President's hustler promise faces the test of livelihoods

Gen Z protesters chant along Moi Avenue during the first anniversary of the Gen Z protests in Nairobi on June 25, 2025. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

President William Ruto came to power promising to put young people and small businesses at the centre of economic growth, arguing that access to affordable credit, skills and markets would enable ordinary Kenyans to lift themselves out of poverty.

More than four years later, the administration points to the Hustler Fund, the National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (NYOTA) project, digital jobs, overseas employment and affordable housing as evidence that it is creating opportunities for a generation struggling to secure work.

With the 2027 General Election less than a year away, the question confronting the President is whether these initiatives are delivering lasting economic security or moving young people between short-term placements, small loans and informal enterprises without a reliable path to decent employment.

President Ruto has repeatedly defended his administration's employment agenda by pointing to investments in construction, digital work, labour mobility and enterprise financing, arguing that young people must be given opportunities both to find jobs and to create them.

Speaking during a tour of Samburu and Laikipia counties, Ruto challenged critics of his affordable housing programme to explain where construction workers would find employment if the projects were scrapped.

"Where will you take the youths who work there?" he asked, arguing that housing was among the programmes creating tangible opportunities for young people.

The Government's argument is that several interventions, rather than one programme, are needed to address a complex employment crisis. Yet young people seeking work are asking whether these initiatives can provide consistent support beyond their launch announcements.

Debora Ndanu, secretary-general of the Kenya Model United Nations, questions whether government initiatives offer the continuity young people need or provide temporary relief before fading from public attention.

"We saw a start of this project, but then suddenly, quietly, somewhere along the way, it just stopped and disappeared," she says, referring to youth-focused promises, including affordable financing and overseas jobs.

Ndanu says the challenge is establishing systems that young people can rely on beyond individual programmes.

"The question is not halfway made promises. The question is, why are we not putting systems in place that continuously support young people?" she asks.

In July 2026, Ruto launched NextGen.Ke, a youth-employment initiative backed by a Sh2 billion Government allocation this year and developed with the United Nations Development Programme and the Kenya Private Sector Alliance, initially targeting 30,000 young people over three years. The first cohort included 500 interns taken on by 22 private companies.

At the launch, Ruto acknowledged the difficulty of moving from education into employment, saying: "A certificate or degree alone is no longer enough."

President William Ruto launches the NYOTA Fund programme at Machakos Stadium in Machakos County on June 15, 2026. [PCS]

The observation points to a central weakness in the jobs debate: education and skills are essential, but they cannot guarantee employment where businesses are not hiring, or available work does not provide a dependable income.

Employment statistics present a mixed picture. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics' Economic Survey 2026 reported that employment outside small-scale agriculture and pastoral activities increased by 822,100 in 2025. However, 87.2 per cent of the additional jobs were in the informal sector, and informal employment now stands at 18.1 million.

The figures show employment growth but do not establish how many jobs went to young people, resulted from government programmes or provided reliable earnings and social protection. They nevertheless underline the challenge of creating work that can support people beyond day-to-day survival.

For an administration elected on the promise of lifting those at the bottom of the economic pyramid, the quality and sustainability of employment are as important as the numbers.

The World Bank has raised similar concerns about the quality of employment available to young Kenyans. In its May 2025 economic update, the Bank's country director, Qimiao Fan, said Kenya continued to face "structural challenges, including insufficient job creation and low wages, especially among the youth".

The Bank also reported that formal wage-employment growth slowed to 2.4 per cent in 2024, and that the share of formal jobs had declined from nearly 20 per cent in 2010 to 15 per cent in 2024. KNBS data show formal wage employment growing by 2.8 per cent in 2025, to 3.3 million.

NYOTA is one of the administration's flagship interventions, designed to support vulnerable young people through business start-up capital, workplace experience, recognition of prior learning and training intended to improve access to employment and public procurement.

