Gen-Z and Budgets: The Youth’s Place in Public Finance

Recently, at brunch with some of my peers and I had a striking discussion on youth engagement in the public finance system, especially in the budgeting process. While most of them noted that they have little knowledge of the process and have never been part of any public participation forum, they all seemed to agree on one thing; the youth’s voices matter in the public finance space. After a heated discussion on youth and political engagements, I concluded that contrary to how society has deemed youth to being lax on public matters, most youth are willing to take an active stance in the PFM space. However, this conclusion contradicts what happens at ground level. The question would then be, where is the gap??

Background on youth participation in PFM space?

The common narrative around youth civic engagement is that they typically have a little interest in matters that involve the government and public welfare. They have constantly demonstrated minimal interest and knowledge in most political processes both at county and national government levels. Statistics from the previous elections showed that a considerable percentage of young people under 35 years failed to participate in the voting process, despite being the largest population group in the country. These situations run across several other processes including the budget process.??

IBP Kenya has conducted several public convenings for public finance discussion and together with its partners in the regional budget hubs, it has educated the public on fiscal matters. Throughout its years of engagements, the youth’s presence has notably been lower than older age groups. What then causes the low youth to turn out in the budgeting process??

Two hypotheses came to mind while analyzing this puzzle. First, is that most youth lack sufficient knowledge of the budgeting process and their right to participate in the process. This, in part, could attributed to low public education on the subject. Beyond high school history and government lessons on government revenue and expenditure, there are very few other government-sponsored platforms that effectively educate on the budgeting process. Existing platforms such as the Council of Governor’s Maarifa Center and National Treasury’s Bajeti Yetu, whose mandate includes promoting accountability and transparency in the budgeting process, have very few learning initiatives for citizens. The lack of a proactive and consistent civic education structure by the government particularly affects the participation of Kenya’s digitally inclined youth.?

The second hypothesis is that public finance is a historically exclusive space. In African settings, public finance management matters have been perceived to be deliberated and decided upon by adults, mostly men. Despite the introduction of several initiatives around the level of youth empowerment in the country, this exclusive narrative continues to alienate youth in most civic engagement opportunities. Overtime, this may have also reinforced the mindset among youth that budget matters are beyond them, resulting in lower turnout.?

What measures then, can the government and the youth take to boost youth engagements in public finance management??

Government’s role in sustaining youth engagements?

To bridge the gap between youth interests in the budgeting process and their active participation, the government should take deliberate efforts to involve the youth in the PFM space, by maintaining an inclusive civic education model for youth. For instance, the government should organize or support existing platforms such as the YouthConnect Africa Summit and the People’s Dialogue Festival to educate youth on public finance matters. Such events attract a large youth attendance and will result in fruitful engagement amongst the youth. It should also ensure that all government sponsored platforms go beyond the bare minimum, to provide more extensive civic education programs throughout the country. These platforms should also adopt and sponsor youth friendly education channels such as podcasts, use of infographics and art, amongst others. Using more inclusive and youth-oriented communication and learning methods will spark youth’s interest in the space and boost their participation in PFM.?

Youth’s role in increasing their participation.?

Nonetheless, as much as we blame the government for lack of inclusion in their engagements, or the society for perpetuating demeaning notions, the youth must also take a proactive role in the space. IBP recently published an article ‘Kujituma’ that talked about the why and how of public participating in the country. The article explicitly encourages citizens to take personal initiative in engaging with the budgeting process from the first stage, formulation, through to the audit stage. By law, both county and national government are expected to hold public participation forums for citizens to give their input on various budget decisions. Just like any other citizen, the youth should join these forums and actively contribute to the budget conversations rather than taking a backseat.?

Further, since most youth prefer engaging in online conversations, budget cafes are an ideal entry point for young people to get involved in PFM. Budget cafes are online convenings organized by IBP Kenya and its partners, to help citizens and civil society actors to analyze various budget proposals before engaging in public participation opportunities. During the Cafe sessions, participants get to have in-depth discussions on the budget decision at hand, express their concerns and finally prepare a memo to submit to the relevant authority. Being part of these fora allows the youth and other citizens to raise and discuss their issues extensively while also strengthening their capacity on different PFM issues. Young people should leverage these opportunities to learn more and closely engage with the budgeting process.?

To sum up,?

Young Kenyans must recognize and appreciate the fact that civic matters such as public finance management heavily impacts on their lives, directly and indirectly. Therefore, no youth should shy away from being part of positive progress in public finance.?