Forum global sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Forum FSN)

Consultations

Jeunes – Nourrir l’avenir. Résoudre les enjeux auxquels sont confrontés les jeunes de 15 à 17 ans des zones rurales pour se préparer et accéder à un travail décent

Les jeunes des zones rurales sont l’avenir de la sécurité alimentaire et de la réduction de la pauvreté rurale. Ils sont aussi le présent, car le nombre actuel d’adolescents et de jeunes est sans précédent, 1,8 milliard de personnes âgées entre 10 et 24 ans, qui, pour la plupart, vivent dans les pays les moins développés et dans des zones rurales. Cependant, ces jeunes des zones rurales de pays en développement rencontrent d’énormes difficultés pour se préparer et accéder à un travail décent, y compris dans le secteur agricole. Ces problèmes sont encore plus graves pour les jeunes de moins de 18 ans. 

Cette consultation en ligne vous invite à suggérer des solutions qui pourraient résoudre ces problèmes. Vos contributions permettront d’informer les recommandations politiques et programmatiques qui devront émaner de la réunion internationale d’experts « Jeunes – Nourrir l’avenir: Résoudre les enjeux auxquels sont confrontés les jeunes de 15 à 17 ans des zones rurales pour se préparer et accéder à un travail décent » qui sera tenu par la FAO dans le courant de l’année. Certains participants à la consultation en ligne pourraient également être invités à participer à la réunion d’experts. (Voir note thématique et formulaire de demande de participation)

Pourquoi ces enjeux sont-ils préoccupants et quelles opportunités rencontrons-nous ?

De nombreux jeunes sont des travailleurs pauvres et la situation du sous-emploi des jeunes ne pourra que s’empirer si elle n’est pas abordée correctement, avec l’entrée de millions de jeunes sur le marché de l’emploi. Par ailleurs, il faut aussi aborder le problème du travail des enfants, car 59 % de toute la main-d’œuvre infantile est occupée dans le secteur agricole. De nombreux jeunes de zones rurales constatent qu’ils n’ont que peu d’opportunités en termes de revenus et d’emploi. C’est pourquoi beaucoup abandonnent l’agriculture et leurs communautés pour émigrer en quête d’opportunités dans les zones urbaines ou à l’étranger.

Et pourtant, étant donné le vieillissement des populations de fermiers, l’agriculture a besoin de jeunes gens. Pour assurer la durabilité de l’agriculture et des moyens d’existence et parvenir à la sécurité alimentaire, il est indispensable d’introduire des pratiques plus efficaces et plus respectueuses de l’environnement. Les jeunes peuvent être le moteur d’une transformation agricole et rurale pouvant conduire à des systèmes alimentaires plus inclusifs et durables. Pour ce faire, les jeunes doivent considérer les activités de type agricole comme des moyens d’existence viables et intéressants qui peuvent être rentables et répondre à leurs attentes d’un avenir meilleur.

Quels sont les enjeux auxquels sont confrontés les jeunes de 15 à 17 ans de zones rurales?

Dans le secteur agricole, les jeunes de zones rurales rencontrent des difficultés pour accéder à: 1) la connaissance, l’information et l’éducation ; 2) la terre ; 3) au financement ; 4) à des emplois décents, y compris des emplois verts ; 5) aux marchés ; et 6) la participation au dialogue politique et aux organisations rurales. Ces enjeux s’appliquent d’une manière générale à tous les jeunes des zones rurales des pays en développement. Les jeunes de moins de 18 ans rencontrent d’autres difficultés ou des difficultés différentes pour avoir accès à des emplois décents ou se transformer en entrepreneurs prospères. Par exemple, leur statut de mineurs d’âge peut entraîner une discrimination au moment de l’embauche et les empêcher d’accéder à des ressources productives et à des services, tels que le financement, ou de devenir membres d’organisations représentatives. Les possibilités de formation professionnelle adéquate n’existent pas toujours dans les zones rurales et le soutien pour la transition de l’école au marché de l’emploi est faible. Dans ce groupe d’âge, beaucoup travaillent dans le secteur agricole et sont souvent exposés et vulnérables à des dangers sanitaires et de sécurité. Lorsque des jeunes âgés de 15 à 17 ans effectuent des travaux dangereux, cette activité est considérée comme travail des enfants au regard du droit international et national.

  • Sur la base de votre expérience, quels sont les enjeux spécifiques auxquels sont confrontés les jeunes de 15 à 17 ans de zones rurales (qu’il faut distinguer des jeunes de plus de 18 ans) pour gagner leur vie (actuelle ou future) dans le secteur agricole et les activités afférentes?*

Comment relever ces enjeux ?

Il faut accorder une attention particulière aux jeunes de moins de 18 ans qui ont atteint l’âge minimum pour travailler, car cette étape de la vie est généralement décisive pour leur transition de l’école et pour la probabilité de sortir de la pauvreté. Beaucoup ont déjà abandonné l’école et tentent de subsister et de maintenir leurs familles. Et pourtant les jeunes de moins de 18 ans sont souvent exclus de la conception de la mise en œuvre de politiques et de programmes visant à soutenir l’emploi des jeunes.

Nous vous invitons à nous faire part de votre expérience sur la façon dont les politiques et les programmes peuvent contribuer à relever les enjeux auxquels sont confrontés les jeunes des zones rurales, en particulier les moins de 18 ans.

  • Comment les politiques et les programmes peuvent-ils contribuer à relever les enjeux auxquels sont confrontés les jeunes des zones rurales, de la manière la plus efficace et économique possible ? Si ces politiques et programmes sont ciblés sur les jeunes plus âgés, comment pouvons-nous les appliquer pour soutenir les moins de 18 ans ? Veuillez nous communiquer des exemples pertinents et les leçons que vous avez tirées de votre expérience.
  • Quelles sont les principales contraintes de capacités que vous rencontrez ou que votre institution/organisation rencontre pour concevoir, mettre en œuvre évaluer les politiques et les programmes destinés à résoudre les problèmes qui touchent les jeunes de moins de 18 ans des zones rurales ? Quelles sont les lacunes en matière de données en ce qui concerne les problèmes les plus fréquents qui touchent à l’emploi et des moyens d’existence des jeunes des zones rurales ?
  • Comment améliorer l’éducation et la formation professionnelle dans les zones rurales de façon à aider les adolescents et les jeunes de zones rurales à participer de façon productive aux activités agricoles et afférentes ? Quelles sont les compétences et quel est le soutien dont ils ont besoin ? Comment se produit la transition entre l’école et le travail pour les jeunes de 15 à 17 ans des zones rurales et quels sont les meilleurs moyens de soutenir les jeunes des zones rurales au cours de cette transition ?
  • Quelles sont les approches les plus efficaces pour surmonter les difficultés additionnelles que les jeunes de moins de 18 ans des zones rurales rencontrent pour avoir accès à des emplois décents, y compris des emplois verts (décents) (par exemple, les compétences, l’inadaptation, les conditions de santé et de sécurité, la discrimination, l’exclusion) ou pour lancer leur propre entreprise (par exemple, les barrières pour accéder au financement, aux organisations de producteurs et aux marchés) ?

Nous nous intéressons particulièrement aux politiques et aux programmes éprouvés qui ont donné des résultats et ont été développés à une certaine échelle, ainsi qu’au rôle que peuvent jouer certaines parties prenantes spécifiques.  

Nous attendons avec intérêt une discussion féconde et enrichissante !

Jacqueline Demeranville

Équipe de l’emploi rural décent

FAO


* Nous incluons dans les  « activités agricoles et afférentes » l’agriculture, l’élevage, les pêches et l’aquaculture, la foresterie et la gestion des ressources naturelles ainsi que les emplois verts, les services financiers et de vulgarisation, ainsi que le transfert, la transformation et la commercialisation dans le cadre du système agroalimentaire

 

Cette activité est maintenant terminée. Veuillez contacter [email protected] pour toute information complémentaire.

