Characterization of Youth Employment Initiatives in selected African Countries: A synthesis Report

2020

English

This study employed document analysis techniques to synthesize major findings emanating from four country case studies (Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana and Malawi) to examine the characteristics of successful youth employment initiatives to inform policy. The study identified key success factors relating to the design, implementation structure, partnership, coverage, and financing mechanisms. The youth employment initiatives providing capacity building, access to production assets including linkages with technologies, start-up capitals and mentorship were most successful in job creation. These are exemplified as the best performing initiatives through the services they provided in support of youth development and job creation process. The use of value chain development and integrated approaches to facilitate agricultural business endeavors were found to be effective for jobs creation. This is important considering the dominance of agricultural sector in the economies of African countries. Within the integrated approaches, measures to facilitate access to production resources such as land, irrigation systems, improved inputs, finance, and input and output market linkages are very vital to profitability and sustainability of the created jobs. The core constraints to sustaining benefits from the top ranked initiatives include: (i) limited monitoring and evaluation measures; (ii) lack of guidance and counseling to help the youth in making informed career choices; (iii) limited coverage and coordination among implementing partners; (iv) limited training, capacity building facilities especially in rural areas; and (v) unstable funding mechanisms. We speculated that if measures were put in place to prevent the occurrence of these constraints from the design of the initiatives, the intervention would lead to more sustainable and decent jobs for the youth.

Boadu, P.; Fatunbi, A. O.