By Benadeta Mwaura - Reporter
Kenya, December 10 2025 - In a new push to address youth unemployment in Kenya, the Standard Chartered Foundation and UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited have announced a three-year partnership aimed at securing 750 decent jobs for young women across the country.
The programme, backed by a KSh 97.5 million investment from Standard Chartered, will target women aged 18 to 24 from under-served communities. The initiative builds on existing skills-training efforts under UNICEF GenU and aims not just to upskill but to connect young women directly with employment opportunities in the private sector.
“This partnership reflects our strategic commitment to unlocking economic opportunity for young people through decent employment,” said Standard Chartered Kenya CEO Kariuki Ngari. “By combining UNICEF’s extensive skilling ecosystem with our work-readiness and vocational training, we are building a model that connects talent and training to real jobs.”
Shaheen Nilofer, UNICEF Kenya Representative, added that the initiative complements ongoing government efforts, including the National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (NYOTA) programme, to tackle youth unemployment nationwide. The programme’s scope covers both supply- and demand-side challenges: on one hand, beneficiaries will receive support via job-readiness, vocational training and mentorship; on the other, UNICEF and Standard Chartered will work with private-sector employers and local job- placement agencies to identify and fill vacancies, ensuring that training translates to actual employment.
A highlight of the initiative is its focus on young women, a demographic that often faces structural barriers to employment such as limited access to networks, mobility challenges, and hiring biases. UNICEF notes that women globally constitute a majority of youth neither in education, employment nor training, a gap the programme aims to narrow.
The first phase will prioritise women from underserved backgrounds who have already undergone skills training via UNICEF GenU platforms. Over the next three years, the partners hope to build pathways into stable, formal-sector jobs that pay at or above minimum wage, offer safe working conditions, and meet international standards of “decent work.”
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Kenya’s youth unemployment remains high, especially among women and in underserved areas. This partnership has potential to:
1. Provide a bridge from skill training to employment, moving beyond short-term training programmes to actual job placements.
2. Reduce employment gender gaps by specifically targeting young women, often hardest- hit by joblessness.
3. Complement government efforts such as NYOTA, adding private-sector momentum to public-sector initiatives.
But the success will depend on several factors: whether the private sector can absorb and retain the trained women, whether jobs are stable and well-paid, and how widespread the initiative becomes beyond urban centres.
In addition, as highlighted by recent analyses of youth employment in Kenya, a major underlying challenge remains: a skills-mismatch between what many young people have and what employers demand, especially in technical, digital and soft-skills areas.
