Across Africa, an extraordinary transformation is underway. It moves not with the predictability of policy cycles, but with the quiet, resolute energy of millions of young people coming of age. This is not a crisis to be contained; it is a force to be understood, harnessed, and championed.
Africa is the youngest continent in the world, its demographic momentum unmistakable. In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly one in three people is between the ages of 10 and 24.
In Kenya, over 80 percent of the population is under 35. Every year, more than a million young Kenyans complete school and enter the world of work, impatient to build, eager to contribute, and hungry for relevance.
These young people are not waiting to be rescued. They are not a burden to be managed. They are architects of possibility, our single-most powerful lever for inclusive growth, innovation, and resilience. The opportunity they represent is not theoretical; it is tangible and immediate.
But opportunity must be matched with infrastructure: not just roads and markets, but systems that equip youth with skills aligned to the future of work, tools for entrepreneurship, and access to capital. At present, the disconnect between potential and opportunity is too wide. And the consequences are too costly.
Kenya’s youth unemployment rate remains high, particularly among those aged 15 to 34. But to dwell on this figure as a crisis is to miss the bigger point: it is not a symptom of youth failure, but rather, it is a system failure that we must urgently and collectively correct.
The solution lies in deliberate collaboration, particularly through public-private partnerships (PPPs) that can align the scale of public policy with the innovation and agility of the private sector. When well-designed, these partnerships become engines of capability, connecting education, enterprise, and employment in meaningful ways.
At KCB Foundation, we carry this vision through our 2Jiajiri programme, targeting out-of-school and unemployed youth. We work with them not because they are marginal, but because they are central to Kenya’s development trajectory.
To truly seize this demographic dividend, we must be intentional. That means equipping youth with market-relevant and future-proof skills, supporting youth-led enterprises with the capital and mentorship they need to scale, and reforming education-to-employment systems to close the gaps between learning and livelihood.
It also means incentivising partnerships that are structured around shared accountability for impact, and reimagining development with youth not as beneficiaries, but as co-creators.
The demographic reality we face is not a time bomb. Rather, it is a gift. But only if we treat it as such. Kenya’s young people are not the unfinished business of the nation; they are the foundation of its next chapter. With the right alliances and investments, we can shift from managing unemployment to scaling empowerment.
The future is not something that will happen to youth. It is something they are already shaping. Our job is to ensure the systems around them are worthy of their ambition.
