Kazi Mtaani sh2.5billion social protection for hard hit urban youth

Youth under Kazi Mtaani project in Kibera slums, Nairobi, clear trenches. September 5, 2020. [Elvis Ogina,Standard]

Government intervention through the Kazi Mtaani has paid over Sh2.5 billion to thousands of economically hard-hit youth in the informal urban settlements.

Designed to provide social protection programme, Kazi Mtaani concept has seen close to 300,000 youths from the urban informal settlements working on various public works.

Started in July, the Sh10 billion Kazi Mtaani NHP project rolled out its first phase May as an extended public works project to provide social relief by providing jobs and facilitating hygiene interventions to help contain the Covid-19 pandemic in the informal settlements.

With limited budgetary resources, the first Phase of the NHP programme in April paid Sh650 per day in wages for 31,689 informal settlement dwellers for the next two months allowing them to meet their economic needs and ensure community adherence to Covid-19 containment measures.

While the first pilot phase of Kazi Mtaani project funded by the National Government and supported by the World Bank to the tune of Sh700 million, covered selected settlements in the eight counties of Nairobi, Mombasa, Kiambu, Nakuru, Kisumu, Kilifi, Kwale, and Mandera, the second phase now covers all the 47 counties.

In Phase Two, youth are engaged in works of a permanent nature that are supposed to impact society through the creation of access roads, paving of streets, preparation of stabilized soil blocks for the construction of classrooms, painting and repair of public facilities and public toilets as well as planting and growing of trees. 

The ripple effect of such a social protection mechanism has helped tame crime and deliver food to families that would otherwise be hunger stricken with no labour opportunities at their disposal.