The Asante Africa Foundation's 2023 Impact Report, "Rural Youth Breaking Barriers," highlights the transformative power of education in East Africa. By providing quality education and fostering entrepreneurship and leadership, AAF's programs empowered over 24,000 youth in 2023, creating lasting change and brighter futures. They acknowledge the need for continued support in education, mentorship, and youth empowerment to build a stronger Africa.
This how-to paper illustrates four innovative entrepreneurship trainings implemented within the 360° AgriJobs Approach that can help reach employment goals. The measures aim at enabling young men and women to gain a set of soft skills that allow them to identify and seize business opportunities, anticipate market changes, overcome barriers, and take initiative. Creativity, flexibility, resilience, communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and finance management are learnable skills to become a successful entrepreneur.
Financial health for young entrepreneurs means that they are aware of and able to access appropriate resources required to start and grow their enterprises, can manage their business finances, and have confidence in their financial future. Youth Business International (YBI) and ten of its member organizations from Africa, Asia and Europe have developed an evidence-informed approach that can systematically improve how young entrepreneurs can be supported to access appropriate financial services and products.
In this paper, Youth Business International (YBI) and Somo, YBI’s member organisation in Kenya, shine a light on the important role of informal businesses in sub-Saharan Africa and the barriers they face that prevent them from scaling up, with a particular focus on women-led informal businesses in Kenya. It includes recommendations for governments, financial institutions, and development agencies on ways to increase access to finance for informal businesses.
Program engaged young people in Nigeria, Mali, Somalia and Somaliland, with a mission to unlock their potential, build their confidence and equip them with the essential skills required for successful careers or entrepreneurial ventures. The program ran from 2016 to 2023 and was developed and executed with diverse local partners and a consortium of partners in the Netherlands, and funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
This S4YE Note analyzes the importance of the fashion industry for socio-economic growth and examines its potential as a source of job opportunities for young people. It discusses jobs along the industry’s value chain, its contribution to global revenues and trade, and its evolution with changes in technology, environmental concerns, and changing consumption patterns. The note also highlights the skills required for jobs in the fashion industry and presents analysis to support the claim that the industry is a key driver of jobs for youth and women. The note concludes with policy recommendations to promote circular economy job creation, skill development of young talent, and investment in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the fashion industry.
This is a report about the Nestlé Needs YOUth Initiative. It discusses the initiative's goals and achievements over ten years. The initiative was launched to improve young people's employment prospects. It has since expanded to include entrepreneurship and agripreneurship programs. Nestlé Needs YOUth has provided thousands of work opportunities and training sessions. The program emphasizes mentorship and aims to empower young people.
This S4YE Discussion Note explores the role of the blue economy, especially fisheries, as a source of productive and sustainable jobs for youth. The research discusses the importance of understanding how the blue economy is changing in response to trends in technological innovation, environmental concerns, and the move towards a circular economy. Finally, the note discusses four main types of policy interventions that can help support job opportunities for youth in ocean-based industries: 1) deepening youth employment data analysis, 2) closing blue skills gaps, 3) improving the attractiveness and awareness of blue careers among youth; and 4) promoting youth entrepreneurship and innovation in blue economy sectors.
EGSINA is a collective of designers that have joined forces to organise tours promoting local Senegalese fashion across multiple countries. EGSINA’s innovative approach demonstrates how a collective of designers can help develop and promote the national fashion industry. With organisational development support from GIZ, to date, EGSINA generates enough revenue to self-finance its tours.
The Jigeen Ñi Academie Musique (JAM) is a ground-breaking project in Senegal dedicated to the professional development of women. Along with practical music skills, the academy provides training in leadership and cultural entrepreneurship to enhance income and employment opportunities for women in the music industry.
The Goethe-Institut Jordan initiated the takween Product Design Fellowship programme as part of the Cultural and Creative Industries project. The programme offers a hands-on training for product designers and digital designers to enhance their skills and develop innovative sustainable ideas for the modern market.
This report showcases a successful pilot program in Ethiopia's Somali region that connected female entrepreneurs with a digital mentoring platform offering valuable resources. The program's key to success was a multi-faceted approach:traditional marketing to raise awareness, in-person support for initial platform navigation, a mobile-friendly low-bandwidth design for easy access, simplified registration to minimize barriers, and clear educational materials to empower women to leverage the platform's full potential. This demonstrates the feasibility of connecting female entrepreneurs in low-income areas with digital resources and highlights the importance of a user-centric approach for successful implementation.
High school students in Uganda are tackling plastic pollution with creativity and business savvy. Through the Asante Africa Foundation's program, they learned leadership and entrepreneurship skills. Now, they're using recycled plastic to create and sell artwork, transforming waste into income. Their "Together as One Initiative" aims not only to clean up their community but also to empower others through education and sustainable solutions.
This knowledge brief highlights the relevance and challenges of business incubation services for youth in rural areas. It showcases learnings from several projects implemented by the World Bank and GIZ and provides examples of design elements of business incubation services for youth in rural areas. These include 1) creating a network-based ecosystem for rural incubation, 2) promoting on-site incubation as opposed to co-working space, 3) guaranteeing access to markets by involving the private sector, 4) Screening entrepreneurs, 5) combining different types of financial sustainability models based on local conditions, and 6) promotion of pro-women incubation to address the "triple burden" faced by young women in rural areas.
This report examines the growing potential of India’s AI-led software as a service (SaaS) start-ups and analyzes the role that the country, which is already a leader in the global software ecosystem, can play in an AI-led future.
As the world starts recovering from the pandemic, accelerating disruptions translate into permanent changes to labour markets. This paper examines proactive investments that yield a triple dividend – boosting economic activity, expanding employment opportunities, and generating multiplier effects in the form of more inclusive economies and societies.
The Young Africa Connects is a Facebook Live series supported by the Master Card Foundation. It aims to inspire, engage, and uplift young people while amplifying the incredible work being done across the continent.
The latest episode of the series discusses issues related to youth resilience in Africa. During the episode three, young African entrepreneurs discuss their journey, sharing their challenges and how they overcame adversity to embrace or create opportunity. These are powerful lessons in resilience and their stories, provide inspiration to other young people.
This report explores the latest AI applications and trends in emerging markets and includes several examples of how AI is expanding opportunities and contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
This strategic brief shows aquatic food systems have the potential to provide livelihood opportunities for youth but challenges remain for them to join the sector. Multisector initiatives to improve access to training and finance as well as promote digital innovation can improve the participation of youth in fisheries, aquaculture and associated value chains.
These guidelines encompass steps and methods for Organisational Development (OD) support for Youth Organizations (YO) in the agribusiness sector with the goal to strengthen their self-sustaining structures, systems and service delivery. A Youth Organization (YO) in this context is defined as an organised, member-driven grouping of young people pursuing particular purposes (e.g. promotion of agribusiness for income generation and employment, public or political representation of youth agripreneurs in a region).
