Innovative Finance
August 1, 2024
Context
Kenya faces a pressing employment challenge, particularly among its youth, who comprise 25% of the population and experience unemployment rates exceeding 30%. The formal job market is not expanding fast enough to absorb new entrants, youth lack appropriate skills and job-matching mechanisms remain limited. At the same time, digital technology is reshaping economic opportunities. With 98% SIM card ownership, 65% internet access, and 52% smartphone ownership, internet connectivity is increasing in Kenya, improving opportunities to participate in the digital economy. The ICT sector is rapidly expanding, with growing demand for both digital and digitally enabled jobs.
Solution
The Ajira Digital Program, led by Kenya’s Ministry of Information, Communication, and Digital Economy, aims to empower youth (aged 18–35) across all counties to access online and digitally enabled jobs. It offers free training, mentorship, and job linkages in digital work such as transcription, design, social media, and e-commerce.
Central to its delivery are 101 Ajira Youth Empowerment Centers established across Kenya, which provide free walk-in access to the internet, computers, peer networking, and guided support. These centers serve as hubs for free basic digital skills training and entry into gig and freelance work. Additionally, over 40 Ajira Clubs have been created in TVET institutions and universities to extend outreach, offering training, mentorship, and career fairs. These supply-side interventions are led by eMobilis, while demand-side interventions aiming to stimulate job creation for youth in both public and private sectors are led by KEPSA. KEPSA also focuses on enhancing the Ajira portal to provide timely, relevant labour market information and connect trained youth with available digital job opportunities
The program aims to position Kenya as an attractive labor destination for multinational firms while promoting digital job creation within the local private and public sectors. Ajira particularly encourages the participation of young women, aiming to build inclusive pathways into the digital economy.
Impact
Since its launch in 2020, The Ajira Digital Program has demonstrated growing impact in addressing youth unemployment and enhancing digital inclusion in Kenya. By mid-2021, Ajira had connected over 30,000 youth to jobs across all 47 counties. Of this, the private sector engagement program connected more than 29,000 youth to work, and over 750 MSMEs received business support. Ajira also created 878 e-government jobs, which included facilitating over 10,000 transcripts and 3,000 scanned records, thus improving efficiency within the judiciary. As of June 2024, nearly 391,000 youth have been trained in digital skills. Ajira has helped young people access diverse digital and digitally enabled jobs such as transcription, marketing, and e-commerce, offering critical income support during challenging periods like the COVID-19 pandemic.
The program’s inclusive, flexible, and skills-based approach has boosted youth confidence, digital entrepreneurship, and leadership skills. The Ajira Digital Program holds substantial promise for addressing youth unemployment in Kenya by equipping young people with relevant digital skills and linking them to gig and freelance opportunities. With the goal of reaching over 1 million annually, the program could transform Kenya into a leading hub for outsourced digital labor.