The guide is the result of a South-South exchange between technical advisors and representatives of youth organisations from Burkina Faso, Malawi, Mozambique and Kenya. It highlights their first-hand experiences and best practices on topics like leadership transition, recruitment of new members, the inclusion of women as well as strategies for the distribution of information among members.

This Note analyzes how Generative AI (GAI) will impact jobs, using a skills-based approach to categorize occupations as augmented by GAI, disrupted by automation, or minimally affected. While GAI is expected to enhance some jobs, a troubling gender gap emerges: women are more likely to hold jobs susceptible to disruption, while men are more likely to benefit from GAI-powered augmentation. This trend suggests GAI could widen the gender gap in the job market.

The knowledge product serves as an introduction to the strategies and approaches outlined within, offering practical guidance on facilitating access to finance for project beneficiaries. Developed through a transnational thematic working group on access to finance, the guide draws from the diverse experiences of the four country packages to provide policymakers and implementing organizations with valuable insights.

This how-to paper focuses on the promotion of digitalisation within rural youth employment programmes. Digitalisation in rural contexts can be complicated and requires tailored responses to be able to support youth and women in gaining better access to knowledge, information and job opportunities. Through successful planning and implementation, digital tools can help provide these opportunities. At the same time, they create more interesting and accessible routes in discovering youths’ employment potential – both locally and globally.

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.

This Short Note is part of a series building on the report Working Without Borders: The Promise and Peril of Online Gig Work. This note aims to provide some practical tips for practitioners like World Bank task team leaders in implementing online gig work programs to enable vulnerable populations - such as youth, women, persons with disabilities - to access online gig jobs to support their social and economic inclusion. Governments can use the potential of online gig work to build human capital, develop the nation’s digital skills, and provide opportunities to supplement household income.

This Short Note is part of a series building on the report Working without Borders: The Promise and Peril of Online Gig Work. flexibility of working hours and location associated with online gig work uniquely positions it as an avenue to boost female labor force participation, especially in regions with limited local job opportunities. This short note takes a deep dive into gender-based disparities in access to these new forms of work, especially asking whether there is a gender gap in hourly rates that online gig workers ask for and earn from online tasks. The analysis uses data from over 19,000 profiles on one of the largest English-language freelancing platforms. Data from one of the largest global freelancing platforms shows that women quote approximately 10 percent lower hourly rates than men, likely reflecting a difference in confidence.

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 policy review considers the opportunities e-commerce offers to women-led and womenowned small enterprises in developing and least developed countries (LDCs), and the challenges such enterprises face to engage in e-commerce. While a vast literature is available on e-commerce and UNCTAD has contributed to it, looking at e-commerce through a gender lens is a more recent endeavour. This publication aims to contribute to it. It is addressed to a variety of stakeholders, but especially to policymakers, with the aim of providing guidance on how to design policies and measures that enhance women’s beneficial participation in the economy by leveraging e-commerce. Nevertheless, private sector stakeholders are encouraged to examine the findings of this policy review to determine opportunities for collaboration with government, including through public-private partnerships.

This short report summarizes a Creative Economy Alliance (CEA) webinar hosted by the Cultural and Creative Industries global project (implemented by GIZ and the Goethe-Institut on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) and the World Bank’s Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE) Project. The webinar focused on using international cooperation to drive gender equality within the creative economy.

This report highlights the Better Work strategy (2018-2022), a collaborative effort by the ILO and IFC to promote gender equality in the global garment industry. It highlights the importance of decent work conditions, including fair treatment, social protections, and work-life balance, for empowering women and fostering a thriving garment industry.

To better address gender inequalities and promote an inclusive environment, the supra-regional project, Cultural and Creative Industries, commissioned a gender analysis. It highlights gender-based differences in terms of the relative distribution of resources, opportunities, constraints and power in the Creative and Cultural Industries.

This report details the first Australian exploratory study with students and young people to understand their perceptions and use of Generative AI. The study includes insight from 576 young people aged 14 to 26 across High Schools, Universities, TAFE, Colleges, and in work.

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.

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.

This publication explores the African fashion industry and an initiative by the African Development Bank to support it. The fashion industry is a major player in Africa, holding immense potential for job creation, particularly for women and young people. However, the industry also faces challenges such as limited access to funding and low production capacity. The African Development Bank's Fashionomics Africa program helps fashion businesses with training, investment, and finding new markets. This publication also mentions two examples of successful African fashion businesses that benefited from the program.

This toolkit highlights World Bank Group (WBG) commitments relevant to women and girls with disabilities, examples of law and policy reform, and key barriers and solutions across several World Bank sectors, and it includes a checklist for Task Team Leaders (TTLs) to use throughout the project cycle. TTLs will benefit from the toolkit’s key questions and suggested indicators aimed to increase inclusion of women and girls with disabilities across WBG projects and a set of resources for additional support. It addresses measures to promote the socioeconomic inclusion of women with disabilities across several critical sectors for World Bank operations: education; employment and entrepreneurship; social protection; gender based violence; health; digital development; water and sanitation; transportation and urban planning; fragility, conflict, violence; and disaster risk management. It seeks to support WBG task teams in inclusive approaches to the design, implementation, and evaluation of all projects to better support women and girls with disabilities and address their intersectional needs.

This S4YE note examines women's participation in online gig work, contrasting their motivations with those of their male counterparts and outlining the typical profiles of male and female gig workers regarding age, education, working hours, and involvement in freelancing communities. It delves into how these workers identify themselves in relation to the platform or their clients and highlights the key benefits they seek from online gig platforms. The note also identifies critical skills crucial for success in this domain, suggesting potential areas for performance improvement. Finally, it summarizes the aspirations of both male and female online gig workers, offering insights into the industry's future trajectory.

This report estimates the size of the South African care economy through an analysis of the number of existing and potential future job opportunities in the sector. It also outlines the potential impact of investment into the care economy including economic impact, impact on beneficiaries, and impact on the young people who could access the job opportunities together with the broader societal impacts.

This World Bank report draws on data from the most recent Nigeria General Household Survey to makes five critical contributions towards improving gender inclusion in Nigeria: (1) highlighting the gender gaps in labor force participation; (2) documenting the magnitude and drivers of the gender gaps in key economic sectors; (3) diving deep into three contextual constraints: land, livestock, and occupational segregation; (4) measuring the costs of the gender gaps; and (5) offering policy and programming recommendations of innovative options to close the gender gaps.