Kenya's Ticking Time Bomb l People and Power | 21 Nov 2013

Film by Sorious Samura and Clive Patterson

How political corruption is turning the country's spiralling youth unemployment into a threat to society.

You can witness the same scene at dawn every morning in Kenya's capital, Nairobi: thousands of young people in search of work are streaming out from the city's slums towards its industrial areas.

Most of them are neatly if simply dressed, many of them are full of optimism, but the vast majority are destined to be disappointed. Those that can afford it will try and cram onto a bus in an attempt to beat the crowds, the rest will weave their way on foot through the heavy morning commuter traffic. But when they arrive, the situation for all of them will invariably be the same as it was on the previous day and the day before that and on all the other preceding days.

They will spend an hour or so packed in their hundreds along the pavements and parking lots outside a factory, warehouse or office block, certificates of education and references from previous employers ready to hand, waiting patiently for something to happen.

The usual rumours pass from person to person, this company is said to need people with computer skills, that one needs fork lift truck drivers or perhaps some just some day laborers. But then a supervisor will step from the building and shout out that he can offer a day's work for four people with experience of working a lathe or two with secretarial skills.

Many step forward, a lucky few are selected at random and make their way inside, then the doors of the building close and the rest drift off to take up station at the next place or to make their long way back home - hopes dashed yet again.

A national disaster in the making?

George, a Kenyan in his early twenties, has graduated from university in December 2012 with a diploma in electrical engineering but so far he has been unable to find work.

"The chance I'm going to be chosen today is limited," he says. "I'm just gambling. You can stand here for as long as half a day, because you never know the time that you can be picked."

It is a story that is all too common. Joblessness among all people of working age is a serious problem in Kenya, but among young people, it is a catastrophe. The country has one of the largest youth populations in Africa, but roughly 70 percent of its working age youth - almost 10 million people - are unemployed, although a surprising number are very well educated and possess the kinds of skills a healthy economy really should be able to put to use.

In a country where almost 80 percent of the population is under the age of 35 some have labelled it a national disaster in the making, that may have serious social consequences and lead to civil unrest.

For a country that is still recovering from the scars of the widespread community violence that followed the 2007 election and which is still reeling from the aftermath of the al-Shabab Westgate mall terrorist attack in September 2013, it is a hint worth taking seriously.

Dr Alex Ezeh of the African Population and Health Research Centre in Nairobi put the significance of this youth population 'bulge' in context.

"It is a demographic event," he says. "It's something that many countries go through at different stages as they move from very high fertility and mortality to very low mortality, it creates this reservoir of people." But this, as he explained, can have positive and negative consequences.

"Generally, what makes it a good thing is our ability to harness the economic potential of such a large proportion of young people going into the labour market … There is a side of it, the more negative part of it, which is, if there are no jobs and no opportunities to engage, then you have a lot of young people understanding what is going on but they're disenfranchised politically, economically, and in many other ways, and this creates a lot of political instability."

The stark reality for the young people from the huge slums at Kibera and Mathare and elsewhere around Kenya's capital is that life without a job is extremely difficult. With no regular income many of them have to turn to crime to make a living. And even if they do not, they are often suspected of involvement in crime, which in turn leads to deadly entanglements with Kenya's notoriously trigger-happy police.

A generation pushed to the edge

When asked who should be doing what about Kenya's youth unemployment, the answer is clear. Successive governments in Kenya have done little to alleviate the plight of the jobless and should be doing more.


- Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe
- Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish
- Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera
- Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

#AlJazeeraEnglish #KenyaUnemployement