Kenyan youth interested in starting businesses are set to receive Ksh50,000 each starting in September this year, President William Ruto has announced.
The Head of State made the announcement on Saturday morning during the Nairobi County empowerment gathering at State House in Nairobi, where he held an open forum with county residents.
Ruto, who was accompanied by senior Nairobi County officials, including Governor Johnson Sakaja, said he had already reached an agreement with the World Bank to ensure the programme was successful.
He revealed that the government would soon release Ksh5 billion to be distributed to 70 youth in each ward across the country who are interested in starting small-scale businesses.
According to the President, the programme will support over 100,000 youth nationwide, further emphasising the government’s commitment to addressing challenges facing young people.
“I have said that, beginning next month, we have agreed with the World Bank that youths in each ward will receive business support. Seventy youths in each ward will receive Ksh50,000 to start their businesses,” Ruto announced.
He went on to emphasise: “It won’t be wards in Nairobi alone; it will be in all the wards across the country. That means more than 100,000 youth will receive Ksh50,000 each.”
The money will be strictly distributed to youth registered under the National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (NYOTA) programme.
NYOTA is a five-year transformative agenda by the government, funded by the World Bank. It aims to empower youth by addressing unemployment, income insecurity, and limited savings.
Ruto's promise comes hardly a week after the government called on Kenyans applying for the NYOTA programme to be vigilant and rely only on official communication channels amid rising concerns over fake online pages targeting youths.
In a statement released on Monday, August 4, the programme administrators reiterated that NYOTA is free of charge and that applicants are not required to pay for any services.
They also clarified that only official NYOTA pages are authorised to share updates about the programme, and that updates will only be shared through verified social media handles.
“Next steps on all applications will be communicated to applicants via the phone numbers used during the application process, as well as official announcements shared on the project website and relevant social media channels,” the NYOTA administrators said.
