• Cabinet Secretary Margaret Kobia said the policies fall within the ministry’s call to transform the public service.
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The Public Service ministry is banking on three new policies as an end to issues that have stifled growth among special interest populations in the country.
Cabinet Secretary Margaret Kobia said the policies fall within the ministry’s call to transform the public service, empower youth and women; as well as entrench gender equality.
Core to this is the Kenya Youth Development Policy, 2019, which seeks to establish a coordination framework for all state and non-state actors to increase the scope of youth activities.
Also crafted is the National Policy on Gender and Development, 2019, to guide and facilitate the implementation of gender equality provisions in the Constitution.
The Public Service ministry has also come up with the National Policy for Eradication of FGM, 2019, which seeks to tackle issues around the outlawed practice.
Prof Kobia said the gender policy provides legislative and administrative measures to address the gender inequalities and existing gaps in the two levels of government as well as the private sector.
“It provides for the review and harmonization of all gender-related laws and policies to align them to the Constitution,” the CS said in a statement yesterday.
For FGM, the policy creates a nexus for dealing with the outlawed practices through interventions in the health, education, security, and justice system.
The policy seeks to tackle practices by perpetrators who have mastered the act of evading law enforcers in their bid to continue with the practice.
“We are keen on using this policy to address pertinent FGM drivers including gender inequality while advocating for the empowerment of women and girls,” Kobia said.
The CS, in her scorecard for financial year 2018/19, says that with the policies in place, the government is now in a better place to tackle issues of the youth, women, and other special interest groups.
Part of the progress, she cited, is in the increased disbursement of affirmative action funds for which the three target groups have received Sh19 billion since inception.
The report showed that h16 billion has been disbursed to 100,174 women groups; Sh5.9 billion to 63,682 youth groups under Uwezo Fund, and Sh12 billion to 1,159,393 persons under Youth Fund.
To support Big Four, Kobia said at least 47,250 youth have been engaged in food production and another 48,250 in tree planting to conserve the environment.
She said the ministry is equally banking on the Kenya Youth Employment and Opportunities Project (KYEOP) to provide a platform for SMEs growth.
The project is being implemented in 17 counties from which 20,661 youths have been trained on job-specific skills.
Kobia revealed that 60 per cent of the lot has secured jobs whereas 8,490 youth received grants to start small enterprises. About 500 received business support through a Sh215 million grant.