*Cliquez sur le nom pour lire tous les commentaires mis en ligne par le membre et le contacter directement
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Youth – feeding the future. Addressing the challenges faced by rural youth aged 15 to 17 in preparing for and accessing decent work.

Writing in the context of India

The present generation of youth is much hyped as the Real Human Capital. Demographic Dividend to be reaped by utilizing the same force which is completely not equipped to face the challenge is the biggest issue now.

The policy for Employment vide MGNREGS - the world's largest Employment Guarantee Programme has come in handy to look forward to. (If the labour force from this young masses are not skilled)

But the moot question for both male /Feamale youth in Rural areas is the lack of Skill at present.

In this direction Government of India has come out with blueprints to skill them in a massive scale.

The name of the programme is Deen Dayal Upadhya Grameen Kaushal Yojana (DDUGKY).

Here in we are giving training on different trades as per the demand to be generated in the coming 30 years both in INDIA as well as abroad.

The uncared for areas/ trades/skills are seriously taken care for.

Ex - Driving with right Training. Transport sector repair work/ Health care/ Teaching - particularly Primary and secondary school. Yoga. Tourism. Care services - particularly of the aging population.

Hitherto these areas have never been taken care of with certified training by recognized Institute.

Government has come in a big way to fill this demand of these services and the supply of these services.

One challenging area in India is the dream for whitecollar jobs and the desire to come to Uraban centre. There is no aspiration to continue in Rural areas and earning a livelihood there.

The lure of Urban centre need to be shattered by creating same level of Urban amenities. In this direction PURA(Provisioning of Urban Amenities in Rural Arteas, develomnet of SMART Cities, Development in Small/Medium Towns are the latest attempts by Government.

Another area of concern is the disenchantment to join the Agriculture and Allied sector by Rural Youths(both male and female).sis because of the non-viability of Agriculture and allied sectors as a source of Livelihood.

In this direction there is an attempt to increase the productivity and diversify the activities in Rural Areas.

It is really a Himalayan task to create employment and productively engage the Rural Youths (15 to 17 years today) in future. If this is not taken of seriously perhaps this Homan force will be the real time bomb to challenge the prosperity of any kind.

Sam Panapa

Tuvalu

YOUTH – FEEDING THE FUTURE

This online consultation is a great initiative for us to ponder, brainstorm and discuss about ‘rural youth’ as agents to reduce poverty and improve food security, in the future. The theme is very encouraging and optimistic, as it puts youths to the forefront as ‘future of food security and rural poverty reduction’. 

Tuvalu (26 km ²) has eight small islands – the smallest independent island in the world. It has a population of 11,000 people. About 34% of the Tuvalu’s population is youth. About 49% of youths are unemployed. The biggest concern now in Tuvalu is the high unemployment rate of youths. Funafuti Island – the capital island – is the only island in Tuvalu that we labeled it as urban, while the other seven islands are labeled as rural. Tuvalu does not have data to indicate the total number for 15-17 years old (youth) who are on the outer-islands and do not go to secondary school. In fact, Tuvalu has only one public secondary school, which is located on the outer—island (rural). It is a compulsory boarding school. The other secondary school is on the capital island (urban) – a church and day school. However, and of course, there are a few youth (15-17 years old) who have dropped out from school and now living on the outer-islands (rural).

These few ones in the outer-islands are not our big concern now in Tuvalu. We are more concerned of those youths (15-17 years old) who are now living in Funafuti Island (urban). This is because the youth at outer-islands do live on the land; they learn the island way of living; they fish; they farm; and they participate in communal works/festivities, as they live closer to their parents and attach more to the land. I am not saying that these youth are living as pure and full law abiding islanders. Of course, these youths sometimes join activities such as drinking-alcohol spree that disturb the peacefulness of the rural community. However, I know that what we need now is a policy or set of strategic plans that enhance rural youth to attach more with their land, ancestors and cultures.

It is helpful if family-heads (matai) are aware and understand of the connection/linkage between youth and food security in the future. Some youth (mainly distant relatives of the matai, and girls) do not have equal access to land. However, if matais understand the importance of food security in the future, then they (matais)would be able to work together with the nieces and nephews (youth) on ways that their land are fully utilize to produce enough food and money, in the future.

The youths’ lack of knowledge to cultivate land is something to be considered. This is a problem to many youth. They have lands but the knowledge to work on the infertile soil of Tuvalu is lacked. Note that Tuvalu’s land is known of its porosity, infertility and vulnerability to climate change phenomenon). Families with traditional (secret) planting skills are known in the community for having the largest cultural crops, such as taro (Colocasia esculenta) & pulaka (Cytosperma chamissonis). A policy or program for these families to teach youth on how to plant better will motivate these youths to toil on a land (soil) that is not promising. Many youths do not like to work on their cultural crops plantations because it requires hard work, much effort and techniques to produce reasonable size crops. A fair knowledge on how to plant and produce good size crops will definitely motivate youths to attach more their land.

The integration of agriculture science in primary school in Tuvalu is also something that concerned ministries do need to be considered. This is one way that may enhance Tuvaluan youth, from young ages, to value their land and food production. They can be motivated to find green jobs.

Setting up an Agricultural vocational school (by the Agriculture Department in partnership with Education Department), whereby only Agricultural practical courses are run. Only the ‘hands on’ basics (competencies) are taught to the interested youth – which they will learn about modern (and also traditional) techniques/ways of growing various crops and vegetables; livestock farming; poultry raising; and others. This is one way to pull in the unemployed youth to engage with agriculture.

All in all, in Tuvalu, the youth (15-17 years old) do not pose a significant problem to the society as only a few youth (at that age group) are living in the outer-islands (rural). However, we can always help these few youth, by providing them with doors that they can enter to get a better future. Though Tuvalu is different from many other countries due to its islandness, the aim to engage youth with their land, families and future is a general intention for all countries. The Agriculture Department does realize that it has a responsibility to these youth to prepare them for a better future.

Silvia Paruzzolo

Save the Children

Youth – feeding the future. Addressing the challenges faced by rural youth aged 15 to 17 in preparing for and accessing decent work.

At Save the Children we work with adolescents and youth in both urban and rural contexts to support them in their transition to work and break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. We have a lot of programming and policies on food security and livelihoods in the rural context and we don’t always have programming specifically targeted to youth. Yet the 15-17 age group is definitely one that deserves specific attention as it represents a time period when more definitive decisions are made around education, work, fertility and marriage (assuming they haven’t already started).

SC’s experience in adolescent and youth economic empowerment has shown that working with adolescents who have suffered deprivations relating to poverty should be combined with the fostering of ‘agency’. Agency will be promoted through mutually reinforcing building blocks, such as the development of key life and employability skills and voice and participation, as well as ‘good practice principles’. This will cover ways of working, such as the use of participatory methods and active learning – engaging adolescents and youth in the design of programmes and their measures of success.

SC has also found that partnerships are essential for ensuring the relevance and sustaining the impact of these programmes. Partnerships may include local NGOs, government, small and medium local businesses, parents and communities, as well as in many cases, with visionary corporate partners and industry. Such partnerships are important for building local market, normative and social systems which provide hands-on and market relevant learning opportunities for adolescents and youth and are supportive of their rights. For example, working with local employers to ensure that skills training opportunities are accessible to adolescents and youth from deprived backgrounds and that work places are safe for them. It is also important to work with training providers and employers to ensure that services and jobs are equally accessible to boys and girls, young men and women, as well as to adolescents and youth living with disabilities to the highest extent possible.

In terms of programming, policy and advocacy we focus on a few key building blocks for this age group. I will mention a few.

