To grow, counties need to focus on youth

The 47 county governments will now receive slightly more than the Sh226 billion in the next financial year.

Though this is not a big hike, the bigger challenge is now on the devolved units to help spur more inclusive growth at the grassroots.

When Kenyans endorsed the 2010 Constitution, devolution was the greatest gain, especially for the remotest and rural Kenya.

Kenyans now had a huge opportunity to put hitherto marginalised regions at some acceptable level of development with the rest of the country.

While the counties have suffered all manner of teething problems, the challenges were expected including supremacy wars, too much politics and abuse of office claims.

There were also challenges in putting up physical structures like offices where even location was always a hot issue.

However, Kenyans have had a glimpse of what devolution can do on resource and power distribution.

Counties that had not enjoyed a good measure of health services, education, passable roads or even governance have had a welcome change.

Now, my two cents worth of advice to the nascent counties is to begin taking on the youth unemployment challenge across the country.

Reports indicate that unemployment among Kenyan youth stands at 40 per cent.

This means many youthful and energetic persons are not gainfully employed or engaged in decent income-generating activity.

This is an indictment on our part as Government, private business sector, politicians, scholars, policy makers and even individual citizens.

The county governments should help ease this ticking time bomb by initiating viable projects for the skilled and unskilled youth in their respective areas.

This does not necessarily means employing them as county staff, but by identifying projects and mobilising them into action.

This may be in form of farming projects, bee-keeping schemes, fish rearing or even efficient transport services.

The projects should be county specific because every region has its needs. Every Governor should take up this challenge to ease the worrying and growing number of youths wallowing in poverty.

These projects, if well managed, do not even require a lot of money.

They just need a focused county government team able to inspire presently idle youths into some profitable activity.

With an empowered youth, county governments will help reduce the poverty index across the country and ease negative trends like heightened rural-to-urban migration.

It has been shown that idle youths in the upcountry run to towns and cities, creating other challenges like emergence of slums and vices like crime and drug abuse.

Should a good number of young people be gainfully engaged in their 'home' county, they will have no reason to migrate to towns.

Still, the county governments stand to gain if their youthful populations are gainfully engaged at 'home' because eventually they will be able to pay rates and other levies.

The counties will also begin generating substantial income to sustain quality services to constituents.

We have talked for so long on the huge potential among our youth, who form nearly 70 per cent of the population.

So why not take up this challenge and let present and future Governors champion youth empowerment?