The government is today rolling out the NYOTA AGPO Digital Training Program, a fourth component of the NYOTA project, aimed at equipping young entrepreneurs, women and persons with disabilities with skills, knowledge and linkages to enhance access to government tenders.

Leveraging on the success of the ongoing NYOTA project components including Business Support, On Job Experience (OJE) and Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL); the AGPO training programme is expected to benefit over 600,000 young entrepreneurs across the country and eventually widen the NYOTA project reach to over 820,000 beneficiaries as per the project design.

All the NYOTA project applicants as well as the targeted AGPO beneficiary groups including women and persons with disabilities, are eligible for the programme regardless of their age and education qualifications.

The government of Kenya through Section 53(6) of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act (PPADA), 2015, reserves at least 30 per cent of its annual procurement budget for enterprises owned by youth, women and persons with disabilities. This is in recognition of the large market held by government being the largest consumer of goods and services in the economy.

In the current financial year our budget is estimated at Kshs. 4.8 trillion, presenting procurable opportunities of not less than KShI trillion. The thirty per cent AGPO translates to not less than KSh300 billion. However, despite this glaring opportunity, the absorption still remains low with many eligible beneficiaries facing barriers including low awareness of AGPO, complex application procedures, low business formalisation and limited enterprise readiness.

The AGPO training is therefore designed to close these gaps, and catalyse AGPO uptake among the youth to help them not only expand their markets, but also gain the necessary competency for performing government tenders. The training will not only widen youth participation in public procurement but also facilitate linkages to financing, markets, digitization to unlock opportunities for youth entrepreneurship.

The training is offered free of charge and structured into Five Self-Paced modules delivered in a 10-week spread. Each module covers two weeks: course work in the first week and the second week for practical sessions, in a successive sequence.

The topics include:

(a) AGPO foundations and business readiness: the 30 per cent reservation, eligibility and AGPO certification;

(b) Public procurement, bid preparation and tender documentation;

(c) Registering and bidding on the Government’s electronic procurement systems, IFMIS and e-GP;

(d) Contract execution, cash-flow management and procurement financing; and

(e) Governance, record keeping and strategies for building a sustainable enterprise.

The practical sessions will entail webinars on targeted areas by subject matter experts, the industry captains and live interactive sessions to help deepen the understanding of the lessons. The content of the training is available in both English and Kiswahili,

To enrol for the training, one is required to dial the zero-rated USSD Short code *254#, select NYOTA AGPO, complete the registration steps, and will be redirected to a link for the training platform sent through an SMS.

The government in partnership with Safaricom is organizing a special subsidized data bundle to facilitate the training and will be made available to all successful AGPO digital training applicants.

At the completion of the course, the beneficiaries will be issued with a proficiency certificate that will open for them a door to government tenders. The beneficiaries who may not have a registered business or AGPO certificate will be linked to Business Registration Services (BRS) for registration of a sole proprietorship under considerable waivers that the government is working on.

Additionally, the government is also developing a debt-off setting mechanism to accord the AGPO tenderers an opportunity to discount their invoices within a 60-day period after delivery.

This intervention, together with the recent Cabinet directive on the prioritization of settling pending bills of KSh50 million value and below, will reduce the pending bills nightmare which most small traders bear and make the preferential treatment to access to government procurement to youth, women and persons with disability a reality.

The NYOTA AGPO programme therefore goes beyond training by presenting an end-to-end pathway linking training, financing and government tenders through the Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) system and prompt payment mechanism.

The government will enhance the reservation of 30 per cent of tenders by public entities to increase opportunities and also repurpose the catalytic funds to develop structured trade financing products to unlock access and utilization of the AGPO tenders by our young people.

“We call upon all eligible youth, women and persons with disabilities across the country to maximize this programme and enhance their access to government procurement opportunities,” the government says.