Transferable life skills. This relates to developing adolescent and youth life or non-cognitive skills relevant for the multiple transitions adolescents and youth go through at this stage in life.[1] These are skills that can be taught in the context of a transition to work but are ‘transferable’ to all areas of life. A recent study by Child Trends (2015) identified five life skills as key for youth workforce success: higher-order thinking; communication; self-control; positive self-concept; and social skills.[2] Programmes may focus on additional or alternative skills depending on the context and needs of the specific population, as the development of life skills also play a role in the way adolescents and youth manage other aspects of their lives. Examples of this can include a girl’s refusal to have sex with a man, the negotiation for a plot of land to grow healthy foods, or more generally to promote resilience and facilitate adolescent’s and youth’s ability to claim their rights.[3] Furthermore, these skills can lead to enhanced health results, improved parenting and social cohesion.[4]  The application of these skill sets, in particular positive decision-making, negotiation and communication skills can lead to the practice of gender equality in contexts where girls are often seeking to improve household dynamics in an appropriate way. Life skills cut across all building blocks and represent a foundation for mitigating livelihood barriers. Moreover, improved life skills will help youth succeed in other building blocks, e.g. on the job training, voice and participation. Learning and practicing life skills can have beneficial impacts on aspects beyond economic empowerment. Evidence from the Population Council research indicates that exercising these skills through building financial capability can result in improved health outcomes.[5]

Financial Capability. Another key building block looks at the combination of financial literacy and access to savings tools, which has been successful in enabling young people to build up financial assets,[6] which in turn have been associated with improved academic performance, health, future orientation and financial capability.[7]  This building block should be set in place as early as possible. By starting earlier, there is higher financial asset growth potential and the ability to build skills and habits such as budgeting, planning expenses, foregoing impulse purchases, managing cash flow and setting financial goals. Encompassed in this building block are also loans that can be accessed to improve a livelihoods opportunity for older adolescents and young people.

Market-relevant technical skills. This building block points to technical training of adolescents and youth in market relevant skills, including vocational and entrepreneurship training with links to opportunities to practice and internalise these skills. The range of interventions could include: technical skills training through training programmes or existing technical vocational education and training (TVET) centres; apprenticeship programmes in cooperation with small or medium local businesses or large corporates; training through business development hubs. The definition of what constitutes “market-relevant” skills should be based on market assessments (as discussed in the first good-practice principle below) and the interests and aspiration of adolescents themselves (linked to the youth led principle below). Furthermore SC programmes should aim at going beyond traditional vocations.

Services and market opportunities. This building block focuses on facilitating access to youth friendly employment, business and financial services. It is about working with adolescents and youth to identify internship opportunities that help to position themselves, not only for entry to the employment market, but also for participating in viable value chains or trade sectors as entrepreneurs. Skills to Succeed facilitates access to job fairs and offers opportunities for adolescents and youth to have practical experiences working in the private sector.

Guidance and mentorship. This building block includes career counselling to enable adolescents and youth to make informed choices on which paths to take (employment, entrepreneurship, more schooling, etc.) at the beginning, during and after the end of the training part of any programme. Coaching, mentoring and ongoing/follow up support is available to youth as they start a business or engage in employment opportunities, as well as during the search for a job. Follow-up services include options such as alumni groups or career counselling services that also facilitate tracking status on livelihoods activities after the programme ends.  Mentoring is also recommended as it fosters network development for adolescents and youth, as well as positive role modelling and the care of a supportive adult.

Voice and economic participation. This building block includes the fostering of youth engagement and advocacy for decent livelihoods. If properly engaged and supported, adolescents and youth will be able to have a voice in decision-making within their family, community and society at large. They will influence perceptions on youth, find participation spaces and improve intergenerational relations and dialogue. Promotion of youth-led approaches foster agency and empower youth to make their own labour market assessments, internalise data, understand the system, know their rights and how to apply them, know who their duty bearers are and cultivate their ability to act on an economic opportunity. Programmes should build the skills of adolescents and youth to analyse the situation in their work environment and assert their rights.

Enabling environment. Adolescent and youth’s successful transition to decent work is not dependent on their individual skills alone, but to a large extent is dependent on the environment in which adolescents and youth operate. This environment includes formal (e.g. policies and laws) and informal rules (e.g. social norms and expectations), effective training and market systems as well as effective social networks. This includes advocacy for holding duty bearers accountable to design and implement effective, inclusive and safe skills transfer programmes. It also includes capacity building for and with duty bearers such that they are enabled to fulfill their duties. Activities to promote an enabling environment furthermore include: advocacy and capacity building of local stakeholders from the public and private sector to provide decent learning and working environments; working with parents and communities to create more gender- and youth-equitable social norms and expectations; working with local, national and international private sector actors to create more training, job and entrepreneurial opportunities for youth (fostering youth inclusive markets); fostering social networks between younger people and older people as well as among younger people for mutual support and increased inter-connectedness.

At Save the Children we have also developed a few key good programming principles, of which I am reporting a few below:

  1. Contextual analysis (including economic structures and systems).  To be effective, all programme design needs to be informed by a set of analysis of structures and systems that shape adolescent and youth’s economic opportunities and constraints. Required assessments include: a market assessment to identify market relevant skills and opportunities; an assessment of existing skill transfer systems (e.g. vocational training systems) in order to identify opportunities and barriers for the most deprived adolescents and youth; a gender analysis to identify barriers in reaching gender equality; and a child rights and needs assessment to identify rights violations and their structural drivers and to identify the most deprived adolescent girls and boys, as well as their specific deprivations and needs.
  2. Active and Applied (experiential) learning. Programmes will use interactive learning approaches that foster empowerment through practical hands-on training methodologies for all skills continuously linked to the purpose of improving livelihoods. This link is critical for literacy and numeracy as well as life skills to be applied to real life situations, as opposed to solely for purposes of academic learning. Youth in Action for example, promotes the development of literacy and numeracy skills that can be applied in adolescent and youth livelihood activities and provides adolescents and youth with the opportunity to participate in sessions that simulate day-to-day realities and foster the development of problem-solving and decision-making skills.
  3. Adolescent/youth-led and friendly activities. Adolescents and youth can and should play a role in designing and leading activities with adequate and appropriate support to do so. At a minimum, adolescents and youth should be playing a key role in defining the type of skills they want to acquire and opportunities they would like to access, as well as the delivery methods of our programmes. Resources in programmes should be dedicated to develop these skills and participatory leadership roles within and beyond programme activities. Programmes such as Children Lead the Way enable adolescents and youth to actively take on leadership roles in working children’s movements, for example. Activities should be delivered in youth-friendly ways. The Suunata programme in Finland offers an online one-stop-shop counselling and advisory service focusing on career and education guidance as a natural way for young people to communicate. S2S in China developed a phone application to better serve migrant youth who can use it while on the move. [8]
  4. Social connectedness/capital.  Group-based activities are foundational to mitigate social isolation and foster interaction and social connectedness. This is especially true in the case of highly deprived adolescent girls and boy who may need to support each other in times of crisis and will benefit from a platform for sharing thoughts and ideas. Examples include: ‘Group based assets’ such as savings or cash transfers, as well as building a platform for asserting rights and access to services; ‘Safe space’ programmes for girls, demonstrating the importance of establishing these groups to prevent HIV;[9]  ‘Group based therapy’ for young men in Liberia, which has proven more effective in reducing violence than the use of cash transfers;[10] ‘Peer to peer groups’ that empower youth to advocate for better working conditions.
  5. Earning while learning. Adolescents and youth will often find themselves needing to earn at least basic amounts of income for themselves and their families while they learn new skills to improve their livelihood options.  Programmes should support adolescents and youth to be able to do both, so the poorest can participate.  Scheduling of programme sessions should also work around the availability of the programme participants who may still need to work while attending the programme, or have other commitments in their households. Time use analysis tools[11] may be useful to understand the best times for scheduling programme activities.
  6. Scale and sustainability. This entails shifting the focus from direct service provision to catalysing sustainable change through influencing and leveraging local stakeholders in the public and private sector.

