Briefing Paper

Improving Institutional Effectiveness to Provide Decent Job Opportunities in Kenya

Since independence, the creation of productive and sustainable employment opportunities has remained a central policy priority of the Kenyan government. Although there has not been a lack of policy initiatives regarding the employment challenge in Kenya, as we can observe, it can be argued that policies have been inadequate and have failed to respond to the changing realities of employment in Kenya generally and youth unemployment in particular, given the continuous and difficult employment situation in Kenya. That said, it is difficult to assess whether these policies failed because of their focus and/or the manner in which they were implemented or because of the contextual factors present at the time.