This note elaborates IFAD strategy for Syria. The goal of the CSN is to contribute to the reduction of poverty, food insecurity, vulnerability and youth unemployment in rural communities. Particular attention will be paid to the gender, youth, and nutrition and climate change aspects.

The CSN prioritizes the following two strategic objectives:
1. Support to climate resilient livelihoods at household and community level (including by piloting community level biogas facilities, through increased use of improved irrigation techniques and promotion of conservation agriculture, organic food production including drought resistant varieties; and strengthened capacity of famers’ associations;
2. Improve agricultural productivity and access to markets through financial inclusion and strengthened value chains (including with particular emphasis on the participation of women and youth, by supporting the formation and legalization of producers’ groups and by encouraging entrepreneurship).
The CSN aims to ensure sustainable income for rural households and backs up the transition from a humanitarian approach of securing basic needs to long term recovery and sustainable development, which aligns with the national priorities outlined in Syria 2030.
Other dimensions of decent work are not explicitly addressed, like OSH, child labour, workers' rights or migration.

Generation Unlimited, UNICEF and KUZA have joined forces to develop
the Global Youth Agriculture Network (GYAN) that is a public-private-youth partnership (PPYP) aiming to transform agrifood systems by leveraging the power of technology and providing young people with skills and agency to inform and drive the change. The programme has been launched in Kenya, and will be subsequently expanded to other countries, including India and another 11 countries in Africa where conditions are already present to enable replication.

The KUZA model, which has evolved (and been tested) over the last ten years, is currently established to cater for people in the age group of 24–35-year-old and beyond. Under the model, each agripreneur provides extension services to a cohort of 200 smallholder farmers for free, leveraging a digital platform and
toolkit. This is sustained through commissions for facilitating quality
inputs, credit, & markets.
The expansion of the model will leverage the concept of Place-Based-Interventions (PBIs) transforming schools into “Hubs” for young people and members of rural communities to Learn, Connect and Grow on their terms and pace. In so doing the programme plans to link to the kenya 4KClubs.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Plan 2022-2025 was launched by the Ministry of Agriculture with the aim of improving farmers’ living conditions by empowering them and increasing the sector’s productivity.

The priorities of the Plan are the following: Developing the business environment in the agricultural sector, Enhancing the efficiency of irrigation water use, Encouraging the use of modern technology in agriculture, Enhancing the competitiveness of Jordanian agricultural products, Enhancing agricultural exports, Development and sustainability of the forest sector and the ecosystem.
The plan has 5 pillars:
1. Creating job opportunities in the agricultural sector (Specific decent work aspects are not made explicit);
2. Increasing the growth rate of the added value;
3. Increasing the productivity of one cubic meter of irrigation water;
4. Increasing the value of agricultural exports;
5. Increasing the area of sustainable forests.

Speaking during a press briefing held at the Prime Ministry, the Minister of Agriculture indicated that that financing the plan, at a cost of JD389 million, came in full partnership with the private sector. It is expected to generate 32000 jobs, some 8000 jobs a year, in addition to temporary jobs, some 6,000 a year, as part of the afforestation projects. As part of the plan, JD35 million will be allocated as interest-free loans for agricultural projects. A total of 12 entrepreneurial projects in the agriculture incubator will be supported, 5000 projects related to women empowerment will be implemented and training on agri-tech tools for 360 young Jordanians will be provided as part of the plan. (Source here).

The Country Programming Framework of FAO in Nicaragua (MPP in Spanish) seeks to stimulate the development and adoption of policies and investments that enable Nicaragua to move towards more sustainable, inclusive and resilient food systems, promoting the use of digital technologies, research and innovation. Promoting the inclusion of women and youth rural, indigenous and Afro-descendant is a general priority of the MPP.

Its main pillars refer to:

1. Resilient Production;

2. Rural Investments, which seeks to increase public and private investments in value chains that promote decent and equal employment, reduce rural poverty, and contribute to sustainable development (including by promoting the inclusion and economic empowerment of women and young people through entrepreneurship); and

3. Sustainable Ecosystems.

The IFAD COSOP’s overall goal is to reduce poverty and food insecurity among rural people living in vulnerable conditions in Guatemala’s poorest areas, with special emphasis on indigenous peoples, women, youth and persons with disabilities. Participation and inclusion will be ensured by meeting the following minimum quotas in operations: women (50 per cent), youth (40 per cent), indigenous peoples (40 per cent) and persons with disabilities (5 per cent).The following departments are targeted in particular: Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz, Chiquimula, Huehuetenango, Quiché, San Marcos and Totonicapán.

The COSOP pursues two strategic objectives (SOs): SO1: Rural smallholders living in poverty have access to equitable and sustainable livelihoods (to be achieved by strengthening policies and investments that promote job creation, decent wages and improved working conditions; and SO2: Poor rural households belonging to the most vulnerable communities improve their adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change and instability. According to para 43: IFAD will promote green productive inclusion in prioritized value chains, particularly focusing on nutrition-sensitive and smart agriculture. Key investments could include land access, financial inclusion, innovative instruments and productive infrastructure.

Relevant indicators in the COSOP results management framework refer to job creation, and access to financial and business development services, but not specifically to other decent work aspects.

The Country Programming Framework (CPF) 2022-2025 established between FAO and the Government of Guatemala aligns with the Marco Estratégico de Cooperación de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo Sostenible 2022-2025.

It is a planning and programming document that defines the national priorities that FAO will address through actions at the country level. The potential sources of resources considered will be Sweden, the European Union (EU), the Cooperation Agency of the United States of America (USAID), among others. FAO's main implementing partners will be UN-Women, IOM, IFAD, UNDP, UNICEF, PAHO/WHO and WFP. The identified national partners include: Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería y Alimentación (MAGA), Ministerio de Economía y Comercio (MINECO), Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas (INE), Fondo de Tierras, Registro de Información Catastral (RIC) and Comisión Presidencial por la Paz y los Derechos Humanos (COPADEH).

The CPF results chain includes three programmatic areas and respective results. The first result is more relevant for employment promotion, even though it does not addressed explicitly decent work elements. “By the year 2025, the prioritized population increases its access to productive means and economic services at the national and local levels, towards competitiveness and an improved business climate, in the framework of inclusive, sustainable and sustainable socioeconomic development for a better life”. In this way, FAO aims to contribute to the economic recovery post-COVID 19 and to reduce irregular migration, especially of young people and women. To this end, until 2025, in coordination with MAGA and in alliance with private sector actors, it will strengthen the capacities of at least 60 organizations of small and medium producers, considering the existing gender gaps in the use of innovative technologies that facilitate their access to productive assets and increased productivity of their respective rural enterprises. Support for organizations with a greater participation of the indigenous population will be emphasized and the identification and participation of organizations led by women will be encouraged.

Results 2 and 3 focuses respectively on food security and nutrition, and enhanced natural resources management.

Indicators under Result 1 aim at improved access to land and labour incomes. Output 1.1 is about supporting organizations of small and medium producers, particularly those with the greatest participation of indigenous population, with innovative capacities and technologies that facilitate their access to productive assets and increases in productivity. Output 1.2 is about supporting micro and medium-sized rural enterprises, particularly those with a greater participation of youth and women, with better capacities to develop business plans, participate in value chains, access financing and link to the market. Output 1.4 focuses on strengthening sectoral institutions, in partnership with the private sector, for specialized technical assistance services with a gender approach to improve the capacities of individual producers and their associations agricultural and non-agricultural rural in the areas of organization, entrepreneurship and marketing.

This study by IFPRI assesses the effect of ICT for increasing agribusiness profitability and providing employment. In particular, the study assesses the effect of the intensity of ICT use on profit using data collected from 317 young agripreneurs and an ordered logit model. The results show that profitability increases with the number of ICT tools used to receive and disseminate information relevant to agribusinesses. Therefore, the study recommends that relevant stakeholders should strive towards the implementation of programs that increase the number of ICT tools that can be used in agribusinesses.

