THEME: Jobs Can't-Wait: Scaling Youth-led SMES, Improving Economic and Entrepreneurship Outcomes in Kenya
Concept of the event
To help philanthropists, foundations, and other funders in the space better understand this evolving sector, The Youth Cafe and the Presidential Economic Transformation Secretariat are hosting a physical private donor roundtable to hear from industry experts — innovators and advisors who are working with economic systems today in the private sector and in philanthropy.
These experts will help funders begin to make sense of how they can best support this burgeoning field so their investments yield the greatest impact.
The Youth Cafe is currently collaborating with the Presidential Economic Transformation Secretariat on ways to Deliver resilient entrepreneurs and market systems (DREAMS) for youth. ‘DREAMS’ for Youth. The excitement around youth contribution to economic development under the BottomUp Economic Agenda (BETA) abounds. Yet implications — and opportunities — for philanthropy can be hard to discern.
There is a need to equip youth in Kenya with Business Development Services/Entrepreneurship Training, provide affordable trading sites to youth entrepreneurs, support youth in accessing markets, and form linkages with large enterprises needed to become successful entrepreneurs.
TYC plans to scale and evaluate DREAMS by Promoting youth-friendly health services that provide comprehensive healthcare; Promoting Affordable Housing through Youth-Driven Public-Private Partnerships, Financing, and Mortgages in Kenya; Enhancing Youth MSMEs in climate-smart Crop Production, Livestock, and Fisheries for Sustainable Development in Kenya; and Empowering Youth-Led MSMEs in the Digital and Creative Economy in Kenya
Jobs Can't Wait: Scaling youth-led SMES, Improving Economic and Entrepreneurship Outcomes in Kenya will scale the proven Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) model comprehensive entrepreneurship program by innovating technologies, educating young entrepreneurs and the next generation of inventors, demonstrating efficacy and cost-effectiveness; and building a sustainable entrepreneurship network. We hope the effort will pioneer Economic Freedom by Building Sustainable Youth Entrepreneurship in Kenya toward national development.
Concretely, the program is mobilising With $1,000,000-5,000,000 to empower 300,000 to 500,000 Next Gen Youth in underserved communities to Flex their Economic Power — ensuring they no longer make the tradeoff between education and employment.
TYC will train over 1.5 million young Kenyans on its digital hub, TYC Connect, and disburse nearly USD 1 million in direct funding to 10,000 Kenyan young women and men, who will collectively create over 400,000 direct and indirect jobs. Impacted young entrepreneurs will simultaneously improve their Economic Mobility Through Employment. This will conservatively allow 2-3 times (and up to 10x) as many clients.
Within three years, this project plans to drive economic mobility directly and indirectly for over 200,000 unemployed or under-employed job seekers and reach additional more than 2,000,000 million young people with a focus on 27 historically disinvested communities and counties of Kenya, reducing youth unemployment by 50% at a cost of $51.48 per entrepreneur and catalysing scale in Kenya in 25 counties in 3 years.
The overarching objective is to strengthen the youth empowerment/support/ ecosystem and build strong local institutions/resilient communities, hence bringing the stakeholders together to a roundtable to draw a roadmap towards the same.
Outcomes include Identifying/mapping, coalescing and sensitising stakeholders in the youth support/empowerment ecosystem; A roadmap for strengthening the ecosystem; Strong and sustainable local institutions/communities; Higher contribution by youth to national development; Higher inclusion in policy formulation and other platforms/ raised voices.