Ms. Ogange, We work closely with the Youth Ministry. The ICT portion of Kazi Kwa Vijana emanated from our Ministry. In my view we should refrain from creating silos in Government. The policy directive was well understood and implementation has started in earnest. Perharps we should invite you to attend one of the training sessions because in virtual discussions sometimes people do not get to know what is happening on the ground. I have seen one of our members in the forum hoping that the Governemnt would one day provide a stimulus to have enhance civic education and consumer awareness. This indeed was our brain child that is now being implemented elsewhere. How many times have we talked about the digital villages and the empowerment of the rural folks through Government support. Through these centers we can enhance civic education and create consumer awareness. The training of the 10,000 youth through the loan from World Bank has started. It requires consumer advocates to give lectures to these trainees as they attend the training. It requires you personally to create content that enables such discourse. In the past two years, we created a CDF monitoring platform which gave the spending pattern of all constituencies. Despite the glaring disparities created by our legislatures, we have never in this policy discussion said anything. We equally have the responsibility to raise these issues and bring our people to account. Some times I feel that we abdicate our responsibilities by always pointing fingers at the Government. It is through constructive criticism that we can improve all our lives. Regards Ndemo.

Listers, I have read with great interest the directive by the President to the Ministry of Information and Communication to ‘come up with’ programmes for the training and development of the youth nationwide after the launch of the fibre optic cable. http://www.information.go.ke/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=478   This, he rightly says, will ‘catch the generation of truly digital Kenyans.’  I think it is a timely assertion coming from the Head of State. However, I have a feeling that if the directive had been aimed at the Ministry of Youth Affairs and the Ministry of Education, then the Ministry of ICT would play its default role of providing the infrastructural and related support to enable these two Ministries (and any other Ministries with similar programmes) to expand the training programmes that already exist and initiate new ones.  I am not aware of the full structure of the Ministry of ICT but I suspect that taking full responsibility of initiating or co-ordinating youth training in ICT countrywide might overstretch its already crowded mandate. Again, if our accountability processes still hold, then the President will at some point expect to be briefed by the Ministry of ICT on how far the directive has progressed. At this point, I see some difficulties with agency and responsibility for outcomes.   Which leads me to ask: How does a presidential directive convert to actionable policy? What has been the success level of such directives in the ICT sector? How might a directive like this one be actioned without power games coming into play?    Any ideas? Betty          

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