The data was collected in December 2019 from 317 young (age 18–35 years) farmers randomly selected from three Extension Planning Areas (EPAs) in Lilongwe and six EPAs in Dedza. The sample farmers were involved in producing and selling crops.

The WFP Tunisia Country Strategic Plan defines the priorities for support for the period 2022-2025, with a total budget of 11 392 574 USD.

Its executive summary indicated that although levels of hunger in Tunisia are generally low, access to nutritious food is hindered by economic barriers such as low purchasing power. Further, the coronavirus disease pandemic is having severe impacts on the economy and livelihoods of Tunisians. In addition, studies show that Tunisia is among the top ten countries for climate change impacts in terms of population affected and gross domestic product losses. Tunisia also faces a double burden of malnutrition, with micronutrient deficiencies and overweight and obesity.

The Strategic plan aims to achieve two strategic outcomes :                  

-SO1: By 2025, selected vulnerable groups in targeted areas have increased economic opportunities and strengthened resilience to shocks and climate risks (see Output 1: Output 1: Smallholder farmers, rural women and unemployed young people benefit from enhanced access to the school feeding and other markets, contributing to sustainable and efficient food systems).                                                                                                   -SO2: By 2025, targeted national institutions in Tunisia have strengthened capacity to implement school meal and inclusive shock-responsive social protection programmes that improve food security and nutrition.

In particular, WFP aims to enhance the Government-run national school meals programme to reach 260 000 children in vulnerable situations (125,000 girls and 135,000 boys). WFP will continue to support the enhancement and extension of the programme and the decentralization and diversification of its supply chain with the aim of enhancing community resilience and programme sustainability.

Para 34. Strategic shift: In addition to providing continuous support through technical assistance, best practice dissemination and technological and digital advice for enhancing and expanding the NSMP and supporting inclusive nutrition- and gender-sensitive policy design, WFP will pay special attention to the school meals supply chain, strengthening procurement processes, mainly through data digitalization and the promotion of home-grown school feeding (HGSF). WFP will also provide capacity strengthening for smallholder farmer associations, especially associations of rural women, aimed at enhancing the quality, sustainability and impact of the HGSF programme and strengthening the resilience of communities around schools. Special attention will be paid to the inclusion of unemployed young people in the programme, and WFP will advocate special attention for persons with disabilities, who are at particular risk of being left behind, and closer collaboration with their respective organizations.

Under the leadership of the King Mohammed the VI and is support of youth, the government launched the “FORSA” (Opportunity in EN) programme to finance pioneering and collective youth projects (environmental, cultural, agricultural…). The programme will not require preconditions for the selection of candidates and will only select projects according to their importance (including for regional development), and the commitment of the holder.

The target for 2022 is to support 10 000 projects. After the initial selection, the projects will be evaluated by a regional commission then the holders of the projects will benefit from the following: i. an entrepreneurship training; ii. close support from specialized regional incubators over a period of 2.5 months, from the conception phase to the actual implementation of the project; ii. Financing support (combining grant and loan of honor) - a loan of honor (i.e. zero interest rate) of up to 100 000 dirhams including a grant of 10 000 dirhams repayable over a maximum period of 10 years with a deferred period of 2 years.

The programme does not seem to include special measures to encourage young women entrepreneurship or other disadvantaged groups.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework is the main instrument through which the Government of Cameroon and the UN System will cooperate during the 2022–2026 period to implement the national priorities and contribute to the achievement of the SDGs.

The creation of decent rural jobs is a clear objective, even though specific dimensions of decent work are not made explicit, like child labour elimination or OSH. The framework is organized around the following outcomes:

Outcome 1: By 2026, more people, especially youth, women and socially and economically vulnerable groups, including refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), benefit equitably from increased opportunities in a green, diversified, transformative, resilient and inclusive economy that creates decent jobs in productive sectors. P. 29 mentions that civil society organizations and workers’ unions, which are active in the protection of employees’ rights, will be supported by the UN system to ensure that the jobs offered are decent, inclusive and mainly focused on youth and women from all communities, including refugees and IDPs. (See in particular: Output 1.1: Promising value chains (plant, forest, animal and fishery) with high export potential are developed and promoted; Output 1.2: Very small and medium sized enterprises, cooperative societies and start-ups, led primarily by youth, women and vulnerable groups, have better access to inclusive financing mechanisms; and Output 1.3: The capacities of institutions, very small and medium-sized enterprises, cooperative societies and start-ups led primarily by youth, women and vulnerable groups are strengthened for an effective contribution to the transformation of the economy.) See indicator 1.3.2. Percentage of jobs created in the rural sector. Among the accelerators identified for this Outcome is: Development of agriculture, particularly the dissemination of know-how in sustainable agriculture.

Outcome 2.1: By 2026, more people, by age group, especially the most vulnerable, including refugees and IDPs, use quality basic social services equitably and sustainably to realize their full human potential and enhance their social and economic well-being. (See in particular: Output 2.1.7: Increased equitable and sustainable access of youth aged 15-35 to vocational training and learning opportunities, relevant to the productive sector; Output 2.1.6: Increased access of children, teenagers, youth, especially girls, and vulnerable groups to inclusive quality education, including literacy training; and Output 2.1.5: The capacities of the social protection system are strengthened to adequately address the needs of children, teenagers, youth, women and people left behind, with a view to reducing inequalities.) No specific emphasis is placed on social protection in rural areas and its linkages to agrifood system development.

Outcome 2.2: By 2026, gaps in critical socio-economic indicators are reduced, reflecting greater gender equality and progress in the empowerment of youth, women and girls, and other vulnerable groups, including those in humanitarian settings. (See in particular: Output 2.2.1: The potential of young girls and women is enhanced to enable them to participate in development efforts in all sectors and enjoy the benefits of growth on an equal basis with men; and Output 2.2.3: Women and young girls and boys are protected from all forms of violence and discrimination against them in all areas of public life). Among the accelerators identified for Outcomes 2.1 and 2.2 are: Training in sustainable agriculture; Narrowing the gap in the impact that education has on the employment of men and women; Narrowing the gender gap in employment; Narrowing the gender gap in education by level

Outcome 3: By 2026, youth, women, the most vulnerable groups and people living with disabilities, including refugees and IDPs, actively contribute to the efficiency of policies and the performance of public institutions at national, regional and local levels, and enjoy their rights fully (See in particular: Output 3.1: The capacities of civil society actors and populations, including youth, women and socially vulnerable people, are strengthened for effective and inclusive participation in decision-making processes at community, local, regional and national levels. Among the accelerators identified for this Outcome is: Increased gender equality in education and employment.

Outcome 4 : By 2026, populations, in different agro-ecological zones, including youth, women and socially vulnerable groups, live in a healthier environment, sustainably manage environmental resources, including biodiversity, and are more resilient to disaster and climate change shocks. (See in particular Output 4.2 Institutional and community actors are equipped to design and implement inclusive, integrated and innovative actions to improve the state of the environment and biodiversity, and to contribute to the fight against climate change). Among the accelerators identified for this outcome is: Development of agriculture, particularly the dissemination of know-how in sustainable agriculture

The study evaluates and compares job quality of hired workers on small-scale farms and hired workers in agro-industrial companies. A multidimensional decent-work index is constructed and the complementarity between wage and non-wage job aspects is stressed. The conclusion of the study is that, in Senegal, ongoing agro-industrialization contributes to more decent employment in the horticultural sector. The study also found substantial gender wage gaps, and a lower likelihood of having decent employment among migrant and young workers.

USAID's YOUTH IN DEVELOPMENT POLICY 2022 UPDATE is an updated edition of the 2012 USAID Youth in Development Policy. The goal of the policy is to increase the meaningful participation of youth within their communities, schools, organizations, economies, peer groups, and families, enhancing their skills, providing opportunities, and fostering healthy relationships so they may build on their collective leadership.

With this Policy, USAID seeks to strengthen youth programming, participation, and
partnership in support of Agency development and humanitarian objectives. The Policy addresses programming that is youth-focused, youth-relevant, and youth-led.