[1] World Development Report 2007, Development and the Next Generation, The World Bank Also available here: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2006/09/13/000112742_20060913111024/Rendered/PDF/359990WDR0complete.pdf

[2] More specifically, the skills identified by the Child trends study by Laura Lippman, Renee Ryberg, Rachel Carney and Kristin Anderson Moore from June (2015) include: high-order thinking skill set (problem-solving, critical thinking, and decision-making), social skills (ability to respect others, using context-appropriate behaviour, and resolving conflict), communication skills (oral, written, non-verbal, and listening skills), self-control (ability to delay gratification, control impulses, direct and focus attention, manage emotions and regulate behaviour), and positive self-concept (self-confidence, self-efficacy, self-awareness, and beliefs, self-esteem and sense of well-being and pride). As also illustrated in the youth participation toolkit

[3] DFID evaluation of Rwanda 12+ Programme indicates that life skills programme focused on developing decision-making, problem-solving, negotiation, self-worth, and communication skills had impact through girls refusing sex with men and setting up home-based kitchen gardens to eat better.

[4] Evidence from a SC youth livelihood project in Iraq (unpublished report).

[5] See Bruce, J. and Hallman, K., Reaching the Girls Left Behind, Gender and Development, 16:2, 227-245.

[6] YouthSave 2010-2015 Findings from a Global Financial Inclusion Partnership, October 2015

[7] YouthSave (2010) Youth Savings in Developing Countries: Trends in Practice, Gaps in Knowledge. Washington, DC: YouthSave Consortium. Available at: https://www.newamerica.org/downloads/YouthSavingsReportFINAL%208-24-2010.pdf.

[9] See Bruce, J. and Hallman, K., Reaching the Girls Left Behind, Gender and Development, 16:2, 227-245.

[10] See Blattman et. al, Reducing crime and violence: Experimental evidence on adult non-cognitive investments in Liberia, May, 2015

[11] See for example the “Time Use PRA Guide and Toolkit for Child and Youth Development Practitioners” developed by Obed

Diener, Whitney Moret, and Diana Rutherford in 2013:

http://www.seepnetwork.org/time-use-pra-guide-and-toolkit-for-child-and-...

 

Sarah Grime

SchoolTalk

Good afternoon,

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this online consultation on addressing the challenges faced by rural youth aged 15 to 17 in preparing for and accessing decent work.

I’d like to first say that agriculture is not my area of expertise. However, I can speak to education and supporting youth in the transition from school to work process.  My academic and professional background is in children’s rights advocacy. Through my professional experiences, I’ve worked on designing and implementing programs that support youth in accessing services, engaging in education, building self-advocacy and self-determination skills, preparing for work, and problem solving.  I currently am the program director for a nonprofit organization. A branch of our work is supporting youth with disabilities, ages 14-25, prepare for and transition from school to adult life (post secondary education, employment, and independent living). I work directly with these youth on youth leadership, youth engagement, and employment related programs.  The youth I work with face a different set of challenges than rural youth including poverty, trauma, disconnected from education, disability, etc. The feedback I am providing is based on my current work and previous professional experiences working for nonprofits and working for the International Labour Organisation’s Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour.

How can policies and programs overcome the challenges?

Policy and programming must include youth voice at every stage of development from identifying challenges to creating interventions, to implementing solutions. Without including them throughout the process, we risk missing an essential piece of the puzzle. By listening to their hopes, goals, concerns, and fear from the beginning, we ensure that we are designing programming that meets youth where they are and policies that support what they experience more fully.

How can education and vocational training be improved to support youth?

Aligning and integrating vocational exploration and training (starting at a young age) with education is key.  Schools are a great place for youth to gain exposure to employment options and begin to build the necessary skills to work. One challenge with integrating the two is that educational policies often dictate that schools meet certain standards. As such, schools may push back that they don’t have the time and/or capacity to include vocational exploration and training into an already full curriculum. Vocational exploration and training programs need to take into account the challenges that schools face and include strategies that align with what the school is already teaching. If a school is unable to add vocational training classes due to scheduling conflicts or time restraints, then the programming created needs to include ways that the schools can adapt the vocational exploration and training into what they are already teaching.  For example, a history class could include lessons on the history of agriculture and how agriculture practices have transformed over time. A geography class could include lessons on weather, climate change, etc. Exposure to employment options must start early and be integrated into schools.

What are the skills and support youth need?

In order for youth to be successful in academic and employment settings, they need to build self-advocacy and self-determination skills. Programming that supports these skills is impactful for youth because they are able to advocate for their needs and make decisions about their own lives. These are skills that will follow them throughout their lives. Often times, parents, elders, teachers, etc. assume the decision making role for youth while they are young and still in school. Once they get older, exit school, and begin to work they are expected to assume this role. Therefore, it is important to ensure that schools and programs provide youth with opportunities to build self-advocacy skills and practice self-determination early on so that they are prepared to drive their transitions from school to work and advocate for what they need along the way. Additionally, building problem-solving skills is very useful to youth because it provides them with the tools and skills to address conflicts they face at school, at work, and in the community.

Youth can learn about employment options and begin to build the skills to work when they are still in school. However, students must also have access to paid work-based learning experiences before they exit the school system. Research shows that participating in work-based learning experiences while still in school is one of the strongest indicators of post-secondary success. It is important to note that work-based learning experiences should be aligned with their education so that they are able to continue to expand their knowledge base while also building the skills needed to be successful in employment.

One approach that is used with students with disabilities is developing a transition plan. Starting early on, the student works with members of the school staff and family to develop a career goal and identify the steps and services needed to reach this goal. Services may include vocational training, child care, mental health, etc. Then the student and school partner with community organizations that provide the services outlined in the plan. This approach has been effective because it is individualized to meet the unique needs of each youth, centers around the youth’s voice, and promotes collaboration between youth, schools, families, and the community.

What does the school to work transition look like and what works effectively to support youth during the transition?

The school tow work transition looks very different for each youth. We all experience many transitions throughout our lives and this is one of the most challenging transitions. One of the most powerful ways to support youth through this transition is by tapping into their peers. Peer-to-peer mentorships and support is an extremely effective strategy because a peer not only understands, but has experienced some of the same challenges. Learning from a peer that has successfully made the transition to work is incredibly impactful and helps to mitigate some of the fears and concerns that youth experience. Peers are very honest with each other about their experiences and can speak to each other in ways that adults can not. They are also more apt to reach out to a peer for help when faced with a challenge during the transition because they are more approachable and come from a place of understanding.

Thank you again for the opportunity to contribute.

Kind regards,

Sarah Grime 

Save the Children Online Consultation Contributions: Youth – feeding the future. Addressing the challenges faced by rural youth aged 15 to 17 in preparing for and accessing decent work.

  • Based on your experience, what are the specific challenges rural youth aged 15-17 face (different from those over 18) in making a (current or future) living in agriculture and related activities?*

The challenges faced by rural youth over 18 in preparing and accessing decent work are further compounded for adolescents ages 15-17.  Some of the more nuanced challenges that are key when programming for the adolescent cohort versus older youth include deeper consideration for family dynamics, greater emphasis on life skills and employability preparation as well as protection from exploitation.  Younger adolescents are more closely tied to family dynamic and often their participation in the type of agriculture livelihoods opportunities is defined by family and their role within the family unit. Adding awareness building activities that work with families and communities have proven to help younger adolescent engage in rural livelihoods activities and be better supported by their families.  Life skills and employability opportunities are particularly important to the younger cohort of adolescents because they allow them to build personal competencies such as confidence, leadership and resiliency that are crucial in this key developmental period. Furthermore, life skills combined with project-based learning allows adolescents to practice their skills and gives them access to opportunities that are not always available to youth 15-17.  All Save the Children life skills and employability programs contain project-based methodology as well as a community capstone project.  In addition, limited opportunities to practice skills for youth 15-17 makes them vulnerable to exploitative labor. Ensuring that young adolescents have access to project based learning, internships and apprenticeship is crucial (i.e.  Community garden and demonstration lots). Finally in Save the Children’s work with vulnerable, highly deprived youth population, especially in conflict and post conflict environments, the psychosocial element of working with young adolescent is essential before engaging them in any type of “learning & earning “activity.   

  • How can policies and programmes overcome the challenges faced by rural youth in a cost-effective manner? If they target older youth, how could we apply them to support those under 18? Please share relevant examples and lessons from your experience.

