Africa-Press – Kenya. The government targets supporting 2 million youth through various components of the Nyota programme, Deputy President Kithure Kindiki has revealed.
The DP said the first phase of the National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (Nyota) initiative has been successfully implemented, with 1 million beneficiaries set to be supported through the project’s multiple components.
“The way NYOTA was crafted was to reach 820, 000 young people through its various components. But we are now set to reach one million direct beneficiaries,” Kindiki said.
The Deputy President spoke on Wednesday when he met respective Cabinet Secretaries, Principal Secretaries and heads of agencies for a review of Nyota and KJET programmes at the Official Residence in Karen.
The current programme is being implemented in partnership with the World Bank, but upon its expiry, the government will continue financing it in a bid to support more young people.
“Even after the expiry of the current project, which we are partnering with the World Bank, the government will allocate additional resources to reach more young people. We are going to target another one million youth in phase two of the project,” DP indicated.
The first phase saw beneficiaries from each of the wards in the country receive 22, 000 shillings to boost their micro and small businesses.
They are in line to receive another Sh22,000 upon assessment of their progress. In total, they are allocated Sh50,000, including Sh6,000 set aside as savings.
The DP said the programme has been received well across the country after it was rejigged and streamlined to be in line with the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda.
“This is a serious intervention for the young people who ordinarily would not have been reached by the various government interventions. Many of them told us in the field that the initial disbursement of 22, 000 shillings was the highest amount of money they had ever handled. You can imagine what the total sum of 50, 000 shillings would mean to the hundreds of thousands of young people set to benefit,” he noted.
The Deputy President also said the Kenya Jobs and Economic Transformation (KJET) empowerment programme is being fine-tuned in order to support more young entrepreneurs.
The project has been allocated 20 billion shillings and targets boosting established businesses to generate higher income and employ more Kenyans.
“We are looking at ways to make it more beneficial for more entrepreneurs. We want to cut unnecessary expenditure and make sure as many businesses and young people are direct beneficiaries. In the next few weeks, we will announce how KJET will be rolled out,” DP said.
