African youth declare that governments must foster entrepreneurship to eradicate poverty

The 1st World Youth Meeting at Bari, Italy ended yesterday where African delegates released a Declaration that recognised the challenges African youth face including unemployment, corruption,  poverty, lack of access to meaningful education, climate change effects, and civil wars among others.

The Declaration further demanded that African youth be included in decision making and that poverty eradication approaches focus on entrepreneurship development, specifically through the creation of youth funds.

Read the Declaration here

Kenya's grey haired brigade score five more years

Kenyan's aging civil servants received a shot in the arm from Public Service Minister Dalmas Otieno who announced yesterday that the retirement age in the civil service has been raised to 60 years from the current 55.

This flies in the face of Kenya's socio-demographic statistics. For instance, 94% of the population is under 55 years old.

On the other hand, youth unemployment (that is citizens well under the current retirement age of 55) account for 3 million of the population.

Somehow the mathematics don't quite add up.

Or is it that the coalition government is more interested in keeping their cronies employed and only pay lip service to youth employment?

Don't just create jobs - empower the employer

Juma sits on a bench at the Kenyatta National Hospital waiting to be called for his physiotherapy session. He has been coming every week for the last two months after he got injured in a car accident whilst driving the company car.

A driver by occupation, Juma was employed by Antoinette the owner of a small boutique in Nairobi. He has always had a good relationship with his boss who also happens to be his aunt, but recently he can see that she is not as happy with him as she was before.

Everyone in the boutique, including Juma knows the reason for this. It is because he can no longer drive and it is now becoming a drain on Antoinette to keep paying his salary as well as his medical bills.

As an employee of a micro or small enterprise, Juma is hardly any different from what other employees in such businesses face. It came to pass that Juma lost his job at the end of August. Antoinette explained that she needed a driver and as he was unable to handle a car for the next few months, she had to hire someone else.

Decent work

Job creation seems to be the buzz word going around these days. Even the newly inaugurated second National Economic and Social Council was directed by President Kibaki to address youth unemployment. There are approximately 3 million unemployed youths, but are they really any worse off than our recently unemployed friend Juma?

This week marked the commemoration of the World Day for Decent Work. The day brought together global trade union advocates with the declaration that every person on earth should have access to a “job that enables them to live a good life in which their basic needs are met”.

Not just any jobs, but decent jobs.

To most people around the world, lack of decent work means poverty. A 2007 UNDP on employment in Kenya (Pollin et. al) found that the earnings received by the majority of Kenyan working people placed them close to the official food consumption poverty line. In their survey on non-agricultural enterprises, monthly earnings in 2007 for employees was Kshs. 2,370 for all firms, Kshs. 2,200 for informal and 6,000 for formal sector enterprises. The informal sector salary is well below the national minimum wage level.

In the same year, about 475,000 jobs were created in the informal sector whilst formal sector jobs went down 50,000 positions. This is why the push for entrepreneurship development has become even more vigorous. The government understands that entrepreneurs are the drivers of economic prosperity and empowering them translates into jobs.

The 475,000 jobs created last year is no mean feat, but can they really be described as jobs? With the majority of the positions being low paying, with low job security, working within poor workplace conditions. Even the unions do not have much clout in these small enterprises so the workers have virtually no social protection or recourse in the event of job dismissal.

One cannot blame these small businesses or their owners for that matter. They are also struggling and face challenges on a daily basis. This mainly results from sub-optimal capitalization, shortage of entrepreneurial skills, weak market linkages and lack of business development services and associative networks. The overall result is an extremely high rate of enterprise death.

So Juma is without a job, all because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, he has lost his livelihood. And you really can’t blame Antoinette either, she has a business to run.

Decent Job Creation

Just creating jobs is not enough. There are various reforms that will ensure that enterprises are able to offer rewarding job placements. These are just a few:

• Improving the physical and financial infrastructure in order to enhance private enterprise productivity and competitiveness;
• Ensuring greater access to financial resources especially for institutionalization and expansion.
• Ensuring that an enabling environment for business is in place.
• Promoting entrepreneurship development by ensuring that the three keys for entrepreneurship supply of entrepreneurial spirit, human and venture capital are abundantly in place.
• Providing technical assistance and business development services to MSMEs;
  

In short, first ensure that the entrepreneur can pay a decent wage, then act on job creation.

Notes from the bleachers at the National Youth Convention ‘08

An extraordinary session of the The National Youth Convention opened yesterday at the Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi. The theme of the largest gathering of Kenyan youth this year, was the reconstruction, reconciliation and reform.

Speeches by the organisers centered on the need for the youth to be more proactive in Kenya. Kenyan youth were accused of saying nothing when each election resulted in the appointment of leaders who do not have their best interests at heart. Now is the time to fix the wrongs of the past, the convention delegates were told. They were asked from now on, as leaders, to consider themselves as engines of change and to challenge the status quo.

Regarding entrepreneurship, nominated MP, Hon. Rachel Shebesh decried the slow pace of the National Youth Policy Draft being tabled in parliament seven months into the current parliament. She also advised the youth to be cautious about the proposed method of grassroot elections for the National Youth Council. Reminding the delegates of how the Maendeleo Ya Wanawake elections had in the past been manipulated by the political class, Shebesh told the youth to ensure that the election method would be inclusive and representative.

How can you have a Ministry with no policy?

The governments commitment to improving the welfare of the youth was called into question.

The Youth Ministry was termed as being there solely for “PR” purposes. Being toothless, not only does it operate without any policy, but it is there to hoodwink Kenyans of the governments commitment to the youth. Furthermore, the same Youth Ministry does not even have the creation of jobs for the youth under its mandate.

The youth fund was also termed as a “shame”, which brought loud applause from the delegates. Many participants decried the fact that they had no access to the funds and were even unaware of the process to receive the funds. Some asked, why is the government force-feeding the youth to be entrepreneurs? Why spend all those years in school in order to be given Kshs. 10,000 to have a boda boda business?

Our view is that if the fund is going to make any real impact in the lives of youth entrepreneurs, it should:

• ensure that ALL youth nationwide have access to information about the fund, skills on how to apply for the funds, and close access to the financial intermediaries.
• The fund should not only target groups. That in our view is grossly disrespecting the youth of Kenya. As Hon. Kabando wa Kabando who was present at the convention said, repayment of loans was over 90%. That intimates that the youth are not out just to be given money and not pay it back. Why lie? Why should one have to go find other youths in order to be given a pepper corn amount that will only just barely put any enterprise on the ground? Why? …

Well, Hon. Raila Odinga who also attended said that the fund needs to be adressed. Kenyan youth entrepreneurs, let’s make sure it is!

Kenyan youth UNITE … in Obama-speak: YES WE CAN!