SITE SEARCH

Youth in Kenya are experiencing much higher unemployment rates than the rest of the Kenyan population. In 2014, Munga and Onsomu, reported that youths aged 15-19 and 20-24 years had unemployment rates of 25% and 24%, respectively about double the overall unemployment of 12.7% for the entire working-age group. Despite this, the Kenya youth are slowly transitioning from the risk averse mentality; that is, one has to be employed and depend on a monthly income in order to earn a living.

6 April, Rome – Rural youth recently reported that access to information, lack of credit and negative perceptions around farming are the leading reasons why African young people are leaving small farming at such alarming rates. The comments came during the 2016 Youth Agribusiness, Leadership, and Entrepreneurship Summit on Innovation (YALESI 2016), held in Dakar, Senegal from 29 to 31 in March. The conference – which gives young African men and women living in rural areas the opportunity to discuss key issues and learn new skills – is an initiative that came out of the IFAD- supported Global Youth Innovation Network.

Technology is progressively ingrained into our lives, slowly but surely replacing tasks that we once used to do on pen and paper. In education, technology is more and more becoming part and parcel of development and is a necessary requirement in the learning process. This huge reliance on technology, however, does not mean everyone is granted the same access to technology. Technology is part and parcel of everyday life, writes Juliana Chia, 24, a Correspondent from Singapore, who challenges youth to raise questions about inequality of access that puts some students at a disadvantage.

Today more than 3.5 billion of the world’s population are under the age of 30. The sustainable development goals (SDGs) came into force on 1 January 2016, giving us the biggest opportunity yet to improve living conditions for the next generation. But if we don’t harness the incredible power and agency of young people now, we risk missing these targets. The events of 2015 teach us that to achieve these goals, there needs to be a clear space for child and youth development – supporting young people and their organizations and enabling them to play an active role in their communities. 

The Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GROW) program is jointly funded by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC).  GROW aims to generate new knowledge about women's economic empowerment, gender equality, and economic growth in low-income countries. The goal: to support policies and interventions that improve women's livelihoods and contribute to societal well-being.

Education systems worldwide are facing criticism for failing to prepare children to face the challenges of the modern world, through an over-emphasis on repetitive learning and exam preparation. In this context we call for new learning ecosystems that empower young people to shape the future that they want, rather than only reacting to it. In the UK, the social enterprise Bite the Ballot is kick-starting a movement to engage young people in democracy by identifying and removing barriers that prevent them from taking an active role in politics. 

Germany boasts a highly skilled industrial labor force, thanks in large part to a system of vocational training that the U.S. abandoned. The dual education system also contributes to the low levels of youth unemployment in Germany relative to other advanced economies. And while it’s hardly the only factor, the combination of vocational education and apprenticeships ensures the country a steady supply of superbly trained workers—which is one reason why German industries have dominated the development of the Chinese infrastructure, for instance.

Teach For All partner organizations, such as Teach For America, Teach For India and now Teach For Ghana, are bound together by the philosophy that recruiting top talent from diverse backgrounds into the teaching profession for at least two years fosters high quality leadership in education and contributes to ending educational inequity. Proponents of the model stress that it provides an avenue for motivated and high potential candidates to start careers in teaching.

The emergence of bootcamps in developing countries signals determination of local people and businesses to participate in the digital revolution, but does not guarantee immediate results. The potential impact on employability can be substantial, but needs further testing. Recognizing the need to better understand the impact of bootcamps on employability, the World Bank ICT Innovation Team  launched a Rapid Technology Skills Training Program focused on programming skills, which are among the most demanded (and the most deficient) by employers.

On 8th March 2016, Uganda joined the rest of the world to celebrate women’s day under the theme “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”. Although Uganda has made major strides towards gender equality, having achieved a Gender Parity Index (GPI)1 of 1 in primary school enrolment, the struggle for equality in the labour market is still an uphill task. Findings from the 2015 School to Work Transition Survey (SWTS) conducted by Uganda Bureau of Statistics and ILO reveal that young women (15-29 years) are faced with a number of disadvantageous gaps in the labour market: higher unemployment rates, wage gaps, higher shares in vulnerable employment and longer school-to-work transitions. 

There are three things young people wanted and needed when they first walked through the doors of The Latin American Youth Center in 1974 Washington, D.C., said the center’s President and CEO Lori Kaplan. Jobs. Education. And connection. Today, through a network of services and opportunities in these and other areas—including mental health, housing and more—the center supports more than 4,000 young people each year in their transitions to successful adulthood.

As a multi-stakeholder coalition, the Solution for Youth Employment (S4YE)’s mission is to mobilize efforts to significantly increase the number of these young people who will be engaged in productive work by 2030. As part of our strategy, we have developed a conceptual pathway to employment that shows how all stakeholders can work together to achieve youth employment at scale.  In our theory of change, there are a variety of actions that, when taken by both governments and the private sector collectively, can lead to a better chance of success for young people entering the job market.