Strategic Plan 2022-2025
Tana River County Centre for Innovation and Youth Empowerment
A strategic direction for the Centre covering 2022–2025.
Introduction
1.1 Background
Kenya has a largely youthful population. According to the Kenya’s 2019 Population and Census results, 75% of the 47.6 million population is under the age of 35. The report estimate that 36.1% of the National population are youth age 15-34 year. The high proportion of the youth to adult population signifies that Kenya is facing a youth bulge. The youth bulge offers opportunities for economic, social and political development while at the same time poses challenges of risk and threat to the country’s social cohesion and stability.
Tana River County Centre for Innovation and youth Empowerment was launched on 23rd March, 2022 by Tana River County Government, and Kenya School of Government with support of UNDP in the presence of several other state and non-state development partners. This Centre is the first and only of its kind in Kenya that envisage to run a Youth centered skills training, entrepreneurship and enterprise promotion, employment services as well as learning by action systems programs.
The Tana River County Centre For Innovation And Youth Empowerment aims to build competence of young women and men to take on jobs and start own businesses in the markets, while also working with local institutions to adopt new business models and expand the number of jobs available for youths.
Tana River County Centre for Innovation and Youth Empowerment shall adopted competency development models that serve to target youth and provide training support such as career counseling, and mentorships among many other youth programs. The Tana River County Centre for Innovation and Youth Empowerment shall provide capacity development on high-potential business models that involve hiring youth as part of the expansion strategy; promoting equity investment to expand employment opportunities for youth in the County.
Tana River County Centre for Innovation and Youth Empowerment shall use a market system development approach and implements as a champion working through private sector partners, community based organizations, and selected departments in the Tana River County Government. The Centre Programs implementation shall be based on testing hypothesis through pilots and quickly feeding back finding into the Centre program strategy, design and implementation decisions. This new cycle of continuous innovation in delivery allow the Centre to quickly identify and build on emerging good practice.
The Tana River County Centre for Innovation and Youth Empowerment Programs target youth age between 18-35 years, from low income categories who are from marginalized Arid and Semi-Arid (ASAL) areas in Kenya.
1.2 Rational for Tana River County Centre for Innovation and Youth Empowerment Strategy
The transformation envision in the Constitution and the Kenya Vision 2030 requires a strong, vibrant, responsive and empowered young people. The Kenya Housing and Population Census Report of 2019 (KNBS) estimate the population of young people age 15-35 at 36.1% of the national population. The high level of youth unemployment continuous to increase in Kenya. According to the Kenya 2019 Census data, 38.9 % (5,341,182) of the 13,777,600 young Kenyans are jobless.
The huge foreign depth for the physical and financial resources; Inequities in social, economic and political condition in Kenya contributes to reduced resources available for youth programmes and activities while also increasing deplorable living conditions and poverty among Kenyans. Young people discrimination in access to equal opportunities in employment is a huge challenge in Kenya, in addition to instances of increasing difficulty for young people returning from extremist armed groups in integrating into the community and gaining access to education and employment.
Due to increasing population in urban and peri-urban areas continued deterioration of the environment resulting from unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, aggravating poverty and imbalances is experience not only Tana River but also in other parts of Kenya.
Youth are the most vulnerable to diseases. Increasing incidence of diseases, such as Covid-19, Malaria, TB, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and the Acquired Immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), hunger, malnutrition and other threats to health, such as substance abuse and psychotropic substance addiction, smoking and alcoholism, continues to engulf the life of many young people.
Inadequate opportunities for market aligned vocational education and training skills for the youths, especially for persons with disabilities has limited their chance to secure employment or even to initiate businesses.
The changes in families’ roles have increasing difficulty for young people to receive family life education as a basis for forming healthy families that foster sharing of responsibilities. This in addition have denied youth the opportunity for young people to participate in the life of society and contribute to its development and well-being.
The Centre aspires to bridge this overwhelming gap and provide a hand up support to the young people in Tana River County and beyond.
About the Centre
2.1 Vision
Envisage ‘Young women and men of higher standards of well-being with full potential for economic and social progress.’
2.2 Mission
The Centre hopes ‘to create and pursue an enabling environment for realizing the full potential of Youth towards active participation in building a competitive competence and skills based development.’
