Purpose and JustificationKenya is one of the most youthful nations in the world with 80 per cent of its population under the age of 35 years and therefore this active population can no longer be ignored. The youth have the creativity, innovativeness and energy brought about by their youthful age making one of the greatest assets for any country desiring economic prosperity. With steady economic growth coupled with infrastructure projects being undertaken around the country providing opportunities for jobs and innovation for the youth to which they should benefit from. This opportunity offered by the booming economic sector and infrastructure development will not benefit the youths if certain actions are not addressed. These includes, lack of skills to do the job, drug addiction and abuse, crime, political unrest, youth radicalization both politically and religiously.Youths in Meru face with drug abuse, youth unemployment, radicalization, crime and hopelessness. The challenge therefore, is to motivate the youth, give young people skills and most of all, imbedding ideas in the young peoples’ minds that will expose them to possibilities to change. The biggest need is to provide youth with knowledge of ways to direct their lives and professional skills. They can then use these life skills in future to get decently and dignified livelihoods, expose their talents and share it back to the society as young leaders, productive workforce or entrepreneurs. By offering workshops, forums, mentorship and lectures to the youths, the county government will be placing the youths on secure path for the future. The youth empowerment efforts therefore, can be focused on vocational training, life skills training, youth economic empowerment, employment and equity.The political goodwill in the county offers the much-needed hope that inclusivity will finally be actualized with the country youths as the majority winners. Inclusivity provides room for all citizens to participate fully in socio-economic growth of a nation regardless of gender, race, religion or social status. Meaningful socio-economic development cannot be realized without inclusion of the youth, a constituency that has suffered a great deal due to lack of deliberate policy initiatives to empower them. Both at the county and national level, the machinery to be put in place to heal the divide and to promote social and economic cohesion must be inclusive, relevant and receptive to young people. The purpose of UN-Habitat technical cooperation in Meru County is to support the County Government of Meru to build inclusive, safer, resilient and sustainable Meru towns and cities for its youthful population faced with myriad challenges negatively impacting on their lives.Through this technical cooperation UN-Habitat working with the County Government of Meru will build basic livelihood skills (which include functional literacy, basic numeracy, and financial literacy); support youth access to services (labor market information, goods and services, and financial services); build youth capacity through training on public works (infrastructure services and repair, block-making, carpentry and civil works); and promote and provide visibility to the Meru Youth Service Programme among the members states including the international donors for possible support. This support resonates with the UN-Habitat’s priority to promote and consolidate collaboration with all partners, including local authorities, private and non-governmental organizations in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) goal 11 of “Making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”, as well as the implementation of the Agenda 21 and the New Urban Agenda.The objectives of this cooperation will be achieved through:a) Execution of the signed Contribution Agreement between CGM and UN-Habitat;b) Regular meetings between CGM, UN-Habitat and other stakeholder partners;c) Collaborating partners to source for further financial support and funding for the expansion or upscaling of the youth programme.The overarching goal that UN-Habitat plans to achieve with this project is to use the Meru Youth Programme as a pilot project, and its successful implementation will encourage its expansion and replication in other counties in Kenya and elsewhere in the region. By supporting the Meru Youth Service (MYS), UN-Habitat is strengthening the government’s capacity to deliver hope to thousands of youths who have lost hope in life. The MYS provide opportunity to the youth to escape poverty, unemployment, disengagement and lack of positive perspective, that may lead them to drug abuse, crime, and radicalization. Through this programme, youth’s potential energy will be harnessed for projects that benefit the community as well as to generate economic development through employment and entrepreneurship.
