The Kenyan Government and the World Bank are ironing out details of a collaboration that will provide young mothers with a monthly stipend to accommodate their needs.
According to the President's Senior Economic Advisor Moses Kuria, the mothers will receive this monthly income during their pregnancies until their children turn three.
In addition to the stipend, Kuria revealed that they will also receive a monthly Ksh1,000 to be paid to the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) to encourage the saving culture.
"We have a special package for young mothers. Right from pregnancy up to three years, we will give them a stipend to survive. Ksh1,000 will go to their NSSF savings," he expounded.
Apart from young mothers, all youths are also set to benefit from the programme dubbed NYOTA which will see 100,000 Kenyan youth receive grants comprising up to Ksh50,000.
Speaking in a radio interview on Monday, Kuria revealed that the system would benefit Kenyan youth, not just in skills training but also by issuing them grants to start businesses.
"We have a wonderful programme between the World Bank and the Kenyan Government called the National Youth Opportunity Towards Advancement (NYOTA). NYOTA is an amazing program with two major components; enterprise and skill," he said.
"For the enterprise, we will be recruiting 100,000 young people in a randomised way from the locational level and we will give them some psychosocial training, and skills training, and then we will give them a grant of Ksh50,000 to start businesses and then link them to larger industries for sub-contracting."
In the same vein, Kuria revealed that the skills component of the agreement would see another 100,000 Kenyan youth receive free skills training as well as matching them to relevant industries both locally and internationally.
Of these, 20,000 of them would be set aside for refugees in the country.
While working in these corporates after training programmes, Kuria revealed that they would be getting monthly payments.
Kuria concluded that the initiative was a concerted effort by the government to counter the economic crisis that has been plaguing the nation.