Although this policy does not focus on agriculture, agriculture is listed as one of the example sectors of strategic priorities for engaging youth. Some of the decent rural employment thematic areas are mentioned: migration as an issue to be addressed in Europe, Eurasia, and Latin America/Caribbean under the policy's regional prioritization; and green jobs under examples of strategic priorities.

The AAYS was developed by the African Union Commission, with technical support from multiple partners including FAO, ILO, GIZ and IGAD. The empowerment of young agripreneurs is at the fulcrum of the AAYS, mainly in terms of: 1. Supporting them to engage in decision-making processes and in value chains; 2. Strengthening their capacities and skills; 3. Access to finance and 4. Access to other resources.

Decent jobs is among the expected results of the overall strategy, which will be achieved also by promoting business formalization.

(P.11) The objective of the strategy is to create an enabling environment for youth agripreneurship and youth employment in agribusiness in Africa. It is structured around 3 pillars: 1. Build systems for implementation (including leadership, institutional synergy and resource mobilization); 2. Transform markets (including partnerships and market transformation and related technologies); 3. Strengthen the value chain. Crosscutting issues include: Include everyone (with specific youth subgroups briefly mentioned on p. 39 including young women, younger youth 15-17, youth with disabilities, rural and urban youth, etc.); Innovate to Excel; and Manage resources and preserve the Earth.

The initiative was launched by the head of government, as a part of the government programme 2021-2026. It will initially be launched in ten provinces, before gradually being implemented across the country.
The programme has two main components that make up the whole project. The first addresses the issue of launching a number of temporary public jobs with an average duration of about six months to improve the economic situation of unemployed Moroccans or those who have not yet started working. The second will encourage and create workshops to support sustainable integration, where anyone can sign up in an attempt to gain better work experience when looking for a job.
A total of 250 000 people, particularly those who lost their jobs as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, will benefit from the initiative during its execution in the years 2022 and 2023.
The government has set aside a funding package of about 2.25 billion dirhams in 2022 (240 million USD).
Minimum wage and social insurance will be guaranteed as well as certification of the competences acquired.
Women and both urban and rural people seem targeted, and agriculture seems to be among the sectors for the public works.

The programme assists the concerned farmers and livestock breeders, in order to cover the remainder of the agricultural season 2021/2022.

This programme includes three main axes. The first relates to protecting the animal and plant stock and managing water scarcity, the second axis concerns agricultural insurance, while the third axis concerns alleviating the financial burdens on farmers and professionals to face emergencies and prepare for the spring and next agricultural season. More details here (Feb 2022).

The overall value of this programme is 10 billion MAD (Moroccan dirhams) including an amount of three billion dirhams provided by Hassan II Fund for Economic and Social Development.

Other decent work aspects are not explicitly addressed.

The roadmap has been developed to support funders and practitioners in their efforts to embed youth (18-30 years old) voices and rights into their programming. It identifies the “who,” “why,” “when” and, most importantly, “how” when it comes to involving young people as partners in youth employment programming. The report does not have a specific focus on rural agriculture, but mentions it in some of the case studies (p.18 and 25). The report was prepared by the Plan International in collaboration with Youth Employment Funders Group, and was commissioned by Citi Foundation.

Data collection activities centered around a literature review, as well as primary data collection activities included 35 key informant interviews; eight youth focus group discussions across major geographic regions in the world; a roundtable discussion with funders, implementers and youth; validation webinars; and a global survey of 284 young people.

A framework for meaningful youth engagement has been developed with five mutually reinforcing pillars: 1) Youth Diversity and Representation; 2) Youth Engagement-Enabling Environment; 3) Youth-Adult Partnerships;4) Youth Participation; and 5) Youth Empowerment. The roadmap culminates with recommendations to help funders mainstream meaningful youth engagement into organizational strategies.

In emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), the informal sector accounts for about a third of GDP and more than 70 percent of employment (of which self-employment is more than a half). Regardless of the nature and causes of informality, countries with larger informal sectors tend to have less access to finance for the private sector, lower labor productivity, slower physical and human capital accumulation, and smaller fiscal resources. Informality is also associated with higher income inequality and poverty and less progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.

This book presents informality of its extent, evolution and consequences, and of the policy options to address its challenges. It also contains regional dimension, and to allow comparisons across all six EMDE regions, it utilizes a comprehensive data set that covers more than 120 EMDEs.

The report does not have a specific focus on rural agriculture, but it states that informal activity is concentrated in services and agriculture. In addition, it says that female and young workers make up a disproportionate share of workers in the informal sector.

The Strategic Framework 2022-2031 seeks to support the 2030 Agenda through the transformation to MORE efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable, agri-food systems for better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind. The four betters represent an organising principle for how FAO intends to contribute directly to SDG 1 (No poverty), SDG 2 (Zero hunger), and SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities).

The four betters are:

Better Production: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, through efficient and inclusive food and agriculture supply chains at local, regional and global level, ensuring resilient and sustainable agri-food systems in a changing climate and environment

Better Nutrition: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition in all its forms, including promoting nutritious food and increasing access to healthy diets

Better Environment: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial and marine ecosystems and combat climate change (reduce, reuse, recycle, residual management) through more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agri-food systems

Better Life: Promote inclusive economic growth by reducing inequalities (urban/rural areas, rich/poor countries, men/women)

Twenty Programme Priority Areas (PPAs) will guide FAO on filling critical gaps and putting in place the conditions needed to drive the changes, and four cross-cutting/cross-sectional “accelerators”: (i) technology, (ii) innovation, (iii) data, and (iv) complements (governance, human capital, and institutions) will accelerate impact while minimizing trade-offs.

In respect to decent rural employment, the Strategic Framework states that equitable employment opportunities across economic sectors should be ensured for wage workers, while equitable profit sharing should be required for capital owners. Young farmers can increase their capital ownership only if they have access to finance, training and capacity development.

The policy, in Spanish, “Política para la reactivación, la repotenciacióny el crecimiento sostenible e incluyente:nuevo compromiso por el futuro de Colombia”, Documento CONPES 4023, is under the responsibility of the Consejo nacional de política económica y social, in the National planning department.

The Policy aims to develop capacities in households, the productive system, the institutional framework and digital development so that, in the short term, the country can resume the development path that was interrupted by COVID-19 and, in the long term, move towards a more sustainable and inclusive growth path, including in terms of increasing the employment of women and young people (p.58).

The actions proposed by the policy in its action and monitoring plan (PAS) will have a horizon of six years starting in 2021 and ending in 2026, with a total investment of approximately 3 870 459 million pesos that come from national resources.

The background section includes a sub-section on rural poverty (p. 21) indicating that to date, public policy challenges persist to guaranteeing rural development, despite the actions that the national government has already carried out regarding young people and the processes of land restitution. Section 2.2.3. on sustainable rural development and agro-innovation recognizes how the agricultural sector is decisive for reactivation due to: its capacity to generate employment; the importance of food production during the pandemic; and the export potential. Section 4.3.15 offers an analysis of the Low levels of sustainable productive development in rural areas. Section 5.1.1. describes the policy commitment with Employment generation.

The policy is organized around 5 objectives, namely: 1. Mitigating the increase in rural poverty and economic vulnerability in the face of the Covid-19 emergency; 2. Mitigate the disinvestment in human capital caused by the pandemic; 3. Reactivate the productive sector for a more sustainable development; 4. Consolidate institutional capacities; and 5. Strengthening the digital accelerators.  

Relevant actions from an employment point on view are in particular: 1.2. Reduce poverty and vulnerability in rural areas (including for youth and women, attention to minimum wage); 2.3. Enhanced access to advanced education; 2.4 Strengthening skills for the labour market and for livelihoods’ generation, differentiated between urban and rural areas; 3.1. Improve the functioning of the labour market (including in terms of formalization and access of rural people to social security); 3.4. Increase access to finance (including in rural and agricultural sectors); 3.13. Develop the bioeconomy and green businesses; 3.14 Promote the circular economy; 3.15 Promote rural sustainable development.

