Details

A meeting organized by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) and the Inter-Party Youth Forum (IPYF) brought together 31 young aspirants from across various political parties at Westwind Hotel in Meru on 30th June 2016. The meeting aimed at enhancing youth participation and leadership as well as inter-party engagement with the overall goal to get youth engaged more in political activities, also with regard to the upcoming elections. After having identified the most pressing issues facing youth in their county, the participants democratically elected the representatives of their county to form the Meru Inter-Party Youth County Committee, which will be committed to tackle these issues and bring them forward to the County Government.

The youth of Kenya are faced with a challenging socio-economic and political environment e.g. limited access to and quality of education, limited opportunities to effectively participate in the political, economic and social spheres of life, high levels of unemployment, and marginalization. Even though there are frameworks in the constitutional, legislative and policy environments on issues of youth and development, youth policies as laid out in Kenya has not yet fully been operationalized.

Due to this fact and the evolving changes in the needs of the youth, KAS and IPYF engage jointly with the youth leadership across ten selected counties in order to develop a youth policy paper that will serve as a strong advocacy and engagement tool with the leadership of political parties and governmental officials in addressing and putting the concerns and issues affecting the youth at the center of planning, budgeting, programming and mobilization for action.

Inter-Party Youth Forum unites young political Aspirants

The IPYF was formed in 2009 with the facilitation of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) to offer a platform for young people in politics to dialogue, formulate common approaches, messages and programmes for enhancing youth political participation and leadership within political parties while impacting on the policy direction within the political parties and the country. IPYF is a multi-party forum, it is inclusive and brings together young leaders who are already in political leadership and are aware and interested in policy issues affecting young people of their counties. Amongst others, the forum aims at mentoring young aspirants and increasing the participation of young women and men in political party affairs and leadership through stronger youth leagues. The IPYF has already conducted forums in other counties supported by NDI, and KAS is now building on this initiative by holding ten youth policy consultative forums in ten additional counties in Kenya. Each of the ten county policy forums enable young leaders from across the political divide to interact, discuss and develop consensus on pressing issues affecting the young people they represent, potential responses and solutions and a strategy on how to get government officials to respond to these issues.

Identification of most pressing Issues through democratic Rankings

At the county level, the policy forums are facilitated by the IPYF leadership, staff from KAS and an external facilitator. During the morning sessions, the forums are divided into different groups of youth leaders with whom group discussions are held to identify the most pressing social, economic and political issues of youth of that particular County. The group discussions are then followed up with group presentations in a plenary set-up, where the priority issues for each county are ranked by consolidating the findings from each individual group under the social, economic and political categories. Conclusively, the policy forum considers each of the priorities and identifies key strategies that will help consolidate the power of young people to influence and impact on its change both at the county and at the national level.

Empowering young Leaders to tackle Challenges of their Generation in Meru County

By implementing this forum in Meru County, KAS made an important contribution to capacity building and empowering youth by enhancing their leadership skills and supporting them to get organized: The participants were invited to share information, reflect the situation and prospects of young people in their county and act as responsible representatives of their generation, speaking up for the needs of the people they represent. To strengthen their joint activities in the future, the participants established a WhatsApp Group among others and are planning next steps in order to address the government with their issues, e.g. by establishing a Governor’s Youth Round Table that shall be held on a regular basis.

In Meru County, the young participants of the forum identified the following nine issues as the most pressing social, economic and political challenges their generation is facing:

•Poor education sector (e.g. drop-outs, lack of facilities and school supplies)

•Poor healthcare system

•Drug and substance abuse

•Corruption

•High levels of Unemployment

•Lack of information, resources and training for self-employment opportunities

•Poor representation of youths

•Weak organizational structures, especially amongst marginalized groups (e.g. women, youth)

•Poor public participation