Is Kenya Supporting its Young People?
On Monday 26 April 2010, the President announced performance contract evaluation results and awarded the best performers at the KICC, Nairobi. In his statement, the President said the guiding principle in the introduction of the performance contracts was to restore order in the administration of public affairs. The process was also intended to create a sense of accountability and that performance contracting was among the vital programs being implemented by the government to improve the quality of lives among Kenyans.
The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MOYAS) established to represent issues of young people in Government, coordinate and implement activities the increase the participation and empower young people is ranked among the worst performers.
What does that say about the Ministry’s role in improving the quality of life of young people in Kenya? Is this a tell-tale sign that the Ministry is not helping young people move forward?
The evaluation of public agencies covered the 2008/2009 and the first half of the 2009/2010 financial years. The evaluation rates achievements against performance targets which each Ministry (note that performance contracts only apply to the Executive arm of Government for now) designs, negotiates and agrees at the beginning of the year. Poor performance in this instance simply means that the Ministry performance/achievements are below the previous year’s performance.
Does this mean that MOYAS worked less hard? Or does it mean they set out more than they could achieve within the time frame? Or set out programmes that they did not have sufficient funding for?
The benchmarks for the evaluation include strict compliance to strategic plans, implementation of agreed projects, employee safety, improved service delivery; how well they utilized funds allocated to them, customer satisfaction levels and staff competence.
As the manager of the youth programme, I receive mixed feedback with regard to customer satisfaction levels and staff competence which is basically how young people perceive the role of the Ministry and how well it works for them. At a workshop with young people and youth officers, one of the youth participants asked “what does the youth officer do for us?” He highlighted that at most times the youth know more about possible new programmes and funding for youth; the youth officers seem to act as roadblocks towards their access to the youth fund; and generally that youth officers are NOT youth workers but simply civil servants. On the other hand some young people in Kitale and Taita hail their youth officers as resourceful and supportive of their projects. The consistent challenge is that youth offices do not have sufficient resources at the work station to support their work to deliver better services to young people.
The Ministry of Youth needs to be more accountable to its constituents and develop working relationships that enables it deliver on its mandate – I think they bit off more than they could chew.
But then again, what are their benchmarks with young people?
At an introductory meeting with the (then new) Permanent Secretary Mr David Waweru, the Director of Youth Development Mr Julius Kubai indicated that the Ministry would be keen to work with young people in undertaking an audit of the work of the Ministry in the service of the youth in Kenya. Would this audit have a different result from the performance contract evaluation?