This working paper published by the University of Hohenheim explores the viewpoints of 195 stakeholders from the public, private and third sectors (civil society) as well as from development partners and research bodies in four African countries, namely, Benin, Kenya, Nigeria, and Mali. The results suggest that the stakeholders perceive a need for agricultural transformation using mechanization and digital tools. However, they also perceive risks that have to be addressed. The results also reveal some neglected aspects. Examples include the role of animal traction as part of agricultural mechanization strategies and the continued appeal of state-led mechanization – despite the perception that such strategies do not work. Regarding digital agriculture, the stakeholders expressed high hopes – which have yet to materialize - but also concerns about a digital divide. Gender, age, and education influence the viewpoints on some topics, but not on others. Paying more attention to the perspectives of local stakeholder groups will help to choose and design the most promising policies and ensure their implementation on the ground.

This Rapid Market Assessment is a collaborative effort between the ILO, CAMFED and the Mastercard Foundation. It seeks to take a systems approach to analysing agricultural value chains in northern Ghana to establish opportunities for improved decent work outcomes for young women.

The Rapid Market Assessment serves two critical functions. Firstly, to select two value chains with strong potential to create entrepreneurship and employment opportunities for young women in northern Ghana. And secondly, to identify the key constraints within these value chains and their wider market systems – exploring their possible root causes and proposing potential interventions to address them for the benefit of these young women.

The specific objectives of this Policy are: 1. To provide an enabling environment for the development and growth of agriculture insurance; 2. To facilitate development of affordable, innovative and accessible agriculture insurance; 3. Capacity building and awareness creation of agricultural value chain actors in agricultural insurance; 4. To facilitate generation and use of data to support agriculture insurance; 5. To promote research and development, technology, innovation and knowledge management in agriculture insurance; 6. To promote participation and collaboration among stakeholders in agriculture insurance. The policy has no specific focus on youth, women or other marginalized groups.

The Ministry responsible for agriculture will take lead in the overall coordination of implementation, monitoring and review of the policy. (p.25) County Governments are expected to develop farmers’ support mechanisms for uptake of agricultural insurance.

The objective of this policy is to sustainably raise the level of agricultural mechanization in Kenya for increased productivity and income of agricultural producers. These will be achieved through training, research and technology development, local manufacture and distribution, agricultural mechanization quality assurance, investments in mechanization services, extension and technology adoption and improved institutional and legal frameworks.

According to the policy, in Kenya, the use of motorized power stands at 30 percent, manual 50 percent and Animal Draught Power (ADP) at 20 percent as at 2017 against the target of 50 percent of motorized power as per the Kenya Vision 2030.

The policy emphasizes (p. 12) the need to encourage and promote application of agricultural mechanization in all farming systems for effectiveness and efficiency and to remove drudgery associated with manual labour.

The specific objectives of the policy are to: (i) Create a conducive environment for access and distribution of agricultural machinery (ii) Promote investment in agricultural mechanization (iii) Strengthen regulation of agricultural mechanization quality assurance (iv) Enhance training and extension framework for adoption of agricultural mechanization (v) Enhance agricultural mechanization research, technology development and innovations along value chains (vi) Enhance adoption of sustainable agricultural land management practices and climate smart agricultural mechanization technologies (vii) Develop agricultural mechanization technologies that address the interest of people with special need

Section 3.2.9 in on Cross Cutting Issues in Agricultural Mechanization. 3.2.9.1 is about Agricultural Mechanization for Persons with Special Needs (i. Promote and support development of appropriate mechanization technologies which are suitable to the persons with special needs; ii. Support youth women and persons with special needs to access agricultural mechanization technologies. 3.2.9.2 is about Gender and Agricultural Mechanization (i. Promote appropriate gender friendly mechanization technologies; ii. Develop capacity of women and youth in agricultural mechanization; iii. Promote utilization of ICT in agricultural mechanization; iv. Promote customized, affordable and innovative financing products and packages in agricultural mechanization for women and youth.

OSH aspects are not directly addressed in the log frame - the policy only mentions that the Agricultural Mechanization Board (AMB) to be established under the policy will have the key responsibility of regulation of agriculture mechanization, including the surveillance on quality, performance and safety of agricultural machinery and equipment.

The NDP III, under the responsibility of the National Planning Authority (NPA), is the third in a series of 5-year plans, and is designed to achieve Uganda’s Vision 2040. The theme for the NPD III is “Sustainable Industrialization for inclusive growth, employment and wealth creation”.

As for the challenges to be addressed, p. xix includes:  Insufficient creation of quality and gainful jobs in the economy, especially for the youth, with an estimated unemployment rate of 13.3 % and about 78 % of the population aged 30 years and below. P. 4 also indicates that labour underutilization remains a challenge.

The NDP III has 5 objectives: 1.Enhance value addition in key growth opportunities;2.Strengthen the private sector to create jobs;3.Consolidate and increase the stock and quality of productive infrastructure;4.Enhance the productivity and social wellbeing of the population;and,5.Strengthen the role of the state in guiding and facilitating development.

(p. 28) The NDPIII job creation strategy focuses on expanding and diversifying economic growth while maintaining macro-economic stability in order to create increased demand for labour. Among others, the plan aims to accelerate the transformation of agriculture from subsistence to commercial production, by connecting smallholders with value-chains. The plan also prioritizes the need to streamline and reform youth and women employment programmes to help young Ugandans find employment. The overall growth and job creation strategy is detailed in the specific programme chapters 5-22 and aims to generate 2.5 million jobs over the course of NDPIII period, 512,000 jobs annually. The highest number of jobs are expected to come from the services sector, whileAgriculture is expected to be the second highest contributor to jobs (see Table 3.3).

To achieve the above objectives, the NDPIII has laid out 18 Programmes, including: Agro-industrialization Programme; Private Sector Development Programme; Digital Transformation Programme; Human Capital Development Programme (which includes OSH access to social protection, even though not specific for agriculture or rural areas).

The agro-industrialization programme includes dedicated employment results, namely: increase labour productivity in the agro-industrial value chain (value added, USD per worker) from USD 2,212 to USD 3,114; Increase the number of jobs created per annum in agro-industry along the value chain by 180,000; Reduction in the percentage of households dependent on subsistence agriculture as a main source of livelihood from 68.9 % to 55 %. Prioritized commodities are: coffee, tea, fisheries, cocoa, cotton, vegetable oil, beef, maize, dairy and cassava. Among the prioritized interventions is: (p. 70) Develop and equip youth with knowledge, skills and facilities for access and utilization of modern extension services; (p.71) Empower youth to use ICT in developing agro-enterprise innovations; (p. 72) Increase the number of farmers with titled land to ensure land tenure security with  special  attention  to  the  youth,  women, PWDS and other vulnerable groups; Strengthen farmer organizations and cooperatives (including for youth); Build the capacity of youth to practice climate smart agriculture; Improve skills and competencies of agricultural labour force at technical and managerial level; (p. 72) Strengthen and develop mechanisms to prevent incidences of child labour within the sector and exploitation of the agricultural labour force; (p. 73) Improve skills and competencies of agricultural labour force at technical and managerial levels in post-harvest handling, storage and value addition; Increase the pool of funds available for agricultural lending including women, youths and rural populations; Facilitate organic bottom-up formation of farmers groups (including youth) and cooperatives (production, collective marketing, provision of financial services, and savings mobilization); Establish youth led agro processing facilities focusing on incubation and demonstration centres; Support women farmers to transition to agro-business, export trade, and more profitable agricultural enterprises, including skilling and financial incentives (e.g. reduced credit interest rate and finance); Empower and institutionalize youth participation in the agro-industry value chain especially focusing on packaging and marketing.

Two of the NDP III development indicators are employment-specific, namely: Reduced Youth unemployment due to annual increase in jobs created at 513,000 annually from 13.3 percent to 9.7 %; Reduction in the percentage of household dependent on subsistence agriculture as a main source of livelihood from 68.9 % to 55 %. Productive job creation, with focus on youtha and women, is definitely a priority for the NDPIII.

