Youth ProgramK.E.E.F was established in the year 2004 with an aim of working with under privileged youth in rural and urban areas. Youth development fundYouth unemployment is one of Kenya's most daunting economic challenges. prioritized job creation in its policy agenda. The Youth Enterprise Development Fund is premised on the recognition that micro small and medium enterprise development interventions are likely to have the biggest impact on job creation.The informal (micro and small) sector has, over the last decade, emerged as the main source of employment outside small scale agriculture. Objectives The objective of the Youth Enterprise Development Fund is to increase young entrepreneurs' access to loans, complemented with facilitating linkages in supply chains, creating commercial infrastructure and markets for their products. Unemployment is a very serious problem in Kenya today. In response, the Government has prioritized job creation in its policy agenda. Problems Unemployment is predominantly a youth problem. The youth, defined as persons between the age 15 and 30 years, comprise two thirds of the potentially economically active population. The youth account for over 60 percent of the unemployed. The majority of the unemployed have formal education but no training. Primary and secondary school graduates account for 82% of the unemployed, and university graduates for 1.4%. Of these, 92% have no job training other than formal schooling. This means that unemployment is not just a lack of jobs, but also a lack of job skills due to inadequacy of the training infrastructure as well as the means to acquire skills due to poverty.  Mass unemployment has serious adverse socio-economic and potentially, political consequences. As Kenya is not well endowed with natural resources, people are the nation's most valuable resource. The forgone national productivity due to mass unemployment is large. Assuming productivity of young workers at only half the average value added per worker, unemployment, presently estimated at 2 million translates to a loss of US$ 3.5 billion, equivalent to 20% of 2005 GDP. The unemployed are an economic burden on the employed. This has the effect of depressing saving, and consequently investment. Youth unemployment is associated with deviant and high risk behavior, particularly crime, drug abuse, and spread of HIV/Aids. Job creation for the youth is therefore more than a youth employment issue. It is the core of the employment challenge. It is also critical to raising national productivity, and in effect to economic growth and poverty reduction. On-lending The financial system in Kenya extends to the rural areas and informal sector. It is in the interest of the Youth Enterprise Development Fund that small institutions graduate to formality. Such graduation will offer more opportunities for increasing coverage and outreach of the Youth Enterprise Development Fund. On lending models in use by micro finance wholesalers in the country will be tailor made to suit the special interests of youth borrowers. Business Plan Competitions Business Plan Competitions (BPCs) have been used in both developed and developing countries to spur entrepreneurship by providing training, access to capital, business services and other support to promising entrepreneurs. Business plan competition should be used to prepare a large group of enterprises to join the growth path or remain on the growth path and lay the foundation for the growing cadre of the mentored enterprises.  The BPC will reach out broadly to potential participants who will submit summaries of their business ideas. Ideas will be evaluated and a subset of the submissions will be accepted and the applicants will move into the participant phase of the competition. During this phase, participants will have access to business training courses and will receive hands on coaching as they develop their ideas into the formal fact based business plans. All business plans will be evaluated by a panel of judges and the most outstanding will receive prizes including access to financing. The program will provide access to an array of 'aftercare' services to ensure that new and expanding business have the support and tools necessary to be successful.  Job creation for the youth is therefore more than a youth employment issue. It is the core of the employment challenge. It is also critical to raising national productivity, and in effect to economic growth and poverty reduction. Modes of disbarmentsThe following units are being used to allocate finances; the District where funds will be channeled through Financial Intermediaries. Allocations will be based on the number of districts and youth population in the district;The Constituency; this unit will be used for allocation of loans to groups; Kshs.100 million is for funding the other Fund's objectives such as administration, market infrastructure development and structured labor export;
Roles of partnersThe Youth Enterprise Development Fund is an innovative public-private partnership in which the Government, private sector and development partners each performs the role that they have primary responsibility and core competence. These are proposed as follows:
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