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Africa Knows! It is time to decolonise minds

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Accepted Paper: G42-04. To panel G42.

Title of paper:

Authors:

Purity Ngina (Zizi Afrique);

John Mugo (Zizi Afrique);

Eunice Kibathi (Safaricom and M-Pesa Foundation).

Long abstract paper:
Youth unemployment is a leading crisis in Kenya. Recent evidence establishes that youth unemployment correlates with gender, geographic location, level of education and household socio-economic status. In some areas in Kenya, over 80 percent of youth from the lowest wealth quintile are unemployment. The lack of access to information exacerbates the situation, especially given that two thirds of youth in rural areas receive information through the word of mouth, and only a third through all the other media combined. Receiving this evidence, Safaricom Foundation, a Kenyan Foundation has established a scholarship programme to counter this crisis. The programme focuses on the most excluded youth, and uses evidence to define these. The program then targets partnerships with two civil society organizations, 12 training institutions and over 100 industry actors to equip 700 youth with skills, train them in life skills and employability competences, place them into internships and link them to industry for employment. Among the key markers of success are a 60:40 gender ratio in favour of female, and at least 5 percent disability target. This paper shares the intricate challenges to female youth's availability to the scholarship programme, between the target (60:40) and the achieved (20:80). The paper moves on to share gendered narratives from youth not in employment, education or training, while tracing these limitations to cultural, economic and educational challenges facing women on the continent. The evidence and the stories provided by the paper will open up space for discussion and solution seeking to encounter the gender limitations, based on three key questions:

1. Which challenges are limiting female youth from participating in fully-sponsored and gender-focused training programmes, and how do the youth themselves engage with these?

2. Which mobilization methods might work in locating and nudging participation in sponsored training programmes?

3. How could the prevailing social, cultural and economic blocks be countered to accelerate the economic empowerment of women on the continent?

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