This paper analyses evidence on efforts to boost decent employment for young people (15- 35-year-olds) in Africa through green jobs programmes in various sectors including agriculture, countries and regions across the continent. The paper reviews a variety of green economy interventions being implemented in Africa and discusses evidence on the impact they are having on youth employment and the ‘greening’ of African economies.

Agriculture is mentioned as one of the sectors directly implicated in climate change where current job needs and future employment opportunities exist, and is covered extensively in case studies including 3: Kenya Green Economy Strategy and Implementation Plan (2016-2030), 5: Opportunities for Youth Employment, 6: Green Jobs for young people in rural areas – Morocco, and 9: Green agriculture.

It concludes that inclusive green economy approaches should not mean choosing between growth, social progress or environmental sustainability. With strong planning and coordinated policy frameworks, inclusive green economies could be built, which also reduce inequalities and promote social well-being. A green jobs strategy for youth should incorporate three key principles of the decent jobs agenda, comprising:
strategies to support green economic growth and decent job creation; supporting youth to build skills that are relevant for the green job market; and improving income security with innovative social protection systems.

Nigerian Youth Employment Action Plan 2021-2024 (NIYEAP) aims to contribute to the achievement of decent, productive and freely chosen employment for young people by complementing and reinforcing existing policy commitments and national development priorities and related efforts. The NIYEAP has four priority areas of intervention: Employability, Entrepreneurship, Employment, and Equality and rights.

Although agriculture is not the sole focus of NIYEAP, it is identified as one of the priority sectors for job creation for youth along with manufacturing, construction, digital economy and services. Other decent rural employment aspects, green jobs and migration, are also considered in its alignment with existing initiative and policy.

Strategic lines of action in agriculture include the following:
- Support at least 50,000 entrepreneurs in five sectors, including agro-business and the digital economy, annually.
- Provide at least 3 large-scale farming settlements with facilities and amnesties to promote youth agriculture ventures in 36 sates and FCT.
- Raise awareness of agriculture as a career option and promote access to infrastructure, technology, inputs and finance.

The Financial Inclusion and Entrepreneurship Scaling Project (FINES), funded by the World Bank and implemented by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Reserve Bank of Malawi, aims to increase access to financial services, promote entrepreneurship and capabilities of MSMEs in Malawi including addressing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) implications. Specific focus is on support women business capabilities to enhance their potential to access financing. The project has a cost of USD 86.00 million WB IDA loan.

Activities under this project are structured under four mutually reinforcing components, namely: 1) Increasing financing to MSMEs; 2) Scaling Entrepreneurship and Building Firm Capabilities; 3) Enhancing the Enabling Environment for Supporting Financial Inclusion of Entrepreneurs; and 4) Project Implementation Support. The project does not have a specific agriculture or rural focus, and does not address decent work considerations explicitly, with the exception of attention to business formalization and gender issues.

The project indicators refer to Volume of MSMEs loans and other funds received (and number of new firms established or strengthened through the project support to incubators, and accelerators (all disaggregated by gender of the owner). Also, the online project information document (PID) (available here), indicates that in the long-term, the project is expected to contribute indirectly to the creation of a large number of jobs, due to spillover effects on the supply and value chain. However, this is beyond the direct monitoring scope of the project. While this will have some economic impact, it will not be included as a core indicator. However, the project will track the number of jobs created directly by the project, disaggregated by gender and by age.

In alignment with the priorities set by the international agenda, the FAO Policy on Gender Equality, first endorsed in 2012, provides the Organization with a corporate framework to orient its technical and normative work towards clear gender equality objectives relevant to its mandate. Building on the lessons learned from the first implementation period and the recommendations made by the evaluation of FAO’s work on gender undertaken in 2018, the Policy was updated in 2019 to ensure alignment with the most recent international frameworks and commitments, particularly with the SDGs and the second generation of the UN System-wide Action Plan for Mainstreaming Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-SWAP 2.0), launched in 2018, and the United Nations Country Team SWAP Gender Equality Scorecard.

The policy goal is: Achieving equality between women and men in sustainable agriculture and rural development for the elimination of hunger and poverty. In order to achieve this goal, the policy has 4 objectives: 1. Women and men have equal voice and decision-making power in rural institutions and organizations to shape relevant legal frameworks, policies and programmes; 2. Women and men have equal rights, access to and control over natural and productive resources, to contribute to and benefit from sustainable agriculture and rural development; 3. Women and men have equal rights and access to services, markets and decent work and equal control over the resulting income and benefits; and 4. Women’s work burden is reduced by enhancing their access to technologies, practices and infrastructure and by promoting an equitable distribution of responsibilities, including at household level.

The SAY project is implemented in Uganda by AVSI and funded by the Netherlands. It provides several trainings in agribusiness and has launched a Challenge Fund For Young Agripreneurs in Western Uganda (target is youth 18-30, 5 winners expected, and Agribusiness Boot Camp for the best ten agripreneurs) and has partnered with FAO in the scaling up of the youth champions initiative in 2021.

In 2020, the King of Morocco launched a new strategy for the agricultural sector entitled Generation Green.

The strategy is organized around two Foundations, namely: I. Focus on the human element and II. Sustainability of agricultural development. Under the first foundation, the Strategy prioritizes 4 axis, namely: 1. New generation of agricultural middle class; 2. New generation of young agricultural entrepreneurs; 3. New generation of agricultural organizations; and 4.New generation of support mechanisms.  Under the second foundation, the Strategy prioritizes 4 additional axes, namely: 1. the consolidation of agricultural value chains, with the objective of doubling the agricultural GDP and exports, in addition to achieving a 70% rate of added value; 2. the improvement and modernization of distribution circuits for agricultural products, in particular wholesale markets and souks; 3. the improvement of quality and capacity for innovation; and 4. the establishment of a more resilient and eco-efficient agriculture, through the doubling of water efficiency, the conservation of agricultural soils and the support of farmers in the transition to renewable energies.

 Expected objectives are:

-  to enable 400 000 families to access the agricultural middle class, and enabling another 690 000 families to remain and settle within this class;

-   to produce a new generation of entrepreneurial youth, including by mobilizing 1 million hectares of collective land;

- to multiply by 5 the level of farmers' organization and enhance the role of agricultural interprofessional organizations;

- to connect at least 2 million farmers to digital services platforms and to dispose of 5000 private agricultural advisors.

Among the actions foreseen under Axis 1 are: Improving farmers' incomes through investments /incentives; the extension of agricultural insurance to a large proportion of farmers; access to social protection through the establishment of the status of " farmer"  to reach 3.3 million farmers and agricultural workers benefiting from social protection by 2030, against 1.4 million currently; and the reduction of the gap between the SMAG and the SMIG and the improvement of the working conditions of agricultural employees.

Among the actions foreseen under Axis 2 are: Support package for youth agripreneurs, including financial support, land access, insurance and social security coverage, to enable 180 000 young farmers to start their business; training strategy targeting 150 000 graduates, including 10 000 in higher education and 140 000 in technical training and agricultural qualification.

The strategy recognizes that with 360 000 farmers over 65 years old today, the process of passing on the torch from one generation to another has become an essential bet to ensure the continuity of the sector and its further development. In this regard, “Green Generation 2020-2030” aims to create a transition mechanism from elderly farmers wishing to sell or rent their lands to young entrepreneurs wishing to invest in the sector.

Other decent work aspects such as workers' rights, child labour elimination, occupational safety and health, social dialogue, gender equality objectives or women economic empowerment are not explicitly prioritized, according to the information available online.

The strategy benefits from a loan of 250 M USD by the WB (more information here). Gender-equality objectives and women's empowerment are included in the WB funded programme.

The programme TRACE is financed by a donation of the Government of the Netherlands (donation of 14.9 million USD) through a trust fund managed by the World Bank. The objective of the programme is to create employment targeting especially young people and women below 40 years old, in the rural, agricultural, and agri-food sectors, by enhancing productivity and resilience of small Tunisian producers. Furthermore, it aims at strengthening professional organisations’ and SMEs competitiveness thanks to a better access to knowledge, innovation and financial services. The programme will be active in the three governorates of Gabes, Kairouan and Jendouba.

