Good practice

Ajira Digital – Digital Skills and Online Jobs for Kenyan Youth

Kenya's Ajira Digital programme has trained 390,968 young people across all 47 counties since 2017 via 101 free-access empowerment centres, connecting 119,462 to online jobs in the gig economy, with a Dalberg-evaluated impact.

390,968

Young people trained (since 2017)

all 47

Counties covered

119,462

Connected to online jobs

Details

Maturity: Established
Promoter: ICT Authority, Ministry of Information, Communication and Digital Economy, Kenya
Period: 2017-present
Keywords: youth, women, digital employment, gig economy, low-income, rural, digital skills

Context

Kenya's Ajira Digital programme trains young people in digital skills and connects them to online gig-economy jobs through free-access empowerment centres.

Results

Since 2017 it has trained 390,968 young people across all 47 counties via 101 empowerment centres and connected 119,462 to online jobs, with a Dalberg-evaluated impact.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-06-21
ICT Authority, Ministry of Information, Communication and Digital Economy, Kenya — accessed 2026-06-21
EAA Observatory – Ajira Digital solution profile — accessed 2026-06-21
Mastercard Foundation – Ajira Digital Program — accessed 2026-06-21

Quality score: 92/100

How is this calculated?

Evidence: Observational / pre–post

Top 6% in this catalogue (573 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by C-NAPSE

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Innovation level3/5

Combining government-run digital hubs, gig-economy job-pathway design, and multi-stakeholder delivery across all 47 counties is a genuinely novel, widely-replicated model for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Sustainability (ongoing)1/1

Government-institutionalised since 2017 and scaled from pilot to 101 centres; Mastercard Foundation partnership extends financial sustainability.

Evaluation evidence1/1

Independent Dalberg evaluation (December 2021) plus official government statistics reported to parliament confirm training and job-placement outcomes.

Demonstrated reach1/1

390,968 youth trained across all 47 Kenyan counties by March 2024; 119,462 connected to digital employment.

Documented learning1/1

Dalberg evaluation explicitly confirms replicability; multi-stakeholder design documented as scalable model across the region.

Cite this

Evidoria. Ajira Digital – Digital Skills and Online Jobs for Kenyan Youth. Persistent ID: 1bbaa397-186a-490c-8ac0-441f00509b59.

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