Investing in multi-stakeholder partnerships for youth development is a cost effective strategy to overcome the many challenges faced by rural youth.  Understanding the role of local government, youth serving organizations and private sector and how they can work in concert for rural youth allows for greater program synergy and impact.  In addition, utilizing innovation and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) presents many solutions to the challenges faced by rural youth.  In particular, the role of innovation in agriculture by promoting the application of ICTs for value chains development. Furthermore, ICT can be used to educate and train those unable to access educational opportunities and it can be used as a tool to help young people spread knowledge, build networks, and find employment.

Even if the programs targets older youth, including the younger cohorts in program design and evaluation are effective ways of proactive engagement. This could include activities such as youth mapping of livelihood opportunities with rural communities as well as peer-to-peer mentoring of younger adolescent by the older peers.  Similarity, allowing younger youth to have the voice and input into the demand of livelihoods programs for rural youth is equally important and effective as a way of engaging them in the program. 

  • What are the most binding capacity constraints that you or your institution/organization encounter when designing, implementing and evaluating policies and programmes aiming to address the issues affecting rural youth under the age of 18?  

Scale and sustainability of programs for rural youth continue to be a priority and pose most binding capacity constraints for local implementing organizations and governments.  A key challenge of many initiatives is how to build on the success of the program and scale them beyond the life of the initial funding. 

  • What are the data gaps regarding the challenges affecting rural youth employment and livelihoods that you periodically encounter? Follow up with particpants ;

Currently there is not enough data on the underlying root causes of why and when young people decide to migrate to urban and peri-urban settings.  Understanding the factors that shape the educational, career and residential aspirations of rural youth and the forces that determine success in meeting these goals is critical for better targeted rural livelihoods programming. Studies of migration streams have documented a steady net out-migration of rural youth and young adults from nonmetropolitan municipalities. Few studies include information on career and migration plans of youth that can help us to understand how migration decisions are associated with other important life decisions. These decisions ultimately affect the well-being of rural youth and rural communities. To more fully understand the aspirations, attitudes and decisions that shape the future of rural youth and communities it is essential to examine individual youth aspirations and behaviors and how these are influenced by family, peers, school and community.

  • How can education and vocational training in rural areas be improved to support rural adolescents and youth to productively engage in agriculture or related activities? What are the skills and support they need? What does the school-to-work transition for rural youth aged 15-17 look like and what works to effectively support rural youth during this transition?

Focus on a more relevant curriculum is one way to better support youth in rural areas.  Most schools lack access to training and education on farming and therefore youth are not being encouraged to perceive agriculture as a future career. One recommendation would be to incorporate project based pedagogy on how to grow high-value crops, keep livestock and how to market produce for global markets. In terms of vocational education there is a real challenge of access to the existing institutions and investing in mobile vocational training units provides a viable solution.  Furthermore, reaching out to youth with relevant training at aggregation points has proven to be a successful intervention.

The school to work transition for rural youth is difficult mostly because the discrepancies between the supply and demand of youth labor. Rural youth have even less viable employment pathways then urban youth and hence increased training in entrepreneurship and agripreneurship are essential as a viable solution to school-to-work transition. In addition, looking at the ecosystem of value chains as a source of employment allows youth to be integrated into the value chain vertically versus the more traditional horizontal employment pathways.

  • What approaches are most effective in overcoming the additional challenges rural youth under the age of 18 face in accessing decent jobs, including (decent) green jobs (e.g. skills mismatch, health and safety conditions, discrimination, exclusion) or becoming entrepreneurs (e.g. barriers in access to finance, producers organizations and markets)?

Youth savings programs as well as holistic, integrated programming provide effective approaches for rural youth under the age of 18.  Youth savings programs allow youth access to secure and appropriate savings services, through informal or formal approaches, in order to reduce their vulnerability and provide youth with the opportunity to invest in their future. A growing body of research has shown that enabling youth to accumulate assets, specifically savings, not only increases their resiliency to economic shocks, but also positively impacts their attitudes and behaviors, leading to better psychosocial, educational and health outcomes. The promotion of youth savings therefore has great potential for improving the confidence, economic resiliency, and livelihood opportunities of rural youth.

The YouthSave partnerships opened more than 130,000 project-sponsored accounts for young people (mainly between the ages of 12-18), and collected and analyzed data on the savings patterns of 70,000 young account holders. YouthSave’s Ghana Experiment conducted impact analysis through the largest known experimental study on youth savings implemented globally to date. Through Save

the Children and its partner community based organizations, YouthSave also reached over 44,000 youth with face-to-face financial education and 9,000 with SMS messages; 48,000 individuals with community-based financial education; and over 600,000 with radio-based financial education.

Partner banks delivered additional financial education modules to account holders. Many youth used their savings to start a business or invest in further education.

Save the Children’s Youth in Action program is an example of successful, holistic, integrated programming creating pathways to opportunity. Youth in Action is sustainably improving the socio-economic status of 44,700 rural youth between the ages of 12 and 18 in Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda. The program is designed to support young people who are out of school to build skills and knowledge geared towards the market, so they can make informed decisions about their future, and start taking steps towards realizing their ambitions. This is accomplished through an innovative combination of educational and entrepreneurial opportunities in the agricultural sector.

Youth in Action provides a three-pronged approach to its programming:

  • Learning for Life, which incorporates the Literacy Boost program, helps participating youth develop the technical and life skills – such as literacy, numeracy, financial literacy, employability, and relationship-building skills – needed to be successful in their lives.
  • Taking Action gives young people a chance to identify, select, and start on a path that will help them improve their longer term earning capacity. Pathways include continuing their education, learning an agriculture-related skill, getting a job or starting out a small business in the agricultural sector.
  • Through Mentorship and Aftercare, the program provides youth with technical, financial, and networking guidance and support to strengthen their chances of sustainable success.

Youth in Action Programme

Save the Children
Malawi

Youth – Feeding the future. Addressing the challenges faced by rural youth aged 15 to 17 in preparing for and accessing decent work

Save the Children  – Youth in Action Program

Youth in Action is a six-year learning and livelihoods program implemented by Save the Children in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation. The program seeks to improve the socio-economic status of 40,000 rural, out-of-school young people, girls and boys, in Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda.  Working with local partners, parents, communities and youth, Youth in Action (YiA) supports stakeholders to enhance their existing resources and capacity and build new knowledge and skills in order to strengthen youths’ engagement in their own social and livelihood development and make informed decisions about their future. 

Specific challenges rural youth aged 15-17 face (different from those over 18) in making a (current or future) living in agriculture and related activities?*

Land access issues are increasingly tense across age groups and contexts, however for rural African youth who are principally engaged in work on the agriculture value chain, these issues define their capacity to engage in profitable livelihoods activities. As minors, youth under 18 years of age are often unable to legally purchase or rent land, and have almost no financial resources to do so even where the law allows. They are therefore relegated to unpaid or low-paid labor on others’ land, often without opportunities for advancement.

In addition to land access issues, rural youth under 18 years of age across Africa often have negative associations with agricultural livelihoods activities due to the subsistence nature of the bulk of the farming they have been exposed to. The poor agricultural yields they have seen in their families and communities lead young people to believe that agriculture is unprofitable and contributes to their lack of desire to engage in agriculture in the long-term. Many lack access to knowledge of current technology and practices, which are not typically found in school curricula nor in local libraries where they exist. Instead, youth seek to migrate to urban centers, for which they are often unprepared.

Youth below 18 years are excluded from governmental livelihood support programs. A case for Uganda where there is governmental agricultural support program called “Operation wealth creation”. This program targets people who are above 18 year old and thus leave out those below 18 years of age who have dropped out of school and their only hope is to engage in the agricultural sector.

Most of the agriculture policies that are in use today were formulated without proper consultation with youth who are under 18 years of age and thus they exclude their voice and issues that youth face within the agriculture sector. In Malawi the agriculture policy supports agricultural trade fairs as a way of bringing together farmers and exposing them to potential markets. However there is no deliberate measures to include youth below 18 years of age in such events.

