authority (KenInvest) with the responsibility of having regular discussions with all organisations that they approve to ensure that they get timely insights of the operating environment and business challenges.
Kenya can then institute interventions to prevent cessation of businesses, relocation to other countries, among other issues.
By and large, Kenya has an opportunity of transforming the huge youthful population into a demographic dividend.
Robert Maina is an Associate Director at Ernst & Young LLP (EY). The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of EY.