The programme will be active in the three governorates of Gabes, Kairouan and Jendouba.Implementing partners are respectively: UTSS a Kairouan, Microfinanza a Jendouba and Enda inter-arabe a Gabès. In the Governorate of Jendouba, the Microfinanza, ACK International and AGER consortium is in charge of a US$ 1.2 million employment support fund with the aim of financing around 100 investment projects with high job creation potential (see more info here).

This report analyses the role of social protection in promoting young people’s transition to work (YPTW) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This report has three main objectives: (i) Analyse social protection’s potential role in promoting better transitions to work, particularly for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds; (ii) empirically analyse YPTW in the MENA region. This involves examining data on the relationships between socio-economic conditions, employment outcomes and locations (rural/urban), as well as reviewing existing research from both academic and policy literatures on the key issues and determinants to YPTW in the region; and (iii) analyse, through a programme mapping, current regional social protection schemes and policies enacted by national governments to promote employment for young people. The report includes the analysis of data and projects in agriculture and in rural areas, and directly address decent work considerations.

Findings include: (i) entrepreneurship programmes that target marginalised groups (women and people from poorer regions) have potentially strong returns (Egypt); (ii) programmes composed of different interventions are more likely to be successful than stand-alone programmes (Egypt); (iii) humanitarian cash transfers for migrants and internally-displaced persons can play an important role in reducing risk and vulnerability among beneficiaries (Lebanon); and (iv) conflict and political instability strongly jeopardise the potential benefits of activation programmes (Egypt and Yemen).

Recommendations are made: (i) to use evidence-based results and best practices to identify what works with active labour market policies for YPTW; (ii) to strengthen the mandate of social protection and labour market programmes in MENA; and (iii) to support the education, TVET and E-TVET systems.

The study was produced by a partnership between the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth and UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Regional Office, and being finalised in collaboration with UNICEF MENARO and the ILO’s Regional Office in the Arab States.

This policy research working paper by the World Bank discusses the impact and evolution of the different forces affecting the world of work in agriculture and reflects on a policy agenda that can leverage the future global food system to generate decent employment, accelerate poverty reduction, and attain shared prosperity.

Among the policy options, the paper includes inclusive value chain development, better immigration policies, social insurance schemes, and ramp up in agricultural education and extension.

The PNDA, under the Ministry of Agriculture, was designed to “Promote modern, competitive and sustainable agriculture through the development of agricultural value chains with strong growth potential”. Prioritized value chains are: cereals (rice, wheat, traditional cereals), horticultural sectors (vegetables and fruits), oasis sector (dates), and agro-industrial sectors (sugar).

Employment creation is presented as a general impact aspiration of the PNDA and Programme n. 4, on Enhancing quality of agricultural services, under its Sous-programme 4.1, provides for "support for the professional integration of young people and women" (with a dedicated indicator/without target in the corresponding results framework and a dedicated budget). However, expected overall results remain quantified in production terms and do not include employment figures.

The document does not specifically allude to DRE aspects, OSH, child labour elimination, social protection and other related issues. Instead, aspects of access to finance, training and environmental sustainability are explicitly addressed.

The Outlook, developed by the African Development Bank (AfDB), assesses that, while prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, West Africa region was poised to expand by 4.0 percent in 2020, the economy is now projected to contract by 2.0 percent in 2020. Growth in the region will be affected through a combination of channels, including decline in commodity prices, low financial flows, reduced tourism earnings and heightened volatility in financial markets. With intra-regional trade significantly low, opportunities for market substitution to cushion the impact of the virus on West Africa are limited.

The report looks closely into ICT issues and technological development for the future of work. According to the report, increasing demand for digital services in West Africa has the potential to transform the region’s labor market and move people out of informal activities into more productive, sustainable wage employment. However, despite the increase in access to such technologies as internet services, West Africa remains digitally under connected. Only Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal, have higher internet penetrations than the African average of 25.4 percent but much lower than the global average of 58 percent.

Further, the report looks closely into education and skills development (not specifically for rural areas). It warns that although West African countries have made improvements in school enrolment achieved over the last two decades, retention rates remain low. The inability of pupils to stay in school and successfully complete their primary education remains a challenge for most countries in the region. The cumulative dropout rate to the last grade of primary and lower secondary education is above 25 percent in majority of countries. In some cases – Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone– it exceeds 50 percent.

As regards sectoral transformation, the report shows that (p. 37) agriculture is the main source of jobs for most countries in West Africa, accounting for 42.7 percent of total employment (largely subsistence and informal), followed by services (mainly retail and wholesale trade, motor vehicle repairs) representing 19.5 percent. Employment in manufacturing stands at 8.6 percent while other services accounted for 14.3 percent (Figure 23). Especially along the entire Sahel belt, effects of climate change and conflict over land and pasture have adversely affected agricultural productivity and food security. In Burkina Faso where the shift is more pronounced, the share of employment in agriculture declined from around 90 percent in 1991 to less than 30 percent in 2019.

(p. 40) In some countries, such as Benin, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo, the informal sector accounts for more than 90 percent of employment.

Final recommendations from the report to improve skills for the work of the future in West Africa encompass the following (not very rural or decent work specific though): i. Accelerating improvements in digital infrastructure and creating opportunities for skills development and entrepreneurship to enable creation of new jobs defined by the 4IR; Creating incentives for private sector investment in skills development and support education systems to adopt technology driven programmes; Implementing labor market and human development policies for skills upgrading to insulate workers from disruptions resulting from constant technological change; and Scaling up public expenditure in education, while ensuring that resources are efficiently allocated.

This study, funded by USAID, and developed in collaboration with IFPRI and Digital Green, identifies seven models that involve youth in extension and advisory services (EAS) as both providers and recipients of extension, as well as five key elements of successful youth engagement in private sector EAS. The 5 identified success factors are: 1. Supportive policy environment. 2. Market-based solutions. 3. Proactive measures to engage youth, particularly young women. 4. Partnerships. and  5. Integrated services.

Two programmes were launched in Kenya and will run from 2020 to 2024 on a budget of 15 million Euros funded by the German Development Agency. They will be implemented in 5 Western counties of Kenya: Kakamega, Bungoma, Siaya, Vihiga and Kisumu. They will target over 10,000 youth.

The first is the Rural youth employment in Western Kenya Initiative dubbed KilimoNiBiz; the second is the Youth Employment In Agri-food sector in Western Kenya programme which will increase their employability through competency- based training, promotion of job placement services and strengthening the self-organization of the rural youth.

The projects will be implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries and Cooperatives and the GIZ.

The ILO Outlook offers the following key messages: i. projected lower economic growth and the lack of inclusiveness are very likely to impair the ability of lower-income countries to reduce poverty and improve working conditions; ii. a more comprehensive measure of the underutilization of people of working age reveals major gaps in access to work; iii. even when people have a job, there remain significant deficiencies in work quality, especially in the informal economy, which registers the highest rates of in-work poverty and high shares of people who are own-account self-employed or contributing family workers who lack adequate protection; and iv. substantial inequalities prevail in the access to work and work quality.

These include key lines of segmentation among workers, according to geographical location (between countries and between workers in urban and rural areas), sex and age. Moreover, new ILO data on labour income (for all workers, including the self-employed) demonstrate that, at the global level, income inequality is far greater than previously thought.

Page 4 of the Summary indicates that geographical disparities within countries remain relevant. New ILO data make it possible to study differences in access to employment depending on whether people live in rural or urban areas. At the global level, the employment rate of the working-age population living in rural areas (59 per cent) is greater than that in urban areas (56 per cent). On the other hand, time-related underemployment in rural areas (at 6 per cent) is higher than in urban areas (4 per cent). These divisions are most pronounced in low-income countries. Rural–urban disparities may be exacerbated in the future by the transformations accompanying technological change. In Asia and the Pacific, for example, technological progress and policies designed to foster innovation seem to be creating jobs and incomes at a disproportionately higher level in urban areas.

