Youth Participation In Human Rights Accountability, Politics And Governance | Baseline Survey Report

Executive Summary

Siasa Place, The Youth Café, Purpose and Article 19 in partnership with other key stakeholders commissioned a baseline survey with a view to identifying the demographic and socio – economic position of young people in Kenya, relative to their engagement in human rights accountability, politics and governance.

The organizations came together and developed data collection tools for the survey. Evoke Global, the consultant, was commissioned on the 15th of October 2021 to analyse the collected data and prepare a report. The survey sought to provide information relative to the following objectives:

1. To promote the presence and the role of young people as positive actors of change.

2. To strengthen the role of young people in identifying and speaking up against human rights violations, including discrimination, disinformation, misinformation and hate speech.

3. Collect, curate data and information from the youth about their needs and aspirations, create platforms for the youth to demand or challenge for the fulfilment of these needs and aspirations.

4. Influence political party manifesto & policy.

5. To support the youth to form a movement that promotes their self-defined agenda.

6. Promote non-violence amongst the youth.

The basis of the baseline survey was due to the fact that youth between the ages of 18-35 years form the critical core of the voting mass. Available data from the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission places the youth voting population at 51% of the national voting population. The net effect of this is that the youth in Kenya are, on the basis of their demographic representation alone, strategically placed to influence policy decisions on specific national issues touching on both the current and future of all spheres of the national prosperity through informed participation in governance structures and political choices. Likewise, this accords the youth a front row seat in demands for better governance and accountability through public participation.

Article 55 of the constitution of Kenya compels the state to put in place adequate measures, including affirmative action programs, to ensure that the youth have access relevant education and training; have opportunities to associate, be represented and participate in political, social, economic and other spheres of life; access employment; and are protected from harmful cultural practices and exploitation.

While there exists a myriad of protections and legal provisions for youth participation in human rights, governance and accountability, their voice seems drowned by both current and emerging socio-political issues owing to either lack of adequate awareness, subtle or overt incidences of discrimination by age, limited economic muscle to influence decisions among others. Legal provisions are just but a drop in the ocean in addressing challenges of the youth in an economy with a ballooning youthful population.

Findings from similarly themed research done by other organizations indicate that inadequate awareness by the youth on matters central to their participation in governance has greatly inhibited their public participation. Inadequate skills necessary to participate in public decision making has also greatly contributed to non-participation of the youth in decision making.

Key Findings

This survey gathered information from 309 respondents with females representing 51.5% while 47.9% were males. The representation of the respondents was well balanced. The respondents were drawn from 36 counties, with Nairobi accounting for the highest number of respondents at 33%. The survey further noted that 88% of the respondents had attained postsecondary level of education while 11% had education up to secondary school level.

To assess the current socio-economic concerns of the respondents, the research sought to cluster the areas of their concern on the basis of high prices/taxes, corruption, unemployment, poverty, security and hunger/famine. When the respondents were asked to pick the issues of their highest concern, high prices and taxation, unemployment and poverty formed the greatest three areas of concern for the respondents at 57.6%, 14.9% and 14.2% respectively.

The respondents were given the chance to highlight the next issue of most concern from the same options as above, and unemployment, corruption and healthcare ranked the highest scores with 41.4%, 18.8% and 12.9% respectively. The respondents were least concerned about mental health, non-representation for the youth and extra-judicial killings.

From the myriad of issues identified above, the survey sought to understand whether the young people were motivated to take action and what help they required. 33.7% of the respondents said that they have been looking for jobs to address the unemployment issue, 25% confirmed that they used social media as their way of voicing their concerns. Majority of the respondents at 66.3% looked up to their family for motivation to take action.

Overall, social media has presented an alternative voice for awareness creation as the youth appear to be aware of the socio-economic issues and challenges surrounding them and a good proportion of them have been able to speak up on them through social media. The challenge of misinformation and disinformation seems to be significantly at play, with more than 70% of the youth saying they have at least once been exposed to misleading information. Thankfully, an equally greater proportion of them noted that they always fact-check information accessed through social media.

The youth were polled on the issue of health awareness and nutrition and mental health came across as the main concerns they have. Of least concern to the youth polled was the issue of STI testing. 53.1% of the respondents confirmed to have been vaccinated and 46.9% have not. Out of the 309 participants of 309, 49% confirmed to have known someone who contracted the Covid disease.

The lack of internal democracy within the political parties, the ethnic nature of political party following as well as flawed electoral systems within the political parties have kept most of the youth away from participating in the affairs of political parties. These, coupled with the low understanding of political participation among the youth continue to inhibit their ability to actively participate and influence political party policy and manifesto. A lot more needs to be invested to scale up the youth participation in political parties.

In order to fully tap into the potential for the youth to participate in the various socioeconomic and political issues this report proposes a raft of recommendations to complement current interventions at both the grassroots implementation and policy level.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The full implementation of the constitutional provisions safeguarding the rights of the youth to participate in governance structures across all spheres of the political, social and economic spectrum, coupled with targeted awareness campaigns will go a long way in scaling up youth participation in the same.

The following recommendations were proposed as an intervention for the findings above;

1. Promoting the role and presence of the youth as change actors through continuous civic engagements and education through partnering with educational institutions as hubs for capacity building for the youth leaders.

2. Strengthen the youth voice in speaking up against all forms of human rights violations, discrimination, misinformation and disinformation by sensitization on the channels available for the youth to express themselves and report cases of rights violations. It is also pertinent that the youth be sensitized on the negative implications of sharing unverified and misleading information on social media.

3. Help the youth to navigate social and economic issues affecting them by mobilizing the youth through youth groups and civil society actors to understand the various provisions of law and avenues dedicated to improving their livelihoods. They also need to be trained on skills for income generation as well as opportunities available for funding to support their businesses.

4. Increase the voice of the youth in influencing political party manifesto and policy by implementing capacity building programs for existing youthful leaders in political parties to advocate and lobby for youth friendly political party reforms. There is also a need to sensitize and create awareness for youth registration within political parties and a full implementation of the Political Parties Act 2011 to unlock provisions of the constitution on youth participation.

5. There is need for young serving organizations or youth aspiring for political office to mobilize other youth to come up with a manifesto that will be a representation of the youth’s opportunities, challenges and aspirations in Kenya

The Youth Café welcomes your insights and thoughts on this report.

Contact us for any comments or suggestions.