Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE) is a global program that brings together donors, governments, foundations, private sector companies, NGOs and youth to support catalytic programs to increase the number of young people engaged in productive work.
The S4YE Secretariat is housed in the Jobs Group of the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice at the World Bank. S4YE acts as a strategic gateway to connect youth employment stakeholders with over 150 youth employment operations of the World Bank. S4YE partners include the World Bank, Accenture, The Rockefeller Foundation, Mastercard Foundation, Microsoft, Plan International, International Youth Foundation (IYF), Youth Business International (YBI), RAND Corporation, the International Labor Organization (ILO), the Governments of Norway, Germany, the UN Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, and multiple private companies (over 35 large corporations1). Other bilateral partners that support S4YE through the Jobs MDTF include UK Aid, SIDA, and Austria.
This initiative is fueled by the need to address a growing challenge: In the next 10 years, more than 1 billion young people will enter the job market. This means that 5 million jobs are needed per month to accommodate this influx and maintain current employment levels in the developing world.
The S4YE coalition has an explicit commitment to work over a period of at least fifteen years to achieve its objectives. This timeline is proportionate to the scale of the challenge to understand and address the constraints on employment faced by young people.