The National Strategy for Agricultural Development 2016-2025 is a sectoral policy aiming at achieving in ten years in the agricultural field the following results, together with economic, social and environmental consequences: (i) high agricultural productivity; (ii) efficiency in the use of irrigation water; (iii) high use of technology; (iv) high partnership between public and private sectors; (v) competitive agricultural marketing linking production to demand in the internal and external markets; (vi) national quality and accreditation systems internationally recognized; (vii) agricultural production and marketing for the export primarily linked to the food needs of the Gulf markets; (viii) high self-reliance in food security; (ix) high integration with other economic sectors; (x) growing ability to face risks; and (xi) fair distribution of agricultural development revenues. The overall goal of the Strategy is a sustainable development of agricultural resources that will preserve the country's animal and plant biodiversity, favor an investment climate in the sector and create a close link between production and market demand. This objective will result in a reduction of migration from country to city and the guarantee of greater food security for the whole country, together with the economic benefits of increased exports.

The Strategy includes many specific projects, targeting youth and women and their engagement in the sector (ex. establishment of training centers for rural women; provision of small loans; provision of training with the aim of developing the individual skills of agricultural families in the countryside).

This ILO study targets enterprises in the non-agricultural informal sector and employment within these enterprises, which represents nearly 70 percent of informal non-agricultural employment and 45 percent of total informal employment in Senegal. The study therefore excludes the agricultural world (livestock, agriculture and forestry) while covering the processing of food products and post-capture fishing.

The Agricultural roadmap 2020-2024, under the coordination of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, is implemented within the framework of the orientations of the President of the Republic, notably the 54 commitments of the governmental action plan.

The development areas retained are as follows: 1. the development of agricultural production, through the extension of irrigated areas; 2. increasing production and productivity; 3. rationalizing the exploitation of agricultural land; 4. agricultural and rural development in mountain areas; 5. the preservation, development, and enhancement of the forestry heritage; 6. agricultural and rural development in steppe and agro-pastoral areas; 7. development and enhancement in the Saharan territories; 8. the integration of knowledge and digitalization in development programmes.

The Roadmap covers both: 1. priority programmes for implementation in the very short term (2020/2021) and cross-cutting and continuous actions in the medium term. (2020-2024).
Under the priority programmes, the Roadmap contains actions that are directed to youth and rural women and their engagement in agriculture, support to cooperatives, as well as specific action on (11.2) revitalizing the mechanism for farmers' access to social security, employment and agricultural labor monitoring (also disaggregated by gender) (10.2)
Under the cross-cutting and continuous actions, the roadmap includes: multiple value chain interventions, as well as under 1.4 (Support for agricultural financing) actions on Covid-19 exceptional measures to protect farmers’ incomes and implementation of Micro-credit (Crédit Mutuel Rural); and under 3.1. (Training, extension and support), actions on training and advice support of the farmers, breeders and young people with projects.

The brief provides updated statistics on rural and urban labour markets and different challenges for promoting decent work. It explores the rapid urbanization observed in the world and the accompanying shifts in employment from agriculture to non-agricultural activities. It sheds light on differences between rural and urban areas in labour force participation and labour underutilization (and especially unemployment).

Key points include:

-          The world is witnessing a pronounced urbanization trend, accompanied by shifts in employment from agriculture to the services sector.

-          89 per cent of the world’s agricultural employment is based in rural areas, meaning that 11 per cent of agricultural workers in the world live in urban areas. Only 49 per cent of all workers in the world who live in rural areas work in agriculture, while 10 per cent work in manufacturing and 8 per cent in construction.

-          With 94 per cent of the world’s agricultural workers in informal employment in 2016, deficits in job quality are a major issue in rural labour markets.

-          Youth face a major labour underutilization challenge, which in rural areas adds to difficulties to access education and training. Particularly, young women in rural areas have a higher tendency to be neither in employment nor in education or training.

Vision 2050 establishes the development framework for 2020-2050 in Rwanda, building on the achievements of the previous Vision 2020.

Its overarching objectives are Economic Growth and Prosperity including the creation of decent jobs for its citizens through both economic and human capital investments, and High Quality and Standards of Life for Rwandans in both urban and rural areas. Employment creation is an overall impact objective (together with Quality Wellbeing and Inclusive accelerated economic growth), and the related Vision 2050 targets are: the reduction in unemployment rate (from 14% to 0.05) and equal male and female labour force participation by 2050.

Vision 2050 consists of five pillars: 1) Human Development; 2) Competitiveness and Integration; 3) Agriculture for wealth creation; 4) Urbanization and Agglomeration; and 5) Accountable and Capable State Institutions.

Pillar 1 focuses on a transformed workforce with particular attention to youth and gender-specific impacts. It states that (p.9) in the medium term, mass jobs will need to be created in low-end, low-wage economic activities and in the long run, jobs will need to be created in high value-added products and services resulting from the specialized extension services in agriculture, knowledge-based services in IT and Finance and light manufacturing. Among the indicators for Pillar I is Access to comprehensive social safety nets, even though not specifically addressing agriculture/rural sectors.

In pillar 3, Rwanda aims to achieve a transformed agricultural sector that will be market-driven, linked to urbanization and trade, and nearly 15 times more productive than today. Focus is on scaling up the use of modern inputs and technologies to maximize productivity, increasing access to agriculture finance and risk sharing facilities, and integration within global value chains for higher-value products.

In pillar 4, (p. 17) the document states that sustainable and green urbanization process will transform the quality of livelihoods and promotes skills development and decent employment opportunities in both urban and rural areas with special attention to the needs of youth and women.

Other aspects of decent work, such as child labour, OSH or workers’ rights and working conditions are not addressed. Aspects of environmentally sustainable agriculture production are also not explicitly addressed, even though the narrative part of pillar 3 mentions "Modern market-oriented and climate resilient agriculture" (p.14).

The following study has been developed by FAO under the framework of FAO’s Integrated Country Approach for boosting decent jobs for youth in the agrifood system (ICA), which is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

The aim of this publication is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the current state of financial inclusion of the rural youth in Uganda, with a specific focus on their engagement in the agricultural sector, as well as the financial services they can access to pursue their business ventures in this area. It seeks to illustrate and bring to light the core constraints and opportunities associated with the provision of tailored financial services to young entrepreneurs in the country, while showcasing the essential role that a host of key support actors (such as the Government, Central Bank, international development institutions, NGOs, foundations and many others) can play in fostering the provision and uptake of such services.

The FAO five-year Action Plan endorsed by the FAO Committee on Agriculture (COAG) in October 2020 aims to contribute to the realization of the SDGs by equally empowering rural young women and men, protecting children and other excluded youth groups.

The Action Plan is developed under 5 pillars: Pillar 1: Support youth participation in rural development, within the context of integrated Landscape and Territorial Approaches; Pillar 2: Foster youth employment in an inclusive green economy; Pillar 3: Strengthen rural youth capacities for the use of innovative approaches and technologies in food and agriculture; Pillar 4: Promote rural services for youth and agripreneurs, and Pillar 5: Building FAO institutional capacity to address rural youth areas of work.

The action plan is considered a “living” document to ensure it has the flexibility to accommodate new developments such as the emerging challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The South Agro-Industrial Processing Zone Project (PZTA-Sud, or Agropole Sud) is among the flagship projects of Senegal’s Vision 2035 Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE). It raises the number of growth drivers from two (telecommunications and services) to six, the four new ones being agriculture and agribusiness, housing, mining and tourism. PZTA-Sud aims to create the conditions for increased private investment in targeted value chains, including agricultural processing, input supply and service provision. The expected outcomes concern improving the food and nutritional security of beneficiaries as well as their income through improved access to markets, agricultural inputs, and services. To this end, the project provides for (i) the increase in private investment thanks to the facilities provided (more favourable business ecosystem, construction of a central agro-industrial module (Adéane), three (3) regional modules (Bignona, Sédhiou and Kolda) and five (5) aggregation and service platforms; and (ii) capacity building of value chain actors in agro-industrial sectors (structuring/organisation of value chains, training, ease of access to finance, production by researching in-vitro mango, cashew, maize seedlings, etc.). The project consists of three (03) components, namely : (a) support for the establishment of a business ecosystem conducive to private investment in agro-industry; (b) sustainable improvement of the capacities of producers in the agro-industrial sector; (c) coordination, management and monitoring-evaluation.

