The Jubilee Party’s transformation programme aims to harness the creative energy of the youth by providing skills and opportunities to young people to take our country to the next level.

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In its Manifesto for the next five years, the ruling party promises to ensure there is a dedicated organisation – a Youth Development Council - working to facilitate the necessary training, skills building and mentoring to link young people with these jobs.

The Youth Development Council will provide coordination of all youth related activities and facilitate the necessary training, skills building and mentoring to link young people with emerging job opportunities.

It also pledged to encourage young people into the entrepreneurial and business sectors. “We will ensure access to sufficient and affordable credit by working with financial institutions to develop appropriate products to support them,” the manifesto says.

Speaking at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani where the manifesto was launched, President Uhuru Kenyatta said his administration has placed the youth at the top of its transformational agenda.

He promised to work for “growth that leaves no one behind; modernisation that secures our future for generations to come; and a prosperity that we can all share and enjoy.”

In the next five years Jubilee will undertake the following to support the youth:

-Establish a Youth Development Council to provide coordination of all youth related activities and facilitate the necessary training, skills building and mentoring to link young people with emerging job opportunities.

-Ensure every young person seeking employment is identified by carrying out a continuous Ward, Constituency and County level registration process through the Ajira Platform. We shall ensure that through the Youth Development Council they are linked to potential employers.

-Ensure more opportunities for employment for youth by transforming the National Youth Service to implement commercial projects in Kenya and abroad.

-Expand the participation of young people in national development and guarantee that 30% of all appointments, projects and budgets specifically target them.

-Link training and skills building to jobs, we will attach every youth registered through the Ajira Platform, to a specific public project such as the building of roads and housing, irrigation, water infrastructure and electrification projects.

-Encourage organisations to take on board interns by expanding the tax incentive framework. n Prepare highly talented young people to work in the Public Service by introducing a Young Professionals Management Programme.

-Establish the Biashara Bank by merging the Micro and Small Enterprise Authority, the Youth Enterprises Development Fund, the Women Enterprises Fund and the Uwezo Fund to provide coordination in the delivery of affordable financing and support for business development.

-Provide structured support to the creative sectors, which have high potential for youth employment including film music and fashion and bring them into the mainstream economy.

-Scale up the “Studio Mashinani” and “Talent pia ni Kazi” where young people can affordably record and expose their creative talent to the market as we harness their talent to create new jobs.

The achievements Jubilee has recorded in empowering the youth over the last four years are:

-Expanded the youth empowerment programme by providing low interests loans to youth owned enterprises to enable them to grow their businesses. This has increased from Ksh4.9bn accessed by 407,793 young people in 6 years up to 2013 to Ksh11.8bn disbursed to 893,438 young people under the Youth Enterprise Development Fund. This support has enabled young people to participate in economic development and provided opportunities for formal and self-employment.

-Increased the number of young people recruited through the National Youth Service (NYS) from 4,000 in 2013 to 37,005 in 2016.

-Ksh42.8 billion has been awarded to youth, women and people with disabilities through the 30% procurement Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO) benefiting close to 40,000 businesses and 200,000 people in the supply chain.

-Trained over 12,000 Micro, Small and Medium enterprises in entrepreneurship and management in the past four years compared to none in 2012-13.