Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment Support Services Programme

The overall objective of the Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment Support Services Programme (YESS) is to create opportunities for rural youth to build their economic livelihoods through rural entrepreneurship or employment. The programme aims to increase their engagement in the rural sector, contribute to sustainable rural transformation, and develop a new generation of young farmers, agripreneurs and rural supply chain actors.

Incentivizing youth engagement in rural transformation has the potential to increase youth employment and entrepreneurship. In order to most effectively achieve its aim of attracting young millennials to participate, YESS needs to focus on innovation, leveraging technology, modernizing agricultural employment and practices, and creating incentives for young people for rural entrepreneurship. YESS recognizes that not all young people can be successful entrepreneurs, and also that the agricultural sector does not have the absorptive capacity to provide meaningful opportunities for all young people, particularly when it is modernizing and reforming structurally. The design therefore envisages providing alternative pathways for creating both on-farm and off-farm entrepreneurship as well as employment opportunities within the broader rural economy.