There is also a significant gender component to the experiences of youth under the age of 18. Before the age of 18, many African girls in rural areas are married, by choice, force, or coercion; their male counterparts are often engaged in work for wages, but marriage is delayed. Both boys and girls of this age group are typically engaged in work in the non-formal agriculture sector, with little opportunity to enter into the formal sector. They are generally limited to engagement in agricultural related businesses that are close to their homes, like setting up stalls where they can sell vegetables and some food items in close supervision of their parents and care takers. This greatly limits them in accessing the wider markets. Those who are dealing in farming can only rear small animals like rabbits and chicken at a small scale since they have little or no finances to engage in bigger agricultural enterprises. Additionally, as the under-18 cohort is less respected and has no legal autonomy, they are often exploited in one way or another; customers use their influence to insist that young youth provide services or goods on credit, tradespeople provide services or goods of lesser quality, and many underpay. In the worst circumstances, exploitation includes physical and/or sexual abuse.

How can policies and programmes overcome the challenges faced by rural youth in a cost-effective manner? If they target older youth, how could we apply them to support those under 18? Please share relevant examples and lessons from your experience.

The under-18 cohort needs an integrated approach to programming, with opportunities to gain key foundational skills, such as literacy and numeracy, combined with livelihoods training and life skill building activities. The adolescent stage is also an opportune moment to introduce in-depth sexual and reproductive health programming. It is this combination of essential components: education, livelihoods, life skills, and sexual and reproductive health that creates the critical mass of knowledge, skills, and capacity that adolescents need to achieve their full potential as adults.

Save the Children (SC) is addressing these challenges through its YiA program. YiA supports youth from 12 – 18 years, both girls and boys, to identify and explore agriculture related livelihood opportunities through a combination of non-formal educational and practice-oriented learning experiences. The youth go through a minimum of 6 months training where the first three months are centered on acquiring knowledge around literacy, numeracy, markets and businesses skills. The last three months are called the “Action phase”, where youth translate their learning into sustainable livelihoods through pathways of their choice. During this phase, youth under 18 years old are provided with four pathway choices which include; Education, Enterprise, Vocational Training and Apprenticeship. Each youth chooses one pathway and also selects one business within that pathway. The Education pathway provides youth especially those between 12- 14 years with an opportunity to go back to formal school. Enterprise pathway allows youth to start up small businesses within their community and they are supported by local experts. Vocational Training pathway involves youth joining vocational training institutions where they are formally trained in different trades around agriculture and the Apprenticeship pathway links youth to local artisans within their communities to acquire specific skills in different trades.

Lessons learnt:

In all the 5 countries, where Youth in Action is implemented, most youth have chosen the enterprise pathway since it provides an immediate opportunity to start their own businesses. Youth usually start businesses that either one of their family members is engaged in. The program relies a lot on parental and community support. For example in Ethiopia, some parents have matched the livelihood grant the youth receive from the program. Community leaders also play a big role during the youth led procurement process. They go with the youth and help them negotiate prices in the market.

Youth below 18 years, especially girls, tend to engage in agribusinesses that is close to home in order to ensure their own safety. In Egypt, a group of girls were recruited to work in a cloth factory that was out of their community and the company provided transport services however, their parents declined the offer since felt they could not ensure their daughters safety away from home.

Vocational training in most of the countries is formal and includes a myriad of requirements that often prevent youth who are under 18 and/or those have dropped out of school from participating. Most vocational training centers are quite distant from the rural communities so youth either have to join the boarding section or incur high transport costs which their families cannot afford. This prevents access and participation of youth in this category especially the girls whose families rely on them for most of the domestic chores.

There is limited access to markets for youth in their rural communities. Youth have to travel long distances to sell their produce, especially during the weekly markets. In addition, because of their age, youth under the age of 18 do not have access to formal savings institutions and often fear being attacked by thieves on the way back to their villages after a market day.

What are the most binding capacity constraints that you or your institution/organization encounter when designing, implementing and evaluating policies and programmes aiming to address the issues affecting rural youth under the age of 18? What are the data gaps regarding the challenges affecting rural youth employment and livelihoods that you periodically encounter?

Youth who are below 18 years in rural Africa are not allowed to open up a saving account which affects their access to financial services. In Uganda, Egypt, Malawi, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso, the average age of opening up a saving account is 18 years.

People under 18 are minors and they have no right to own land, which is one of the fundamental requirement for one who is interested in on land agriculture activities. Since they usually have little or no financial resources, they can’t rent land neither.

Most of the rural farmers are practicing subsistence farming which doesn’t not generate a lot of income. Therefore, most youth associate agriculture with poverty thus they lose interest in taking part in agriculture. The governmental extensional workers target adults with their services leaving the youth with no new modern agricultural skills.

There are significant data gaps around participation in the non-formal economy, specifically related to wages earned, funding streams, and use of earnings. Additionally the risks associated with underage participation in the non-formal economy is under-researched, specifically the exploitation of this age group.

There are also gaps in data on youth skills, specifically literacy and numeracy skills. These skills may or may not be associated with primary schooling (any at all or completion), and little is known about the skills youth gain in the market itself.

How can education and vocational training in rural areas be improved to support rural adolescents and youth to productively engage in agriculture or related activities? What are the skills and support they need? What does the school-to-work transition for rural youth aged 15-17 look like and what works to effectively support rural youth during this transition?

For rural youth who are under 18 years to actively engage in viable agriculture, there is need to re -brand agriculture within the early education system. For example in Uganda, when students/ pupils have committed a crime at school, they are usually asked to go and dig in the school farm or in teachers gardens. This has been a norm for so many years in that youth grow up with a mentality that agriculture is done by people who have committed a crime. There is need to use youth friendly strategies that can attract them into farming. In addition, there is need to provide access to modern agricultural knowledge and skills within training institutions. Knowledge and skills around high production, processing, financial services available to support youth in agriculture have to be readily available in both urban and rural settings.

The vocational training institutions should create non – formal agriculture related trainings for youth who are out of school. They should set up community technical colleges in the rural areas where youth can access quality practical agro-education trainings. In Malawi, most girls under 18 years of agewho would like to choose the vocational training pathways often don’t because these institutions are out of the communities and it takes 4 months of learning. Adolescent girls cannot afford to be away from their families since they have household responsibilities like taking care of their children, cooking, and cleaning. This greatly hinders their access and participation in vocational training.

The under-18 cohort needs an integrated approach to programming, with opportunities to gain key foundational skills, such as literacy and numeracy, combined with livelihoods training and life skill building activities. The adolescent stage is also an opportune moment to introduce in-depth sexual and reproductive health programming. It is this combination of essential components: education, livelihoods, life skills, and sexual and reproductive health, which creates the critical mass of knowledge, skills, and capacity that adolescents need to achieve their full potential as adults.

What approaches are most effective in overcoming the additional challenges rural youth under the age of 18 face in accessing decent jobs, including (decent) green jobs (e.g. skills mismatch, health and safety conditions, discrimination, exclusion) or becoming entrepreneurs (e.g. barriers in access to finance, producers organizations and markets)?

Provision of non-formal education: most youth under 18 years in rural areas drop out of school earlier and thus they need skills in literacy and numeracy to be successful in their businesses.

Agribusiness mentorship / coaching: for rural youth need to be linked and attached to local experts within their communities so that they can have access to mentors who can share experiences with them but also act as an adult friend they can turn to in case they face challenges within their businesses.

Provision of a small livelihood grants: most youth in the rural areas especially those who are under 18 years face challenges of accessing financial resources due to the high rates of poverty. This affects their ability to start up any viable agricultural business which is a missed opportunity.  Small livelihood grants help youth below 18 years to start up small enterprises and this provides them with valuable experience whether business succeeds or not.

Introducing ICT: Mobile phones have become a need for most of the youth both in rural and urban areas, thus this explains why youth are spending their small financial resources to own a mobile phone.  This physical asset can help youth access information around markets outside their communities. Here youth will be able to know which produce is demanded and already has market but also knowing the market prices so that they are not cheated by the agriculture brokers. Youth will also use phones to do transactions like saving money but also paying for their business related expenses.