The programme's business-support component offers eligible entrepreneurs Sh50,000 in start-up capital, paid in two instalments of Sh25,000, with the Government presenting the grants as a way to reach people who struggle to obtain financing from conventional banks. For a young trader, mechanic, tailor or food vendor, the money can help purchase stock, acquire equipment or expand a small business.

But the long-term value of a grant depends on whether the enterprise can attract customers, cover operating costs and remain viable after the initial injection of capital has been spent. Beneficiary numbers are therefore an important measure of reach, not a sufficient measure of success.

The programme plans to provide capital to 110,000 businesses, while other components seek to improve employability and recognise skills acquired outside formal education. Demand has been far higher: more than 2.5 million young people applied. At the 10 July 2026 disbursement, 88,934 entrepreneurs received their second Sh25,000 and another 33,269 received their first, taking the payout to about Sh3 billion for more than 122,000 people, above the original 110,000 target.

Faith Kasina, a young resident of Kayole in Nairobi, says the broader challenge is whether the assistance matches the realities facing people trying to establish businesses in an expensive urban economy.

"The amount you borrow is not enough to start a business," she says, citing the cost of renting premises, obtaining licences and meeting other start-up expenses.

Kasina's concerns expose the limits of treating credit as a complete solution to unemployment. Without sufficient capital, business support and access to markets, a loan may provide temporary relief without creating a sustainable livelihood.

The Hustler Fund was launched in November 2022 to widen access to affordable credit for low-income earners and people excluded from conventional financial services.

The Government says the programme has disbursed Sh90 billion to 28 million borrowers, making it one of the most visible symbols of Ruto's bottom-up economic model.

Yet questions about its financial controls and performance have persisted. In October 2024, MPs sitting on the National Assembly's Special Funds Accounts Committee heard that about Sh7 billion in loans had not been repaid by roughly 13 million defaulters. The fund's acting chief executive, Elizabeth Nkukuu, acknowledged that the fund's money was not insured and said officials were considering recovering the money from defaulters' M-Pesa balances and airtime, which would need a legal framework.

Gen Z protesters chant along Moi Avenue during the first anniversary of the Gen Z protests in Nairobi on June 25, 2025. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

Nyatike MP Tom Odege questioned the level of default, while Kabuchai MP Majimbo Kalasinga asked what risk the country was taking by lending public money without insurance.

In its audit of the 2023/24 financial year, the Auditor-General also flagged Sh31.8 million in loans associated with 44,167 borrower records whose recorded dates of birth indicated that they were underage or had not yet been born when the money was disbursed.

The findings raised questions about the reliability of beneficiary records and the fund's internal controls; they did not, on their own, establish fraud by every borrower involved. The Principal Secretary for MSMEs, Susan Mang'eni, disputed the findings, saying the audit relied on erroneous data and that minors cannot access the fund.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission subsequently called for the fund to be decommissioned, citing a default rate it put at 68.3 per cent and wider losses. The Government dismissed the report as malicious and politically timed. Oparanya has separately said that 19 million of 21 million borrowers had defaulted.

The debate over how to measure success is not new. The World Bank's evaluation of the Kenya Youth Employment and Opportunities Project (KYEOP) provides a benchmark for assessing whether employment interventions can produce lasting results.

The Bank reported that KYEOP supported more than 145,000 young people, created 125,000 direct jobs and 30,000 indirect jobs, and was associated with beneficiaries' employment rate rising from 70 per cent before participation to 85 per cent afterwards. Tracer studies and impact evaluations also found that beneficiaries had 50 per cent higher earnings. The Bank's own figures vary across publications, however: an earlier results page put the project's reach at 310,889 young people and the earnings gain at 20 per cent, and the "direct jobs" appear to include self-employment.

The project combined skills training, work experience, business grants, coaching and links to employers, while using results-based financing to encourage training providers and master craftsmen to improve placements and outcomes.

One beneficiary, Esther Karisa, who trained in welding, told the World Bank that she was earning more and employing young welders after people in her community initially doubted that a woman could work in the trade.

