• The bank’s global ambition is to raise $50 million(Sh5 billion) and build the entrepreneurship capability of 50,000 micro, small businesses.
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Standard Chartered Bank will focus on education, employment, and entrepreneurship through a new community investment approach targeting the youth.
Dubbed Futuremakers , the strategy seeks to build on the community impact and achievements of Seeing is Believing which is the Standard Chartered Marathon mantra.
The bank’s global ambition is to raise $50 million(Sh5 billion) and build the entrepreneurship capability of 50,000 micro, small businesses.
“More than 20 per cent of Kenyans are youth, yet the economic opportunities to finding decent work or starting a business, are dismally low,"said Kariuki Ngari, CEO Standard Chartered Bank Kenya chief executive Kariuki Ngare.
He said the bank wants to be part of supporting and finding solutions that bridge inequality and drive sustainable growth.
According to the World Bank, youth account for 60 per cent of all those unemployed in Africa , with young women forming the bulk.
Recent studies by Twaweza East African and Oxfam International show that inequality continues to rise in Kenya. The two bodies called for urgent and more concerted action to address the gap.
“The youth in Africa today can be either viewed as a ticking time bomb or an opportunity. We at Standard Chartered are choosing to look at the youth as an opportunity,” Kariuki said.
Standard Chartered Bank already has existing programmes in place supporting education, employability and entrepreneurship.
In partnership with Strathmore University, the Bank incubated 20 women-led start-ups with business and technology skills and awarded five of these enterprises with Kshs. 1millon each as seed-funding.