Stakeholders in the digital economy and the labour market have partnered to generate employment opportunities to the youth through the digitization of the Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs).
The Twende Digital Program in partnership with the Twiva Social Commerce Platform with strategic backing of the Challenge Fund for Youth Empowerment (CFYE) have embarked on a programme to create decent work opportunities for Kenyan youth.
Speaking at the event, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Global Director, Youth and Jobs Kenya KEPSA Dr Ehud Gachugu recalled that gains were made since the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) last year premiered the first phase of the Twende digital program but was optimistic there was room for improvement.
He maintained that KEPSA’s reason to support businesses is because its key mandate is to ensure that businesses are thriving in whatever manner, beyond just the policies and also to ensure the right policies are in place within a conducive business environment.
Further, Dr Gachugu added that there is also the direct support they can give each other through aspects like networking, capacity building and access to market which connects people to larger and bigger enterprises through national and multinational members of their organization.
The Director highlighted that the private sector sits at the center of intersections including matters of job creation, economic development and social development hence, a well surviving and thriving private sector that has a clear understanding of its role in an economy is an important engine.
“Statistics have been shared that we cannot solve the issue of youth unemployment if we do not address the issues that are impeding businesses from growth,” he implored.
Meanwhile, The Deputy County Lead for CFYE Paul Ngugi maintained that the organization has a mandate of creating decent jobs to youths across Africa, Kenya being one of them.
“We are mandated to bring about 55,000 jobs created for young people in business and also in wages and employment where the youths take up 50 percent and this is done through competitive bidding of challenges,” he explained.
Ngugi highlighted that CFYE is working together with Twiva and KEPSA to create jobs, improve jobs, match jobs or match youths to jobs by ensuring that these youths can be able to access the right capital and markets in order to expand their businesses and improve their earnings.
In a quick rejoinder, Twiva Chief Operating Officer Joy Mwangi defined Twiva as a social commerce platform that enables businesses to efficiently market and sell through a trusted reseller.
“We work with businesses to give them a voice of influence through influencer marketing, twitter trend and Whatsapp seeding. This means, getting the right kind of voice to talk on behalf of your brand,” she elaborated.
Speaking during the launch, Mwangi added that Twiva gets to support businesses with logistics and the fulfillment to see how a customer gets their product through the partners that they make.
In his remarks, Chief SME and Enterprise Development Officer Mr Harrison Ngatia posited that there are around 7.5 million businesses in Kenya and out of these, 90 percent are SMEs which generate over 84 percent of employment opportunities.
Additionally, the SMEs also generate around 40 percent in terms of the National Gross Domestic Product (GDP), however, most of them are unlicensed and operate informally.
He assured that at SME and Enterprise Development, they are working towards ensuring businesses thrive by providing linking to funding, linkage to markets, capacity building and innovation.
Further, Ngatia revealed that the Junior Growth Program is a seven-member consortium in partnership with Mastercard Foundation that aims at providing funds to SMEs and so far, the partnership has supported over 3000 businesses with funding of over $108 million.
He announced that there are different opportunities for funding including the Working Capital, Asset Financing and Local Purchase Order financing (LPO) but the major types of funding are micro loans for small loans and SME loans.
By Glory Mukhwana and Rebecca Kibegwa
