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HCD to capture youths’ POV on agripreneurship to make the EKYAN program more youth centered.
- Sarah
- UNICEF, SNV, ASSEK (Kenya)
- June 2, 2026
Situation
Youth across Samburu, Kisumu, and Busia show strong ambition to build livelihoods in agriculture, yet face systemic barriers in accessing finance, markets, and sustained mentorship. Human-centered design research revealed that training alone is insufficient without pathways to application, income, and growth .
Assignment
Conduct design research among youth to get a deeper understanding of personas, their needs, aspirationa and barriers to get into agripreneurship, and transfer these insights into tangible, scalable solutions.
Approach
Our in-country team conducted design research among 133 youth and trainers through interviews, focus groups, and field observations across counties. Through a highly participate design sprint with youth, implementing partners and UNICEF staff, we co-created ideas to resolve the challenges that youth expressed. We co-created five prototypes.
Result
Three prioritised youth-led solutions: 1) Agro-Fusion reimagines access to finance through storytelling-driven investor matching. 2) Soko Link strengthens market access via mentorship, business readiness, and buyer matchmaking. 3) Training, Mentorship and Coaching by Local Experts embeds hands-on, value chain specific guidance through local practitioners. Each prototype was tested with users and iterated based on real-time feedback, and designed to be adopted and scaled by ecosystem actors.