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With funding from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and in partnership with Silatech, Making Cents International implemented the IFAD Rural Youth Economic Empowerment Program (RYEEP), a three-year grant seeking to increase employment and self-employment of young people aged 15-35 in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) countries of Egypt, Yemen, Morocco and Tunisia. The program provided capacity-building and technical assistance to local institutions to pilot models delivering youth-inclusive financial services (YFS) and non-financial services to rural youth and to the enterprises that employ them. By the program's end, RYEEP pilot projects delivered savings or credit services to 20,543 rural youth and non-financial services to 14,252 rural youth.

Rural youth in developing countries make up a large and vulnerable group. Globally, three quarters of the poor live in rural areas, and about one-half of this population is young people. This young and growing population confronts a number of challenges, including poor quality of education, lack of basic infrastructure, lack of access to or control of sufficient land for farming, and, for girls in particular, more traditional cultural norms, which severely hinder their ability to build sustainable livelihoods. In addition, accessing the financial services they need to support economic opportunities is more challenging than in urban areas, due to physical distances, the lack of financial products appropriate to rural youth circumstances, limited knowledge and experience with financial services, and poor protection measures. These challenges feed perceptions from rural youth that financial services are not accessible to them, and from providers that rural youth are not bankable.

Recent progress against poverty has been steady across the globe (fi gure A). But in most regions, poverty rates in rural areas still stand well above those in urban areas. These trends refl ect the continuing challenges facing rural areas linked to the social, economic and political marginalization of rural people. Small family farms dominate rural landscapes across the developing world, accounting for up to 80 per cent of food produced in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, while supporting livelihoods of up to 2.5 billion people (IFAD 2015). Yet these farmers face long-standing barriers to accessing technology, finance, knowledge and markets. At the same time, pressures on the rural natural resource base are growing, linked to population growth, unsustainable agricultural practices, urbanization, mining, land-use conversion and deforestation. 

Youth unemployment not only limits the earnings potential and future prospects of a new generation of South Africans, it also stymies business growth, threatens social cohesion, and puts pressure on government resources. Yet data shows that there are half a million entry-level jobs vacant in the country, and with it, a real opportunity to expand economic inclusion. This paper looks at the efforts of government, employers, philanthropic funders, and training providers to bridge the gap between available jobs and first-time work-seekers.  It shows that the most impactful interventions take place when these actors join forces and highlights two examples of cross-sectoral partnerships: EOH Youth Job Creation Initiative and Mentec Foundation.