Finally, it is important to remember that youth under 18 years of age do not exist in a vacuum. They are part and parcel of families and communities. Successful youth-focused programming engages families, especially parents, as well as community members at-large. This frequently means catalyzing a shift in opinion of youth so that adults see them as productive members of society. Engaging adults as “youth champions” supports their transition to decent work.

Philippe Remy

IFAD
Italy

Dear Jacqueline,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to contribute to this interesting discussion. The points shared below and summarized by Elena, are based on experiences from the IFAD-supported FIER project in Mali. FIER, which started operations in 2014, has the objective to foster youth employment in rural areas. Everyone between the age of 15 and 40 living in the targeted villages is entitled to take part in the project’s activities. Young facilitators from local NGOs work with 4 groups of youth (girls 15-17; boys 15-17; young women 18-40; young men 18-40), showing them different possible professions in their rural area to help them choose their path. At the end of this 6-months process, youth under-18 have the possibility to choose among a range of education options, while young people over-18 can apply to receive the micro-credit and professional training that will help them set up their own (individual or group-based) economic activity.

The repartition of youth in 4 groups allows us to identify the specificities related to working with youth in the 15-17 age range, as well as the challenges of working with girls in particular. It is too early for talking about results or impacts, but the challenges encountered, and some of the approaches adopted, are still worth sharing:

  • It is proving harder to reach 15-17 years old than it is for the 18-40 age range. This is especially so if the households are required to choose one youth within the household to take part in the project’s activities. In that case, older youth are generally selected by the households. To counter this problem, FIER adopted an inclusive targeting strategy where every youth in the selected villages is entitled to benefit from the project.   
  • Even when the project targets every youth in the village and there is no need to choose among different young people within a household, parents tend to be reluctant to let under-18 take part in the project’s activities, preferring to keep them at home, generally to work in the fields, even if they say it is to go to school!....
  • To promote under-18 participation, the facilitators conducted door-to-door sensitization with parents.
  • Youth aged 15-17 tend to have greater difficulties in expressing themselves, especially in the presence of older youth. For this reason, working with separate groups of under- and over-18 proved helpful.
  • 15-17 years old are often already running an economic activity and express interest in applying for the microcredit like the youth in the older group. However, this is not possible as minors cannot access credit. The approach used was to encourage them to open a bank account anyway and start saving in the meantime. Under-18 youth was also allowed to become part of a group-based economic activity that included over-18 youth able to access credit. 
  • Adolescents easily get bored. It proved harder to retain 15-17 years old if the animation sessions were monotonous. The facilitators talked about the need to engage them with dynamic, participatory approaches and to develop games to share information in an interesting way. Approaches such as participatory photography or the staging of performances and sketches seem to work well. 
  • At 15-17, youth are particularly vulnerable to migration. That is the age where both boys and girls often move to urban centers or, in the case of some regions in Mali, to do hazardous work in gold mines. This makes it harder to get them involved in the project activities, as they are often away from the village. The project also has to compete against dreams of easy money they hope to make in the city. The youth’s coming and going from the village also makes it harder to ensure continuity in the 6-months process. To counter these difficulties, it proved useful to carry out an intensive information campaign involving radio stations, local authorities, and the targeted communities so that even youth that were not present in the village could get information on the project. It also seems important to have a relatively flexible schedule of activities where youth can fit in even if they missed the first sessions.    
  • 15-17 years old tend to be particularly impatient. The approach used was to develop a clear time plan and explain them the whole process and exactly how long each step takes.

On top of such challenges, working with 15-17 girls is particularly difficult because:

  • Girls – especially married girls – face restricted mobility and their families are less inclined to get them involved in a project that might require them to take a training far away from home. The approach adopted was to identify training opportunities close-by, or even mobile units that go to the villages, and to explain to the families from the start of the project that girls will not necessarily have to move.
  • There is a reluctance in investing in unmarried young girls, since they might move away from the village and certainly will move away from the household. Sensitization with the parents is thus especially important for girls.
  • The category of ‘youth’ is generally understood as referring to men. Girls become women as soon as they marry, independent of their age. They are thus often put in the over-18 group (even by some of the NGO facilitators), where they face greater difficulties to express themselves given the presence of older women. 

In conclusion, some of the main lessons learned so far are:

  • Involving the families is crucial
  • To avoid the risk of households selecting older youth to take part in the project, targeting should be either very inclusive (every youth is a potential beneficiary), or very specific (e.g. only 15 to 17)
  • Dynamic, new activities are helpful to retain youth that might easily get bored
  • For girls, it is important to take their restricted mobility into account and identify training possibilities nearby

Best regards,

Philippe for the Mali team.

Paul Newnham

World Vision International

Youth – feeding the future. Addressing the challenges faced by rural youth aged 15 to 17 in preparing for and accessing decent work.

 

Dear Jacqueline Demeranville and Decent Rural Employment Team,

I’d like to take this opportunity to share some thoughts for the ‘Youth – feeding the future. Addressing the challenges faced by rural youth aged 15 to 17 in preparing for and accessing decent work’ consultation.

We are pleased and excited to see FAO focus on the unique challenges and opportunities facing rural youth. Here are some considerations from our work and experience. Our feedback is based on work we are doing in Kenya, Rwanda and South Sudan as part of a new initiative of World Vision called HungerFree – which aims to empower vulnerable youth by layering effective food and resilience programmes with youth development programmes that prepare youth for work and for life.

In addition to the thoughts below, we would be honored to have Paul Newnham, Global Youth Engagement Director and HungerFree Director, and Aaron Ausland, Youth Viability and Livelihood Senior Specialist who leads our Youth Ready model, participate in your expert meeting if beneficial.

  • Based on your experience, what are the specific challenges rural youth aged 15-17 face (different from those over 18) in making a living in agriculture (current or future) and related activities?*

In many rural settings, a large number of youth discontinue schooling between the ages of 15-17 or sooner in order to contribute to their families’ income or help provide for younger siblings. While this may involve them in agriculture, the development of basic life skills and business acumen can be neglected. Many of these youth see agriculture only as a chore, or even punishment, and more of a backup plan than a preferred livelihood.

Within our work engaging low-income youth, we focus on youth viability and how youth are prepared for work and for life by investing in the successful and safe transition of children through basic skills, life skills, technical and vocational skills, access to capital and relational support.

When it comes to rural youth and agriculture, there are two additional things that need to happen in order for youth to find agriculture as attractive and meaningful:

  1. Farming must no longer be a solitary affair. One of the most frequent complaints from rural youth is that they are bored. Social isolation and boredom is for many a primary driver for youth to migrate to urban settings or across borders. For agriculture to become more attractive to youth, we must build community, connect their work to their social life, encourage more cooperative production, and facilitate more opportunities for youth to learn from and with one another.
  2. There must be a paradigm shift where youth think of farming as a business. For agriculture to become attractive, youth must see themselves as more than farmers continuing the same work as their elders, but rather as entrepreneurs and businesspeople. This requires financial literacy, business skills, an understanding of supply chains, age-appropriate access to capital, and pathways to land ownership or fair lease contracts that incentivize investment into and cultivation of the land.
  • How can policies and programmes overcome the challenges faced by rural youth in a cost-effective manner? If they target older youth, how could we apply those policies to support youth under 18? Please share relevant examples and lessons from your experience.

One of the more significant challenges faced by rural youth, especially under-18, is their inability to access finance for land. This can be especially challenging for youth women. We need to ensure all youth have the same access and legal protections as adults, especially vulnerable youth. This includes financing, the ability to save and borrow funds, obtain land titles, and the ability to use that title to access capital. Programmes and policies that encourage and safeguard cooperative ownerships, so businesses can be social in a legal structure that protects its members beyond a handshake, would also make youth agriculture more successful and minimise risk.