2.3 Core Values
The Tana River County Centre For Innovation And Youth Empowerment strategic Plan recognize the right to human dignity, equity, social justice, inclusiveness, equality, human rights, non-discrimination and protection of the marginalized; while promoting patriotism, national unity, integrity, transparency and accountability among the youth.
2.4 Principles
The implementation and full realization of this strategy will be guided by the following principles as drawn from the Constitution of Kenya, Vision 2030 and the National Youth Policy:
Equity and equality: This Strategy shall upholds the principle of equitable distribution of resources and services and promotion of access to empowerment opportunities among the youth.
Involvement & Participation: The youth have a right to associate, be represented and participate in political, social, economic and other spheres of life. This principle further ensures gender equality and inclusion of youth with disabilities as an integral dimension of the design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation of programmes. It embraces mainstreaming of youth issues in all sectors of national development as a strategy of participation and empowerment.
Impact and Sustainability: Evidence based impact and continuity of interventions will be an integral dimension of the design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation of programmes.
2.5 Strategic Objectives
- Improve youth competence and skills to progress in business for healthy livelihood ventures.
- Promotion and support ICT and innovation at the Centre for the Youth.
- To champion for creative arts talent development and management among the youth at The Centre.
- To champion for sporting talent development and management among the youth at the Centre.
- To operationalize the centre to fully function and address all demand of youth in Tana River and beyond.
- Undertake a cutting edge multi-disciplinary research for evidenced policy formulation and community issues solution.
Proposed Centre Structure
3.1 Board of Trustees
This is the policy making organ of Tana River Centre for Innovation and Youth Empowerment. It is saddled with the responsibilities of approving budget of the organization, provides contact for resources mobilization and supports the smooth operation of the secretariat.
3.2 Advisory Council
This is the organ that provides advisory functions to the Tana River County Centre for Innovation and Youth Empowerment. It consists of people of vast and extensive experience. The Youth Advisory council will be composed of 10 Youth Coordinators representing the wards. The Members of the Advisory Council will include the Ward Level Youth Coordinator from the 10 wards in Tana River County.
3.3 Secretariat
The secretariat is vested with the day-to-day running of the organization. It implements the decisions of the Board of Trustees. It is headed by the Centre Director who over sees the day-to-day smooth running of the organization, while Head of Programmes over sees programme implementation along with other programme staff.
3.4 Ward Volunteer Representative
The respective Ward Volunteer representative will be from the respective wards in Tana River County. The Volunteers will support the Centre programs and Human resource supportive function where required. The Ward Volunteer will be nominated by the Youths from respective wards through the leadership of the Ward Level Structure under the Leadership of the Youth Ward Level Coordinator.
Centre Strategy Development
4.1 Purpose of the Strategy
The purpose of this strategy is to provide a strategic direction for Tana River County Centre for Innovation and Youth Empowerment and the actions to be taken to achieve the purpose for establishing the Centre taking into consideration the context of operations. Secondly, the strategy will propose what needs to be done to the Centre to achieve its mandate given assessment of the Centre from the time of the launching. Finally, the strategy will provide a monitoring and evaluation framework for measurement of the performance of Centre.
4.2 Process of the Strategy Development
As soon as the Centre was launched on 23rd March, 2022, a strategic direction was formulated by Kenya School of Government in partnership with development actors. The Centre embarked on a medium term operationalization process of strategy development. The initial strategy development process commenced with CECM Youth, and the line Directors, and youth actors and KSG team for draft strategy development process through desk review and in-house training under the leadership of KSG Finance and Administration Director and Head of Youth Program. The draft strategy once produced will be presented to stakeholders in Tana River County and finally for approval by the Board of Trustees.
4.3 Target Group and Objectives
The key stakeholders of the KSG-Tana River Youth Innovation Centre are Young women and men, local community, government at all arms and levels, civil society, media, the private sector, donors, and international development partners. An analysis of the scope and degree intervention of the key players reveal a huge gap in terms of promoting Youth centred ideas, policies and actions that will lead to transformative change in Tana River County and ASAL Counties in general.
