Cherrie Atilano, Founder and CEO of AGREA, and Youth Advisory Group (YAG) board member, led an engaging webinar on how young people employed in the agriculture sector can build a sustainable global food system post COVID-19. Cherrie started teaching farmers at the age of 12, has 22 years of vast experience in Sustainable Food Systems, and is the recipient of numerous global awards.

Before the pandemic, AGREA provided training in agricultural entrepreneurship. Her organization has successfully utilized young people and young farmers in the Philippines during COVID-19. AGREA has helped over 20,182 Filipino small-farmer holders reach over 70,527 Filipino families with nearly 177,000 kilos of fruit and vegetables. Additionally, AGREA has donated to 10 kitchens feeding front-liners and delivered 154 GrowKits for urban agriculture.

She is a High-Level Ambassador of the United Nations Scaling Up Nutrition, she is a part of the 2020 class World Economic Forum’s foundation for remarkable leaders under 40, and a Board Member of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) based in Geneva, Switzerland and United People Global based in Zurich Switzerland. She was also newly appointed as the Philippine Ambassadress on Food Security.  

This webinar highlighted Accenture's experience in pivoting to a virtual delivery of their Skills to Succeed Internship program in the wake of COVID-19. In addition to managing the outreach and recruitment of interns, and the logistics of sending the equipment , speakers also talked about how suitable teams, mentors and projects were identified and how staff were trained to ensure that they were adequately prepared to mentor incoming interns. Speakers identified specific challenges around internet connectivity, broken laptops, and communication disruptions, and ways in which they were able to address them. You can find full access to Accenture's UK Movement to Work Virtual Placement Toolkit here.

As organizations around the world navigate the transition to remote work, constraints of internet connectivity make this transition even more challenging. Private sector companies globally are stepping up to offer technology products and tools that can make this transition easier. This S4YE webinar featured Juan Cuadros from SAP and Apurva Chandra from Microsoft who both spoke about their organizations e-learning solutions and demonstrated use cases from developing countries to highlight how organizations can use e-learning platforms, even in low-connectivity environments, to meet community needs during COVID-19 times. SAP Litmos is a cloud-based solution that unifies virtual, classroom, mobile, and social learning, and empowers training departments, service leaders, HR teams to collaborate, author, globally distribute, and track web-based training courses, as well as schedule and track instructor-led courses. Learn more here. Microsoft Community Training is an azure powered platform that supports personalized learning for a large-scale mobile-based community. It is affordable, easy to manage and provides robust security and privacy protection through an easy-to-use UI or via REST APIs. Learn more here.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of youth is expected to more than double by 2050 and reach almost 600 million by 2100, with most of them living in rural areas. Countries have to urgently create employment opportunities in rural areas to reap the demographic dividends of this ‘youth bulge’. Jobs potential for youth in rural development is presumed but little is known about specific strategies that turn this potential into actual job opportunities. In our upcoming webinar, we will discuss strategies that work such as collaboration with the private sector, improving perceptions of agriculture among rural youth, and scaling activities by involving youth and through national and local partners.

Experts from GIZ shared the learnings from their latest report, “What Works in rural youth employment promotion?” and highlight the need for an ‘integrated’ approach for rural youth employment promotion‒ with program activities on both the supply side and the demand side of the labor market. The webinar also featured projects from African countries‒ Employment Promotion Programme (EPP III) Sierra Leone & Agricultural Value Chains for Sustainable Development (A4SD) to showcase their ‘integrated’ approaches, results, and critical success factors, including how they are adapting to COVID-19. The webinar recording can be found here. The presentation can be downloaded from below. 

This S4YE webinar featured Georges Houngbonon from IFC and Todd Cotts from Intelsat. The session focused on how enabling broadband infrastructure in rural and hard-to-reach regions can boost youth employment opportunities. Broadband is integral to social and economic activity globally, however access to internet connectivity remains a significant challenge in many countries.

Innovative private sector-led solutions can enable broadband connectivity in remote regions, and this can lead to more employment opportunities. Broadband connectivity can enhance entrepreneurship and self-employment opportunities by creating new markets (e.g. electronic devices sales and repairing, distribution of ancillary services like cybercafes); and lowering the costs of setting up and running traditional businesses.

