The government has revealed strict monitoring and accountability mechanisms to ensure funds disbursed under the National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (NYOTA) programme are utilised accordingly.
Principal Secretary for the State Department for Youth Affairs and Creative Economy, Fikirini Jacobs, spoke during a TV interview on Tuesday, October 14, where he revealed the government had consultants in place to empower and monitor beneficiaries of the fund.
"On the government’s side, we are well-prepared. We’ve said we will do things differently from previous projects. Here, we have a strong system for audit, monitoring, and evaluation. We have our consultants who will guide them on business matters. For example, in the State Department of Youth, we have youth officers in every subcounty whose main job is to engage with these young people," the PS revealed.
Despite PS Fikirini's emphasis on the government's measures to ensure accountability, he also emphasised that youth applying for the fund should already have a business idea in mind.
He added, "Even before the government gets involved, you yourself have a responsibility to ensure that this money is used properly."
"I don’t want it to appear as though the government is forcing young people to go into business when they are not interested. These are young people who applied on their own; they are the ones who underwent the Entrepreneurial Aptitude Test (EAT), received four days of business training, and were taught how to save, and then they were given the funds to develop themselves."
The PS also addressed the daunting question of the selection criteria for beneficiaries of the NYOTA programme, particularly because well over 1.1 million youth have already applied.
According to the PS, individuals who had attained higher learning and college education would not be given priority, since the initiative mainly targeted youth whose education level ended at high school.
"There are 75,000 youths who have higher education, yet they have not applied. Those ones will certainly not get the grant," he clarified. "Then, those who have a college education and have skills were 200,000. So, based on the eligibility criteria, they will also not get the grants.
Once the government has filtered eligible applicants, the beneficiaries would be picked through a randomisation process.
He added, "The system will do randomisation from everyone who is eligible. We won't only take 100,000; we will shortlist 200,000 people because of the possibility of replacements."
NYOTA is a five-year transformative agenda by the government, funded by the World Bank. It aims to empower youths by addressing unemployment, income insecurity, and limited savings.
The programme aims to provide Ksh50,000 in grants for 70 young people selected from each of the 1,450 wards in Kenya, enabling them to launch business ventures.
