Reducing distress migration through local value chain development

In Kenya, young people make up 35 percent of the population, with over one million entering the workforce annually. The scarcity of job opportunities in rural areas drives many youths to migrate to urban centres or abroad, where they often find themselves in precarious conditions. Yet, agriculture holds huge potential for the creation of decent jobs and viable livelihood alternatives for rural youth.

The project, funded by the Government of Italy, addressed the adverse drivers of youth rural out-migration by generating decent employment opportunities for young people along sustainable agricultural and food value chains. It also sought to foster policy coherence across the areas of agriculture, rural development and migration through awareness-raising and capacity-building activities.

The project provided direct support to young men and women to strengthen or establish their agribusinesses while also fostering multisectoral policy coherence through knowledge generation, awareness raising and capacity building of local and national stakeholders. Activities included:

• Migration profiling of Kiambu County that generated knowledge on the links between youth, migration and rural development;
• Youth-sensitive value chain studies; 
• A guidance tool for Integrating migration into rural development planning in Kenya, developed with IOM;
• A series of capacity development workshops with national and local stakeholders focused on strengthening collaboration and policy and programme coherence to tackle the challenges of rural youth migration;
• Vocational and technical trainings for over 1 563 youth, with topics including agribusiness, value chain analysis, market research, access to finance, and business management;
• Start-up support for young agripreneurs to scale-up their enterprises; 
• Study tours for youth and extension officers to foster peer-to-peer learning; 
• Training for extension staff to enhance their capacity to support youth-specific needs; 
• Business-to-business roundtables to support youth engagement with value-chain actors.

The project directly supported more than 1 500 young men and women in Kiambu County through technical training, coaching and business mentoring. It also contributed to reinforcing the institutional framework by enhancing awareness and capacities of national and local stakeholders to tackle the challenges and the opportunities that lie at the nexus of youth migration, agriculture and rural development.
> Watch this video to find out more. 

Listen to the stories and watch the videos of Paul, Alex, Hilda, Ruth and Naomi, who have benefited from the project.