The KKV project
By accepting systems and processes in which they have little to no power, the youth are continually shaken and formed, pulled, and forced into different actions (Honwana and Boeck 2005). Therefore, given their numerical strength and a high degree of mobility, agility, and adaptability, youth lack adequate space to organize hence unable to plan their credible route to realize their potential and fulfill their needs (Akwetey, 2006). The unfriendly selection process has opened up opportunities for corruption in the distribution of work and funds, especially at the county level. For instance, program officers and go-betweens are extorting money from young people to help them get a job. The corruption involving the management and disbursement of funds has generated a negative impression among the youth to the extent where some individuals prefer not to apply for the jobs because they end up not getting paid for the work completed.
To tackle the issue of inadequate monitoring and supervision, the KKV project will need to find better ways to handle the duration of the projects. Because of its short-term existence, the KKV projects may provide a suitable response to temporary shocks but may fail to address long-term development needs. Nearly all of the KKV projects only last for three months. Therefore, they can only serve as a stop-gap measure for cyclical unemployment and tackle the transition of youth from school to work, but might not lift them out of unemployment. Consequently, monitoring of the projects is not such a priority as it is more of a short term operation. The youth are not adequately supervised and end up being paid for a short while but never grasping information on how they can learn to create job opportunities or even survive on their own. Case in point, Chirwa et al. (2004) offer CARE’s experience in Malawi with the Central Region Infrastructure Maintenance Programme (CRIMP) that proposes that 18 months should be the minimum period required to start decreasing chronic poverty and youth unemployment. A comparatively long period allows applicants to develop assets and afterward focus on activities that will enable then to generate revenue.
Lack of proper coordination amongst the ministries and organizations involved in the KKV program has negatively affected the implementation of the youth development programs in Kenya. There were allegations that the slow release of funds by the Treasury has made most of the projects stop. The lack of coordination has also lead to expenditure not being strictly vetted and monitored, which eventually brings about embezzlement and misuse of funds. It is noted that the KKV program has the possibility of revamping to yield better results. Projects in the Kazi Kwa Vijana project, for example, Trees for Jobs, Routine Maintenance of Road Projects, and the Nairobi River Basin Rehabilitation and Restoration, have an extensive capacity for permanent job creation because the services are needed on an ongoing basis. This argument is supported by the fact that the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has established Trees for Jobs as one of their flagship programs for long term realization under the Vision 2030 (Anyidoho et. Al., 2012). The lack of proper coordination has also led to the KKV not having a great exit strategy for the youth and thus not able to solve their primary objective of reducing youth unemployment in the country. Having an effective exit strategy will be able to protect its beneficiaries that have attained the “cut-off age” from shifting back to unemployment.
Even though the KKV projects mostly utilize unskilled labor (planting trees and clearing riverside areas), beneficiaries may be trained in employment skills and other related life skills (the Republic of Kenya, 2008). However, the lack of infrastructural facilities has seen the implementation of this project slow down. Fox and Kaul (2017, p. 19) portray Kenya as a lower-middle-income nation with a strong potential for economic structural change. The high growth rate and the degree of economic diversification are anticipated to encourage favorable conditions for the creation of jobs in the formal sector. Nevertheless, the transformation pace is undermined by poor infrastructure and an under-developed financial system. Despite the growth, there are insufficient jobs in the formal sector, which diminishes many Kenyans’ ability to transcend poverty (World Bank, 2016). For the KKV project to successfully benefit the youth, the Government of Kenya ought to invest in labor-intensive enterprises that will contribute to formal sector jobs. Also, the government should transform the secondary education sector to meet employers’ needs and have projects that will prepare the youth for continuous wealth creation strategies even after the projects are completed. Additionally, the government should establish projects that support youth self-employment in sectors such as agriculture and other informal sectors through household enterprises.