We also need policies and programmes that invest in youth skills and readiness. In Rwanda, we are piloting a programme called Youth Ready, which prepares youth for employment, entrepreneurship or vocational training by focusing on basic skills, life skills and workforce readiness, and co-invests with youth in viable pathways to work. This is done in a cost-effective manner by facilitating group learning and peer support in cohorts, training local mentors and business coaching, establishing peer savings and loan groups, and partnering with local government and the private sector.

Youth also need opportunities to build their skills and create viable pathways forward without leaving their communities. It is important to provide agricultural extension services or establish training centers and learning plots that (1) are accessible and inclusive for rural youth, (2) use peer trainers able to really connect with young people, and (3) take an entrepreneurial approach to rural economic value chains.

  • What are the most binding capacity constraints that you or your institution/organization encounter when designing, implementing and evaluating policies and programmes aiming to address the issues affecting rural youth under the age of 18? What are the data gaps regarding the challenges affecting rural youth employment and livelihoods that you periodically encounter?

The most binding capacity constraints our organization encounters pertains to youth readiness, matching youth skills to local market needs and access to financing and capital.  In order for rural youth to thrive, they need skills to make a business plan and successfully manage their business. They also need to know where the opportunities exist and how to match their work to the market. More micro-regional data on local labour markets and demand for goods and services is needed. Additionally, in some places, gaps in banking policies may need to be addressed to ensure youth can access age-appropriate financial services, including loans.

For youth under-18, there is the added challenge of child labour definitions that can prevent youth from meaningful engagement, recognition and protection in the world of work. Therefore, policies are needed that both protect youth while empowering vocational pathways and the reality of their circumstances as working youth.

  • How can education and vocational training in rural areas be improved to support rural adolescents and youth to productively engage in agriculture or related activities? What are the skills and support they need? What does the school-to-work transition for rural youth aged 15-17 look like and what works to effectively support rural youth during this transition?

We find that youth are often just taught what to do rather than how to fully exercise their agency. For youth, and especially youth aged 15-17, schooling and vocational trainings needs to be more participatory and socially engaging, located in the field and joined with technology. This includes:

  • Build an entrepreneurial mindset – encourage youth to explore, monitor and see what works
  • Invest in sustainable techniques – promote green business models that link together a whole value chain of production cycle inputs and waste products as new inputs
  • Facilitate social learning and group collaboration – enable youth to work as groups where they can explore new ideas, techniques and crops together and minimise individual risk
  • Connect with technology – teach technology skills so youth are trained to find market information, explore agriculture practices and techniques, and link to new learning, financing and work opportunities
  • Emphasize life skills – ensure youth have the social and emotional skills needed for success in both work and in life
  • Promote environmental restoration and resilience-building - use this as an opportunity to equip the next generation to be positive force of change
  • Access - it is important that youth can access appropriate and inclusive training opportunities in or near their own communities. Once they leave home, they are less likely to return to deploy their new skills

Added together, these investments will make rural agriculture more exciting with more moving pieces to think about and work together on socially.

  • What approaches are most effective in overcoming the additional challenges rural youth under the age of 18 face in accessing decent jobs, including (decent) green jobs (e.g. skills mismatch, health and safety conditions, discrimination, exclusion) or becoming entrepreneurs (e.g. barriers in access to finance, producers organizations and markets)?

Much of World Vision’s current approaches are viable and appropriate for youth as long as we include them and layer youth development strategies to support their transition into adulthood.

Through HungerFree, we are looking at how to layer youth development strategies alongside our food and agriculture programming in order to invest in the futures of rural youth. Programmes such as Cash for Assets leverage food assistance to provide both the food needed for today while building assets and capacity for long term development and food security. However, many of the rural youth who are not employed, in education or in training lack the basic skills, life skills, financial literacy and business skills to successfully sustain such an investment. By leveraging programmes like Cash for Assets and approaches like Youth Ready, we can more effectively invest in young people and overcome the unique challenges they face. This is designed to ensure youth can build assets that are productive and then have the skills to manage them.

For youth under the age of 18 who have already dropped out of school, this creates an alternative pathway to invest in their success both in work and in life.

 

I work with youth in the rural Kamuli District of Uganda who are both in school and out of school. These two categories of youth have the challenge of lack of vocational skills to undertake profitable agriculture ventures. This is more so due to the largely subsistence undocumented agricultural production in their homes from where they get a large part of their mentorship.

The government needs to design a national curriculum that makes vocational agriculture compulsory especially in rural schools. We need to engage the in school youth who are mostly under 18 in vocational agriculture trainings. These youth in school later drop out and start trying to forge a life especiallly out of agriculture. Through our in school youth program, an agriculture and entrepreneurship club in a high school in Kamuli has been started to train youth in agricultural production. These youth are now able to produce and put to the market crops to enable club members get some of the neccessities their parents cannot provide. This club is motivating alot of students and many are now joining to be apart of it.

In implementation of the inschool youth agriculture program, the greatest challenge remains the conflict of the schools timetable with garden work activities. We can only get a few hours every evening in the garden with the students especially the day scholars who have to get home early to help their parents. We have also implemented an input microfinance project where students could be given seed, agro chemicals and land where to produce and then continously monitored to see that they produce and put poducts to the market. This project has faced a problem due to the risk aversity of most youth especially the girls to loans. These youth fear taking the inputs even when these loans are interest free and no security is needed.

We can improve education by first engaging administration of schools to design timetables that provides enough time for vocational training. We then need to engage parents to accept the implementation of the trainings. Many parents have a negative attitude towards their children engaging in garden work while at school. The youth need to be encouraged  by providing financing interms of inputs to produce. They mostly need record keeping and market analysis skills to be able to engage in profitable ventures. With all these skills learnt in school, even when one drops out they can be able to apply them or even transfer them to their parents to encourage market oriented agricultural production. We can follow up these youth who drop out and support them together with their parents through providing inputs to produce and continously monitoring and mentoring them.

Most girls in rural areas have a negative attitude towards commercial agriculture. This attitude is influenced by the negative gender stereotypes that rural communities have about girls concerning ownership of properties and decision making on activities. Their involvement is limited by either over controlling parents or even jeolous husbands( These girls get married as early as 14 years). We have given security free input loans to out of school youth but mostly males take up these. There is a need to design these interventations intended to encourage girl empowerment such as input loans, trainings etc to involve those "in control" of the females ie husbands, parents or guardians so that girls can get involved. In this way youth of all genders can be able to earn something so as to improve their livelihoods.

Hi, I am a researcher from India specializing in contract labour issues. As you know, in India since economic liberalization (1991), the organized sector has seen a gradual substitution of direct employment from contractual jobs. A recent study has assessed that in India contract labour account for about 55% of public sector labour employment and 45% of private sector jobs[1].  The numbers may vary but there is no denying the fact that Contract labour or indirect work relation has emerged as the major form of employment in India since economic liberalization.

 The numerical count of these contract workers if made, would point towards the engagement of labourers below 18 years of age from adjoing rural areas. In my study at Rudrapur industrial area which is an upcoming industrial area in the Terai region of Uttrakhand bordering Uttar Pradesh (both states in India), I came across hundreds of such workers flocking to their places of work. However the triangular relationship of employment in the contract system prevalent in the region with an abundant supply of labour ensures that these workers are always at their toes and can be hired and fired at will, are cheaper, and are unorganized. Thus I see hopeful workers travel from far flung regions to Rudrapur; find jobs after long parleys; try to settle with their lives initially finding the job very strenuous and low paid; change couple of jobs and find the same everywhere; return back with their hopes shattered with unpaid dues still remaining with the contractors. Most workers in their interviews repeated this same story, only that they were at different stages of the journey. 

I guess similar status exists at many other industrial regions of India with rural peripheries. It is only where workers are consious and organized (legally or traditionally) that they have a better voice. In one case I found rural youths with same caste affliations engaged in bargaining process with the employer. But the Indian statutes don't recognize such unofficial bargaining processes. I feel some minor amendments in legal entitlements can bring about drastic change in daily struggles of these rural youth at their workplace.