This year’s International Youth Day (IYD) represents the conclusion of the International Year of Youth – designated by the United Nations to comprise the 12-month period between IYD 2010 and IYD 2011 – and the 25th Anniversary of the first International Youth Year in 1985. “Change Our World” is the theme for IYD 2011. This theme is a call to inspire youth initiatives at all levels with the idea that grass-roots efforts can have a global impact.

Huge potential – and many challenges

In many developing countries, young people make up about 50 per cent or more of the rural population, and the youth sector is expected to continue growing for another 25 years.

“Poor young women and men living in rural areas today are the farmers and producers of tomorrow,” says Moses Abukari, Youth Coordinator for IFAD’s West and Central Africa Division.

“At IFAD, young people are a very important target group of our investment operations. We know that with the right kind of support and enabling environment, they have the potential to help feed the world’s rapidly growing population.”
“However, harnessing this potential will remain an enormous challenge if we continue to stick to business as usual,” Abukari says.

“We need to develop and implement a wide range of innovative, integrated ‘youth-friendly’ policies and strategies that build both the tangible and intangible assets of these young women and men.”

An IFAD-commissioned paper pointed out that in rural areas smallholder agriculture and non-farm production are among the most promising sectors for youth employment in the majority of developing countries.

While unemployment is a major problem for urban youth, a situation being compounded by rural migration, for young women and men in rural areas, underemployment and outright exploitation are often harsh facts of life. Today, some 300 million young people worldwide work, but earn less than US$2 a day. In rural areas, they are often employed in the informal sector and also in unpaid family work, especially in agriculture.

In order to make a real difference to the lives of these young women and men, governments and development agencies must invest in agriculture and boost economic growth in rural areas. They must also invest specifically in young people themselves and create an intergenerational enabling environment in the rural areas.

The paper suggests three key areas of investment:

• Basic education: Nearly 140 million young people in developing countries are classified as ‘illiterate’. While there is no simple, direct link between education and employment, the best way to improve the future employment and livelihood prospects of disadvantaged young people in both rural and urban areas is to ensure that they stay in school until they are numerate and can read and write.
  
• Skills training: In a rapidly changing world, young people in rural areas must be equipped with skill sets that enable them to grasp new opportunities. However, good quality post-school skills training – both pre-employment and job-related – remains very limited in most rural areas. The key issue in many countries is that national vocational training systems have been unable to deliver effective training to large numbers of school leavers and young working people. It is essential, therefore, that all training is based on precise assessments of job opportunities and skill requirements.
  
• Microfinance: The 2003 World Youth Report points out that “entrepreneurship is not for everyone, and so cannot be viewed as a large-scale solution to the youth employment crisis.” However, there is growing interest in the targeted provision of microfinance for young people, because it is recognized that education and training alone do not usually lead to sustainable self-employment.
  

A stronger focus on young people

Until recently, youth development has remained at the margins of national development strategies in most countries. This is now changing as a result of the seriously negative political, social and economic consequences stemming from precarious youth livelihoods.

There have been renewed political commitments for youth issues both at the international and national levels. For example, the African Union has declared 1 November as African Youth Day and is calling on its member states to develop youth specific policies and programmes.

In cooperation with partners at local, national and international levels, IFAD is working to put young rural women and men at the top of the development agenda.

A review of 300 youth employment programmes in 84 countries found that less than 10 per cent had the promotion of youth employment in rural areas as a main objective. While the growing focus on youth issues is welcome, these initiatives must include young rural people – and young rural women in particular – as a special category.

In addition, a new generation of IFAD programmes and projects are increasingly giving specific attention to youth engagement. According to Mohamed Béavogui, IFAD’s Director for West and Central Africa, “There is a need to reinvest in vocational and technical training by updating curricula, upgrading learning facilities and improving human resources so that before young people graduate, they are fully equipped to become modern farmers and entrepreneurs.”

IFAD is also working with the International Labour Organization to review strategies and programmes for promoting productive employment among young rural women and men in developing countries.

At the thirty-fourth session of the IFAD Governing Council in February of this year, youth-focused strategies for rural development and food security were at the top of the agenda. Four side events were organized to hear from young rural leaders and entrepreneurs and to examine the issues facing young people living in poverty around the globe. A concept note provided background for the high-level panel discussion. It highlights some of the key issues affecting rural young women and men in smallholder agriculture, and in the rural economy more broadly.

During a special side event, young participants called for a ‘space’ where they can learn, share, exchange, network, mentor, develop and nurture ideas among and between their peers.

As a result, IFAD, together with prominent youth partners, established the Global Youth Innovation Network, which will culminate in a Global Youth Innovation Workshop-Fair in October 2011, in Benin. The theme of this event is Youth Entrepreneurs: Agents of Change. It will bring together rural young entrepreneurs to learn and share innovative solutions with a focus on promoting youth South-South cooperation.