Target Groups
| The Centre Target | Priority |
|---|---|
| Youth Structures in Tana River County — To create platform for development of creative arts and sporting talent development, technical and entrepreneurial skills development among many others | High |
| National and County Government department — Governments at all levels especially at County and ward levels to advocate for mainstreaming youth interventions | High |
| Community of Tana River — Individuals affected by impact of the Centre programs to raise public awareness about centre commitments | High |
| Development Partners — To support Tana River County Centre For Innovation And Youth Empowerment programs at County and ward level in addition to Centre institutional capacity development | Medium |
| Experts, decision-makers — To enhance their capacities around the Centre Programmatic areas for robust Youth oriented activities engagement and implementation | Medium |
| Private Sector (Corporate Institutions & Entrepreneurs) — To partner with the Centre for sustainability of intervention among the Youth and general public | Medium |
| Media (FM Radio, National TVs) — Journalists and FM radio station nationwide to keep Youths informed on the Centre current and new programs | Medium |
SWOT Analysis of Strategic Areas of Focus
| Internal | External |
|---|---|
Strength
|
Opportunities
|
Weakness
|
Threat
|
Strategy Areas of Focus
As part of strategy, there was need to identify the main tasks that would form the strategy of each of the strategic focus areas. Thirty participants divided into five groups were tasked to identify these key areas by identifying an underlying problem that affect the youth and people in Tana River County and subsequently an activity that falls under the program that solves the problem.
The Six thematic programs identified under the Tana River County Centre for youth Empowerment include:
- Capacity Building
- Innovation
- Creative Arts
- Research and Consultancy
- Sports
- Institutional Capacity development
Summary of Strategic Areas of Focus
6.1 Capacity Building Strategic Areas
- Entrepreneurship: There exist knowledge gap among the youth who are in businesses or for the start-ups on how to effectively run business profitably and capitalize on existing opportunities. An entrepreneurship course at the Centre can help these groups avoid losses, organize their business operation, equip them on financial management and planning skills to help their ventures grow.
- Technical Skills Development: Despite a huge demand in the Job market for additional skills, majority of youth’s in Tana River are locked out of these opportunities for lack preferred technical skills. These include coding and programming languages, software proficiency, Technical (Official) writing, project management, data analysis, social media marketing and brand management.
- Special Education and Languages: A need exists among the youth to learn and capitalize on opportunities for special education languages in translation, sign language interpreters and tutors.
- Psychology and Counselling: There’s an increase in mental illness prevalence in Kenya among the youth and Tana River County is not exempted from it. As a result there’s an increase in drug and substance abuse and addiction rates where the young people chose an escape because they cannot cope with difficulties that befall them. Training Counselors at the Centre will increase the number of counselors in the population and give rise to peer counselors who the youth can engage more freely with.
- Mentorship and Leadership Training: For the younger generation, there’s a lack of career coaches available to guide them and engage them on the right choices, path and practices to enable them accomplish their dream careers.
- Advocacy: A need exist to educate the youth on various aspects affecting them in terms of opportunities, rights and civil duties they can play. Bridging the knowledge gaps will entail having Legal Aid Clinics, Awareness on FGM, HIV, governance structures, Civic participation and awareness on job and career opportunities.
6.2 Innovation Strategic Areas
- Education: There is need for a platform that will enable students and pupils to easily access books and reading materials on their devices online or also when offline for those areas without internet connectivity.
- Agriculture: Tana River being a predominantly pastoralist area in animal husbandry with numerous incidences of cattle rustling and theft, there’s need for software development that will track movement of animals. There’s also a need for innovative crop cultivation technologies for arid areas that economizes on space and water consumption like aquaculture, hydroponic, bee farming etc.
- Transport: Over 50% of the youth in Tana River County are employed in the Boda-boda business. There is need for development of online platform that contains a database of all operating boda-boda in Tana River as well as tracking software to curb theft and enable recovery of stolen motorcycles.
- Marketing: Internet provides an opportunity for development of a virtual market place where traders can showcase their products to potential clients who include hotels, corporations and institutions outside Tana River.
- Business: There is a lot of replication of identical businesses in Tana River County, especially among the youth, resulting in cut-throat competition. There is need for business incubation course for start-ups that will include innovative strategies like virtual shops, E-commerce and SEO.
6.3 Creative Arts Strategic Areas
- Visual Arts: architecture, drawing, sculpture, photography, painting, graphics and design and print making.
- Performance Art: theatre performance, music, stand-up comedy and film production.
- Culinary Arts: cooking and chef training, wine making, chocolate, cheese and food technologies.
- Literary arts: fiction writing, poetry, prose, script writing and satirical works in English, Swahili and Vernacular.
