from MARIA MACHARIA in Nairobi, Kenya
Kenya Bureau
NAIROBI, (CAJ News) – KENYA’S private sector aims to create and enhance employment opportunities for over 3 000 youths, particularly women, through digitally enabled job opportunities by 2025.
Through the initiative dubbed Twende Digital, thousands of digital content creators are linked to direct work opportunities.
The Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) in partnership with Twiva Today have launched the project which is being funded by the Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE), to oversee the creation of work opportunities for young digital content creators while supporting small and medium enterprises in adopting the use of technology through intensive capacity building and technical assistance on the use of
digital skills and platforms.
The selected businesses will enjoy digitisation services and tools for free for the next 12 months including influencer marketing service credits, content creation credits, access to business digital coaches, access to influencers or resellers to help resell the SMEs’ goods, linkage to logistics and fulfilment partners, digital marketing training and the digital marketing advisory services.
Twende Digital majorly focuses on addressing the critical issue of youth unemployment, where the recent statistics by the Kenya National Bureau Statistics indicated that over 50 percent of the 2,97 million jobless Kenyans are in the ages of 18 to 29 years.
“A great lesson we have drawn in executing employment projects in Kenya is the fact that meaningful youth participation is a key factor in attracting and retaining youth in employment,” said Paul Ngugi, Deputy Country Lead of CFYE.
CFYE plans to create 230 000 jobs for young people in Africa by 2026.
“These jobs should be dignified and fulfilling work as per the African strategy of good jobs and good salaries,” Ngugi said.
KEPSA believes enterprises stand to have a great chance of unlocking the wealth of opportunities and building a global competitive advantage through adoption and prioritizing digitisation.
“Besides providing solutions for the growth of these businesses, digitization has brought about new and more exciting work opportunities for the young people in Kenya” said Dr Ehud Gachugu, Director of Youth and Jobs at KEPSA.
As a social commerce platform that gives micro, small, and medium enterprises digital access to markets through content creators, Twiva will play a pivotal role in supplying experienced social media influencers and resellers as well as the social commerce platforms to market and resell goods and services on behalf of these SMEs.
This will then see the creation of work opportunities for the influencers while at the same time boosting the productivity of the SMEs through the integration of digital technologies.
“The anticipated impact of the Twende Digital project is not just a statistic; it’s a transformation,” Peter Kironji, CEO and co-founder, Twiva.
Twiva aims to increase the average income of employed youth from less than KSh10 000 to KSh25 000.
“Job satisfaction rates among the youth are not merely a metric; they represent a shift in the narrative of what it means to find meaningful work,” Kironji said.
– CAJ News