The lack of electricity has been a key barrier to broadband access in rural areas. However, today telecom companies and network operators are breaking market barriers to jointly provide energy efficient solutions to access power and broadband connectivity at the same time – which in turn can lead to more micro-businesses that can further create several job opportunities in the community - like setting up and running solar powered-phone charging kiosks, maintenance of solar home systems etc.

You can find video access to this webinar here.

This S4YE webinar featured Skilllab and JobKred. The session touched upon several perspectives like, use of AI across the workforce transformation value chain to recommend career, training, and jobs;   using these platforms to integrate refugees into local labor markets better;   translating personal and voluntary ‘’experiences” into skill profiles that could be used for signaling to employers.

In addition to sharing many use cases, the speakers emphasized key design elements of their respective platforms so that these tools do not reinforce labor market occupational and gender biases and maintain data privacy while working with developing country governments. The webinar also delved into the common challenges faced in implementation such as lack of adequate data, local jobs and the need for a strong local partner to make these solutions truly effective.

The webinar, featuring speakers from the Global Apprenticeship Network (GAN), TransZed Apprenticeships, The Adecco Group, Zurich Insurance Group and Intel delved into the business case for implementing Work-Based Learning programs and highlighted different models across industries and sectors that can lead to win-win outcomes for both the private sector and the youth. Using examples from their own experience, speakers highlighted key design elements in their WBL programs. They talked about the need for work contracts for apprentices in formal labor markets; the importance of certification to ensure portability of skills; and the value in partnering with local universities to design demand-driven ‘Dual Education’ programs. The webinar also underscored the need for consortiums in building industry alliances and bringing SMEs in each sector together to promote more institutionalized WBL programs among the private sector.

This webinar is part of the 'S4YE- Insights from the Private Sector' webinar series- an ongoing web series that facilitates dialogue between youth employment practitioners and private sector companies around the world. 

This webinar is part of the ongoing ‘S4YE - Insights from the Private Sector’ series and focuses on how companies are developing innovative solutions to support youth in the wake of COVID-19. As the global pandemic continues, diverse communities have lost a disproportionate number of jobs and are facing new challenges in finding decent jobs in addition to their pre-existing challenges. Private sectors and non-profit organizations are finding new ways of supporting economic empowerment for the minority and diverse communities by ensuring digital access for all, promoting business equality, addressing youth unemployment and eliminating the gender gap.

In the session, Arielle Gross Samuels, Head of Global Business Strategy and Engagement from Facebook, shared her company’s  commitment of $100 million to 30,000 businesses and equality programs. These initiatives have been achieved through global programs such as the #SheMeansBusiness and Blueprint project, which provide entrepreneurial women with the support to make valuable connections, share advice on using Facebook tools, and to further their digital marketing skills through the Facebook and Instagram platforms. Hyacinth Vassell, Industry Vice President of Innovation Engineering from the Association for Enterprise Opportunity shared the importance of addressing bias and stereotypes when designing economic programs. This can be achieved with continuous sensitivity training and being intentional about the project’s design.

Watch the video recording here!

The webinar, featuring speakers from Nestle’ and IFC delved into two key aspects of agri-prenuership  - 1) how to attract youth into the agricultural value chain and 2) how to sustain them. The webinar highlighted the need to connect agri-prenuers across the agricultural value chain, and the role of the private sector in doing so. Using a wide range of examples, the speakers talked about interesting private sector led solutions like innovative blended financing for smallholder farmers, guaranteed access to markets through supply chain models, and institutionalized training and technical assistance, that could enable future farmers to find viable employment opportunities in the agri-space.

This webinar is part of the ‘S4YE – Insights from the Private Sector’ webinar series - an ongoing web series that facilitates dialogue between youth employment practitioners and private sector companies around the world. 

The webinar, featuring speakers from Microsoft, iMerit and IFC, highlighted how AI and disruptive technologies have a complex relationship with job creation. While many routine tasks are being automated, the speakers highlighted several innovative ways in which disruptive technologies are making jobs accessible to very low income disadvantaged youth (through an interesting impact sourcing model); or helping firms increase productivity or creating innovative solutions to constraints faced by young entrepreneurs ( like access to credit or payments through fintech solutions;  or connection to markets through ecommerce platforms; or access to real time weather information to small holder farmers.)

This webinar is part of the ‘S4YE – Insights from the Private Sector’ webinar series - an ongoing web series that facilitates dialogue between youth employment practitioners and private sector companies around the world.