Something extraordinary is happening in Africa - a spirit of entrepreneurship is emerging. Africa’s economy is growing at a rapid pace, and its young population will require a new set of skills to take full advantage of the continent’s potential. However, young entrepreneurs face many challenges, including limited access to finance and business support services, unreliable technology, and a host of bureaucratic obstacles.
Hathay Bunano (‘hand-made’ in Bangla) produces hand-knitted children’s toys under our own brand, Pebble, and for international private-label clients around the world. Using an innovative and much-needed model of rural production, we have taken the less skilled and time-consuming production tasks to the villages, creating jobs for thousands of young women whose economic opportunities are quite limited.
In late July, Making Cents International’s Collaborative Learning and Action Institute (Co-Lab) co-hosted a webinar with the Enterprise Uganda Foundation (EUF). A virtual full-house of attendees joined a lively discussion with presenters Chalres Ocici and Charles George Oumo of EUF. The webinar focused on EUF’s Business and Enterprise Setup Tool, or BEST, which is successfully improving and expanding youth job creation, workforce development, employability and entrepreneurship in Uganda.
The 2013 Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference program is now available for you to review. The 2013 event will contain two Spotlights: "Opportunities for Rural Youth"focuses on how to support youth in rural areas. "Power of Technology" showcases how to utilize technology in your programming. The conference will take place September 10-12, 2013 in Washington, DC. Click here to view the interactive program. The 2013 “State of the Field” Publication is also available online. Click here to access the latest publication.
Making Cents International's Collaborative Learning and Action
DATE:
Sep 10, 2013 (All day) to Sep 12, 2013 (All day)
The annual Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference is the premier learning event for practitioners, policy-makers, funders, private sector companies, technical assistance providers, researchers, educators, government representatives, and youth leaders working to increase economic opportunities for young people.
The Digital Jobs: Building Skills for the Future report introduces a new initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation, Digital Jobs Africa. The initiative will support youth with limited employment opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa and MENA to access digital job opportunities, "while building and refining transferable skills that make them resilient in the future economy."
This call for action and resolution issued by the ILO succinctly states the dire circumstances facing global youth. Noting that nearly 75 million young people are out of work, 6 million gave up looking for work, and recognizing the long-term effects of youth unemployment and underemployment, the ILO issued this call for action in 2012.
This case study details a large part of SPARK’s work in the Western Balkans during the years 2006-2010. SPARK is a young, enthusiastic development organisation focusing on building the capacity of partner organisations in fragile states so they can develop entrepreneurship amongst youth. This should lead to new enterprises and growth of existing enterprises. In five countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro) SPARK has set up Business Start-up Centres (BSCs) with the aid of local civil society stakeholders such as municipalities, universities, chambers of commerce, business associations and other relevant parties. More than 10,000 youth followed business skills training, ranging from administrative courses to business plan writing, leading to improvaed participant business skills. Read the case study to discover the key lessons learned.
The ILO Youth Employment Programme is organizing a photo contest to shed light on youth employment issues, the challenges young people face in the workplace as well as their power to overcome them.
The ILO Youth Employment Programme is launching a photo contest focusing on young people at work. The photo contest has been organized in partnership with the ILO Decent Work Technical Support Team and Country Office for Central and Eastern Europe in Budapest, and financed by The MasterCard Foundation.