6.4 Research and Consultancy Strategic Areas
- Training Needs Assessment
- Curriculum development for the Centre Programs
- Policy, legislation and related studies
- Feasibility and Impact Assessment studies on Development Projects
- Demographic Study
- Cultural Archive Study
6.5 Sports Strategic Areas
- Referee and match officiating professions
- Football and Sports Coaching
- Sports and Fitness Trainers
- Sports Career Education
- Sports Scholarships and Scouting exposures
- Sports Facilities
6.6 Institutional Capacity Development for CIYE
- Development of the Centre structure
- Development of Five Strategic plan
- Land Acquisition for the Centre
- Infrastructure development
- Establishment of Functional Human Resource
Work Plan
The work plan outlines activities, expected outputs, indicators and implementation timelines across the strategic areas for 2023–2025. Detailed quarterly matrices are presented below.
Strategic Area: Youth Capacity Development
Objective: Improve youth competence and skills to progress in business for healthy livelihood ventures.
- Conduct Film making Skills development training for the Youths
- Conduct Youth Leadership Skills development training
- Conduct training for Youth on AGPO and Government Education Information Opportunities
- Conducting Mentorship and Counseling for Youths on HIV/AIDs and Drug and Substance Abuse
- Conducting Entrepreneurship Skills development for Youth in Business
- Conducting training on technical skills development in coding, programming and software development
Strategic Area: Innovations Development
Objective: Promotion and support ICT and innovation at the Centre for the Youth.
- Undertake development of online education contents
- Software development for cattle rusting prevention menace in Pastoralist areas
- Development of software for transport security
- Development of E-commerce exhibition for products marketing in Tana River
- Establish business development innovation competition scheme
- Nation values promotion innovations
- Undertake development of County revenue collection monitoring software
- Identify and support youth innovations with acquiring of patenting, and commercialization
Strategic Area: Creative Arts
Objective: To champion for creative arts talent development and management among the youth at The Centre.
- Conduct sensitization on the value of creative art, talent and its development
- Conduct sensitization on the value of Literary art, talent and its development in skills, publication and marketing
- Production of feature Films in the Creative art department of the Centre
- Supporting Film producers with learning equipment for film production at the Centre
Strategic Area: Sports Development
Objective: To champion for sporting talent development and management among the youth at the Centre.
- Conduct Referee training for Youths in sporting programs
- Conduct Sports Coaching Skills development training for Youth
- Support provision of Sport training equipment for Youths in Sport
- Conduct sensitization on the value of sporting talent, its development and commercialization
- Establish a Sports Academy in every Sub-county in Tana River
- Avail sports scholarships and scouting exposures
- Establish youth sports tournaments from Ward, county, national levels and International
Strategic Area: Research and Consultancy
Objective: Undertake a cutting edge multi-disciplinary research for evidenced policy formulation and community issues solution.
- Conduct Training Needs Assessment
- Develop Ward level Youth Demographic profile database
- Develop Curriculum for the Centre Programs, Review
- Conduct Training Impacts Assessment
- Conduct Feasibility Study on Development Projects
- Conduct Cultural and Historical Studies
- Conduct Policy related studies
Strategic Area: Institution Capacity Development
Objective: To operationalize the Centre to fully function and address all demand of youth in Tana River and beyond.
- Development of the Centre structure
- Support development of Youth Ward Level Structure in the 10 Wards in Tana River
- Establishment of Board of Trustees and Advisory Council
- Development of Medium Term Strategy Roadmap
- Development of Work plan
- Develop a 5 year strategic plan
- Initial Acquisition of 20 acre Piece of Land for the Centre from Tana River County Government
- Mobilize funding to support Infrastructure development
- Recruitment of Adequate Human Resource for the Centre
Annex: Ward Level Youth Structure
Development of Ward Level Structure in each of the wards in Tana River County.
| Ward | Coordinator | Local Champion | Sub-Heads | Village Heads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 4 | 8 | — |
| 2 | 1 | 3 | 7 | — |
| 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 | — |
| 4 | 1 | 2 | 4 | — |
| 5 | 1 | 2 | 6 | — |
| 6 | 1 | 7 | 16 | — |
| 7 | 1 | 7 | 11 | — |
| 8 | 1 | 6 | 14 | — |
| 9 | 1 | 2 | 4 | — |
| 10 | 1 | 6 | 12 | — |