Kenya could benefit from three new initiatives announced by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The three include support for young people, education plan for girls and a programme to end child marriages.
Kenya is especially expected to benefit from the initiative to end child brides, as Unicef estimates that 23 per cent of girls are married before their 18th birthday in Kenya.
The three high-level partnerships, called "Accelerators," were announced at the Goalkeepers event on September 26 in New York.
The initiatives have a strong emphasis on young people and girls.
The announcement comes after the foundation released the second annual Goalkeepers Data Report on September 18, which shows that investing in "human capital"-the health and education of young people - unlocks productivity and innovation, reduces poverty, and generates prosperity.
Last week, the foundation said the accelerators would catalyse progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals by offering funding and programmatic support.
The Goalkeepers Youth Action Accelerator will empower young people aged 18 to 35 to source and use data to hold public, private, and government leaders accountable for achieving the global goals.
“This accelerator will provide up to 30 young leaders with hands-on and technical support, mentorship, and direct funding of up to $30,000 (Sh3 million) each. Applications will be open until October 31, 2019, and programme participants will be announced in late November,” the foundation said in a statement.
The initiative will be led by CIVICUS and the Gates Foundation, with an advisory committee comprised of representatives from the Obama Foundation, the George W. Bush Institute, Restless Development, and Action for Sustainable Development.
The second accelerator, Scaling Early Literacy, brings together Room to Read, a leading nonprofit focused on girls' education and children's literacy in Asia and Africa. It aims at increasing literacy skills and helping children develop a habit of reading early in life.
The third accelerator is Girls First Fund, a collaborative new partnership to end child marriage.
Founding donors and implementers include Girls Not Brides, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, the Dutch Postcode Lottery, the Kendeda Fund, the NoVo Foundation, Capital for Good USA, and Geneva Global.
The Girls First Fund is expected to identify the most promising community-based organisations, particularly those led by girls, women, and youth, and provide them with multi-year funding to develop and pursue local solutions to ending child marriage.
In Kenya, child marriage rates vary across regions, with the North Eastern and Coast regions having the highest prevalence rates, while the Central region and Nairobi have the lowest rates.
A high prevalence of HIV in Kenya means that young married girls are particularly at risk.
In a study in Kisumu, 33 per cent of married girls surveyed were infected with HIV as opposed to 22 per cent for their sexually active, unmarried counterparts.
Bill and Melinda Gates with French President Emmanuel Macron during the Goalkeepers event in New York on September 26/ COURTESY
The Goalkeepers Data Report
makes the case for leaders to invest in the power and potential of youth to continue progress.
Through essays by experts and journalists, the report examines promising approaches in health and education, highlighting ways that young people could help transform the continent. According to the report, investments in health and education, or “human capital,” in sub-Saharan Africa could increase GDP in the region by more than 90 percent by 2050.