Her experience demonstrates what employment support can achieve when training is linked to market demand and programmes are assessed by what happens to participants after they complete them. The World Bank has described NYOTA as the next phase of its support for youth employment in Kenya, targeting approximately 820,000 young people.

Other elements of the administration's employment agenda face similar questions. Digital-skills training can open access to online work, but the number of trainees does not reveal how many subsequently earn money, how much they make or whether they can obtain assignments regularly.

Government figures reported more than 1.9 million young people trained in digital skills and more than 300,000 online jobs created through initiatives including Jitume and Ajira by 2025, with later statements citing 330,000 and 350,000. In May 2024, the ICT ministry reported 390,968 people trained and 135,071 online job linkages.

Online work can connect Kenyan freelancers and professionals to international clients. But completing a course does not guarantee paid assignments. Young people may still lack computers, reliable internet, affordable electricity, suitable payment systems or the experience needed to secure clients.

Overseas employment has emerged as another pillar of the administration's jobs strategy. Ruto said in August 2025 that 430,000 Kenyans had secured jobs abroad over two and a half years, and by February 2026 he put the figure above 500,000, presenting labour mobility as a route to employment and improved household incomes. Placements, deployments and sustained employment are different measures.

Housing and public works provide another test of the employment promise. Construction can create opportunities for masons, electricians, plumbers, transporters and suppliers, but the number of houses built does not reveal how many young people benefited or how long their jobs lasted. The Government's own tally of youth jobs in the programme has grown quickly, from about 320,000 in mid-2025 to more than 640,000 by May 2026, and 1.1 million in Ruto's remarks in Kisumu in September, without explaining how jobs are counted.

However, Kasina questions whether the affordable housing programme is accessible to those most in need.

"Because when you say affordable housing, we need to look at affordable for who?" she asks.

The government's youth agenda also includes access to public procurement through the Access to Government Procurement Opportunities programme, which reserves opportunities for enterprises owned by youth, women and persons with disabilities.

However, an Auditor-General's review of national government ministries, departments and agencies for the 2023/24 financial year found that none of the 395 institutions evaluated met the requirement to reserve 30 per cent of procurement for the targeted groups. Sh77.2 billion was awarded to these groups against a reserved target of Sh298.1 billion, or about 8 per cent of procurement spend by our calculation.

The findings raise questions about whether a policy designed to open government markets to disadvantaged businesses is delivering the opportunities intended.

Registration and access to tenders are only the beginning; the value of contracts awarded, payment timelines and survival rates of beneficiary businesses determine whether procurement opportunities translate into lasting economic gains.

According to Ndanu, the consequences extend beyond economics to the relationship between young citizens and the government they elected.

She argues that when programmes lose momentum and concerns go unanswered, public trust suffers.

"When young people complain, we go on the streets, we have webinars, we call governments to the table and have conversations, and the conversations are just left at the table and nothing is done," she says.

The protests against the Finance Bill in 2024, which forced Ruto to withdraw the proposed legislation, and subsequent demonstrations brought economic grievances into a wider debate about accountability, police conduct, alleged abductions and constitutional rights. They showed that young people were not only demanding economic relief but also questioning whether the Government was listening to them and using public resources responsibly.

As the country moves towards the 2027 election, Ndanu urges young people to judge leaders by their records rather than political loyalties or campaign slogans.

"We have data, not misinformation, not disinformation, not clickbait," she says, calling on young citizens to scrutinise politicians' promises and hold them accountable.

For Ruto, the 2027 election will test whether the hustler promise has translated into lasting economic change. For young Kenyans, the measure is more immediate: whether the opportunities presented in their name have helped them secure decent work, build viable businesses and achieve greater financial security.

The final scorecard will not be determined by billions disbursed, people trained or jobs announced. It will be determined by how many young people can point to a lasting improvement in their lives—and whether the Government can prove it.