NAIROBI – The National Steering Committee and the Technical Coordinating Committee were on Monday launched to implement the Global Labour Market Strategy 2023-27.
According to Diaspora Affairs Principal Secretary Roseline Njogu, the SteerCo and Technical Committee will implement Kenya’s new Global Labour Market Strategy (GLMS) in a coordinated way that puts Kenyan talent at the heart of government’s work in protecting, regulating and facilitating labour migration.
The SteerCo is co-chaired by PSs Njogu, Shadrack Mwadime (Labour) and Geoffrey Kaituko (Maritime). The trio presided over the launch.
According to PS Mwandime, the strategy establishes a framework for coordinating foreign labour migration management across various government ministries, departments and agencies.
“This strategy outlines short-term, medium-term and long-term goals aimed at streamlining labor migration and facilitating foreign employment opportunities to address unemployment, particularly among the youth,” Mwadime told journalists in Nairobi.
The strategy also includes guidelines for negotiating bilateral labour migration agreements with key destination countries to enhance the protection of Kenyan migrants and ensure a consistent flow of job opportunities.
It also advocates safe, organized, and regular migration by ensuring the fair and ethical recruitment of Kenyan laborers, aiming to provide them with decent treatment and protection as migrant workers, which has been a challenge in Middle East countries.
In her presentation, PS Njogu said labour migration has immense benefits to both the source and the destination markets, and that the highly skilled Kenyan labour brand meets the market demand that in turn solves the high unemployment domestically.
If exported, she said, it will help address the demographic issues in Kenya, as well as labour deficit in countries abroad.
In August this year, President William Ruto said his administration is seeking to expor at least one million workers from Kenya.
Speaking during the opening ceremony of the Devolution conference in Uasin Gishu County, President Ruto said the government is working to make sure that the available world-class labour can be exported.
“You have heard from the American Ambassador [Meg Whitman] that companies are giving accounts that our Kenyan workforce, human resource is the best globally, we must be deliberate about how do we harness this world class human capital to drive our economy and progress..
“We are working to make sure that we can export this world-class labour. I want to thank the many countries that have given us opportunities to export our labour. I have given very clear instructions to [Labour CS] Florence [Bore] she knows what she must do to at least get one million job exports from Kenya,” the President said.
The Kenya Kwanza manifesto pledged to increase remittance from the diaspora from $4 billion to $10 billion.
Njogu invited various partners and stakeholders to work together to successfully implement GLMS.
Kenya posted an increase in foreign remittance inflows in June 2023 to $ 345.9 million compared to $326.1 million in June 2022, an increase of 6.1 per cent.
Data from the Central Bank of Kenya also shows the cumulative remittances inflows for the past year to June 2023 remained steady at $ 4,017 million compared to $ 4,012 million over a similar period in 2022, an increase of 0.1 per cent.
CBK Diaspora Remittances Surveys show inflows to the country have increased tenfold over the past decade, reaching an all-time record of $4.027 billion (Sh559.57 billion) in 2022.
