The Ajira Digital Program in partnership with the Amahoro Coalition is exploring ways to enable the refugee population in Kenya work online and deliver business solutions for the private sector in Kenya.
During a business executives’ round table event, private sector players among other actors discussed opportunities and the benefits of business process digitization and the outsourcing of talents and services online from marginalized youth in the Kakuma and Daadab refugee camps located in Turkana and Garissa respectively.
According to Ajira Digital Program and Amahoro Coalition, the local private sector can do more than just offer humanitarian aid to the estimated 500,000 refugee population in the country by advancing their inclusion in the digital workspace; ultimately contributing to youth employment and economic growth.
The initiative now offers hope to young people bogged down by mobility and access limitations, to explore opportunities beyond the camps, promising them local digital and digitally-enabled work regardless of gender, background, geographical, and physical conditions.
Speaking during the business executives round table event in Nairobi, Project Director, Ajira Digital Program and Youth Employment at KEPSA Dr. Ehud Gachugu, said their aim is to help grow and harness talent as well as deliver work for local businesses, thus creating even more opportunities for refugees to add value not only in their local communities but also nationally.
“We have a lot of talent waiting to be tapped among the refugee population in Kenya. We have seen many examples of bright but marginalized young people delivering quality work to global clients through online platforms,” said Dr. Gachugu.
He noted that the Ajira Digital Program, mandated with making the country a digital freelancing hub by engaging the private sector and public sectors to support digitally skilled youth to access quality jobs, has to date recorded over 1.9 million Kenyans working online, up from about 600,000 in 2020.
The 2022 Ajira Digital National Survey also indicates that close to 9 million Kenyans are aware of online and digital work opportunities.
Speaking at the event, the Private Sector Partnerships Lead at Amahoro Coalition,Valerie Karuwa, urged private sector leaders, in the spirit of inclusion, to explore the vast talent pool and digital skills available within the refugee communities, also a potential captive market for inclusive business opportunities.
A study by the Amahoro Coalition and the International Trade Center (ITC) on ‘Kenya’s Private Sector Digital Outsourcing Landscape and Its Potential to Support Refugee Economic Inclusion’ revealed that a lack of awareness of the skills and potential available among the refugee community is the greatest barrier to companies working with refugees.
“Refugee inclusion brings countless benefits including dynamism in entrepreneurship, customer loyalty, and reliability as borrowers, thus providing both a source and consumer market for business and states that include them. The private sector through innovative business models can champion more sustainable and dignified ways for refugees to access economic opportunities while creating value for their own companies, thus contributing to economic empowerment not only for refugees but also for the local host communities,” Ms. Karuwa added.
Mohamed Omar, Chief Executive Officer of the Dadaab Collective, a digital work agency located in the Daadab refugee camp urged the business community to believe in the potential of young people in the refugee camps to create economic and job opportunities for themselves through online and digital work.
“The Daadab Collective has over 200,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers with many of them earning their income from incentive work for international and local organizations, petty trade, and small-scale business enterprises. We know that many of these refugees have the technical capacity and experience in digital and digitally-enabled work and we urge the Kenyan private sector to strongly consider extending these work opportunities to realize the shared value and which will make a big difference in the quality of life of these marginalized communities,” he said.
