Knowledge Brief

Hundreds of millions of young people in the Global South face uncertain futures due to poor access to quality education, inadequate skills, and limited employment opportunities. By 2033, the Global South will host 1.2 billion people ages 15 to 24. However, unless current trends are reversed, only 480 million will attend school, and 420 million will have jobs (often precarious ones), leaving 300 million inactive. Youth inactivity negatively impacts lifelong opportunities, earnings, mobility, and mental health.

In this paper, Youth Business International (YBI) and Habitat in Türkiye shine a light on the potential of youth-led businesses that have outgrown microfinance and start-up support but are still considered too small or high-risk for mainstream investment. These businesses—often innovative and rooted in their communities—are overlooked despite their immense potential to create jobs, generate revenue, and drive sustainable economic growth. They fall into the “missing middle”.

The green economy is projected to generate 8.4 million jobs for young people by 2030, spanning industries such as renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, waste management and eco-tourism. However, for many young people, particularly those from marginalized communities, the pathway to green jobs is fraught with barriers.

The Youth Entrepreneurship Policy Framework published by the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) and Youth Business International (YBI) equips policymakers and entrepreneur support organizations with fresh perspectives and actionable steps to harness this opportunity and empower the new generation. The framework features: emerging trends in youth employment and entrepreneurship; barriers to youth entrepreneurship; and practical recommendations for policymakers and ESOs to adopt to tackle challenges facing young entrepreneurs

To foster a vibrant ecosystem where young green and social entrepreneurs can thrive and contribute to sustainable development, YBI and Development Solutions call for governments, financial institutions, and development agencies to: create dedicated investment funds, subsidize sustainable production, streamline regulatory frameworks, standardize impact measurement, and integrate green and social entrepreneurship into education. 

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.