Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has launched a 2.2 billion shillings (20.4 million U.S. dollars) youth capacity-building initiative aimed at creating employment, generating income, and bridging the succession gap in agribusiness.
President Kenyatta said on Friday that the Empowering Novel Agribusiness-led Employment (Enable Kenya) program seeks to build the capacity of 10,000 young people involved in agribusiness to enable them to create employment opportunities for 50,000 others.
Enable Kenya, funded by both Kenya and the African Development Bank (AfDB), would see 520 youth being trained in June and would each receive financing of between 4,636 dollars and 13,910 dollars as start-up capital.
Kenyatta noted that to complement the pilot project, parallel efforts are in place to transfer aquaculture technology and build the capacity of the youth in schools by establishing aquaponics in learning institutions, adding that already 40 schools spread out across the country have benefited from the initiative. “Ultimately, these efforts will go a long way to transform negative perceptions on agribusiness and make it more attractive to young people.”
Meanwhile, Kenyatta also launched the rebranded 4-K Clubs, an initiative that is aimed at changing the trend and positioning agribusiness as a feasible and decent career path, amongst the younger school-going populations.
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