According to the prodoc, the project will enable the creation / consolidation of about 14,500 direct decent jobs (of which 50% women and 60% youth) and 35,000 indirect jobs (of which 50% women and 60% youth). The project has a component on facilitating access to financial services for SMEs, as well as non-financial services, including the implementation of an e-platform for access to agro-industrial services.

The main beneficiaries of the project are the populations of the regions of Ziguinchor, Kolda and Sédhiou. The number of households that will be affected is estimated at 65,000, or about 365,000 people (of which 50% women and 60% youth). The number of people who will be indirectly affected corresponds to the population of the natural region of Casamance estimated at 2 million in 2018.

According to the prodoc, actions to be taken to promote gender equality include: (i) promoting a gender - sensitive regulatory and institutional framework; (ii) equity  in implementing project activities, including a  quota of 50% of agricultural project aggregation/primary processing of women run cooperatives and SMEs; (iii) development of gender -sensitive infrastructure (childcare facilities, separate showers and toilets, secure and equipped with water, etc.); (iv) support for women's cooperatives and  SMEs  through  the structuring of their businesses and adapted training (including  functional  literacy, financial inclusion, processing, storage and conservation of agricultural products , leadership, natural resource management, etc.); (v) promoting women’s inclusion and leadership in the committees set up/consolidated under the project (50% women); (v) a campaign/sensitization to fight and prevent malnutrition ; and (v) the  recruitment of a social development and gender specialist. The budget allocated for specific and gender sensitive activities is EUR 6.3 million, or about 14% of the total amount.

Further, for better social inclusion, the youth and women who will be selected for the labour -intensive works during the constructions on the agricultural hub sites will come largely from the poorest households. To this end, the project will use the single national registry targeting community -based activities. According to the appraisal prodoc, the mapping of vocational training institutions in the project area indicates the existence of several Vocational and Technical Training and Handicraft (FPTA) structures and the project will work with these centres to ensure that agribusinesses moving into the region will have on site skilled labour for the different trades. The project will also address the key challenges related to youth  entrepreneurship,  namely access to land and  finance and the acquisition of technical skills for managing agro-industrial enterprises. The business incubator to be established at the Adéane central module will enable the incubation  of youth initiated projects. As regards access to finance for SMEs, the project will carry out capacity building of at least three financial institutions to develop services tailored to the needs of agro - industrial enterprises, particularly those of youth.

Other aspects of decent work are not addressed.

PZTA - Sud is a pilot project to be implemented over five years for a total cost (net of taxes) of approximately EUR 87.75 million, broken down as follows: (i) ADB loan: EUR 43.1 million; (ii) IsDB loan: EUR 27.85 million, and (iii) the State: EUR 16.8 million.

This publication provides a comprehensive picture of migration in North and West Africa and the Central Mediterranean, compiling evidence from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and other United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and academia. With a view to inform targeted protection and preventative measures, safe alternatives and effective policy approaches, it sets out to enhance understanding of what contributes to migrants’ resilience and development in countries of origin, transit and destination, as well as how policies and programmes interact with and affect such realities. While this publication does not have an explicit focus on agriculture or rural areas, they are mentioned when describing different types of migrants. The document also covers COVID-19 considerations with initial findings suggesting that COVID-19 exacerbates pre-existing vulnerabilities.

The document has four sections that deal with four of the most salient features of migration along the Central Mediterranean Route (CMR). Section I – Key migration trends – tackles its highly volatile nature. Migration routes, trends and flows change very quickly in response to contextual and political factors in Africa and Europe. Section II – Migration and risks – addresses situations of vulnerability migrants face in countries on the CMR and the various threats, from environment to conflict, that prompt them to move. Section III – Migration and development – explores the generally positive contribution of migrants to development and resilience in their countries of origin, and the particular situation of migrants in transit with irregular status. Section IV – Migration governance, and policy and programming responses – examines migration policies in West and North Africa, how they are influenced by national and international processes, and by changing public perceptions of migration and emerging evidence; and discusses some of their effects.

Eight key takeaways are drawn, which are: 1) Recognize migrants’ agency; 2) Address inequalities in migration; 3) Understand linkages between migrants’ profiles and circumstances, and exposure to risks and their ability to cope with them; 4) Ensure the basic rights of migrants irrespective of their legal status; 5) Recognize the complexity of migrant smuggling; 6) Deconstruct misconceptions and fears about African migration; 7) Support policies informed by evidence and monitor their impact; and 8) Produce and analyse administrative data to inform opinions and governments.

The National Labour Migration Policy (NLMP)’s mission is the maximization of benefits of both inward and outward labour migration through safe migration, provision of decent working conditions for labour migrants especially female labour migrants and protection of their fundamental human and labour rights and those of their families.

NLMP’s strategic objectives are: (a) to enhance labour migration governance for strengthened protection and empowerment of Zimbabwean migrant workers in line with international norms on safe migration and decent work for all; and (b) to harness and maximize the benefits of (inward and outward) labour migration for national development, including through remittances and investment promotion and functional labour market information systems.

NLMP is divided into the following four sections:

(a) Governance of labour migration;

(b) Protection and empowerment of migrant workers;

(c) Harnessing labour migration for development; and

(d) Migration data.

NLMP does not have a specific focus on rural agriculture, but agriculture is mentioned as one of unregulated sectors where women migrants’ most job opportunities exist, and as one of the sectors where sector-specific labour agreement or MoU is needed (p.21). NLMP does not cover other decent work topics such as child labour or Occupational Safety and Health (OSH).

The National Child Policy (NCP) of Uganda falls under the coordination of the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MGLSD). Its development was supported by UNICEF.

The NCP replaces the National OVC policy (NOP) 2004 that focused narrowly on Orphans and other Vulnerable Children (OVC) rather than all children.

The policy has the following specific objectives: a) To prevent child mortality and promote children’s health, including refugee children b) To promote nurturing, care, stimulation and holistic development and learning for all children c) To prevent, respond to, and protect children from all forms of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation d) To promote the right of all children to be heard and express their opinions in all matters that affect their lives according to their developing capacities e) To strengthen systems for planning, programming and delivery of quality child care and protection services.

Section 2.3.11 of the context analysis is on Child Labour. As for the Strategies, more relevant for DRE are the following:

- Strategy 2 Improve access to and strengthen the provision of equitable, inclusive and quality primary and secondary education (but no focus on rural areas or agriculture); 

- Strategy 3: Increase access to and improve provision of relevant training and quality apprenticeship, technical, vocational and tertiary education (with mention of the need to reach refugee settlements, marginalised communities like mountainous areas, pastoral communities, fishing communities on lakeshore areas and islands)

Strategy 4: Strengthen the capacity of the local government and community
childcare and protection structures for effective response to prevent, and
protect all children against all forms of violence, exploitation, abuse and
neglect (including child labour, but not specific to agriculture and not mentioning the role of agriculture stakeholders)

- Strategy 7: Strengthen economic livelihoods of young people (including b) Strengthen youth participatory agro-enterprise approaches for household economic resilience with relevant value chain systems).

Overall the NPC puts very limited emphasis on the challenges and needs of rural children or children engaged in agriculture activities.

The 2020 Agricultural Finance Yearbook, developed by the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC), offers an analysis of the agricultural financing landscape in Uganda. It is the tenth edition in the series, and the theme for this edition is “Digitalization and Agricultural financing in Uganda”. It includes the analysis of the impact of government’s policy and strategy, the results of research into recent innovations in support for smallholder farmers and the provision of rural finance, and the presentation of evidence regarding the financing of agricultural value chains, including several agri-financing models for various commodities (rice, dairy, coffee). The Yearbook also covers the impact of COVID-19 containment measures and agricultural financing for refugees.

Recommendations include: 1) to provide a legal framework that can attract intra-African investments and ease trade (particularly for fertilizers and agro-machinery); 2) to develop relevant agro-industrialization policies that ensure enforcement mechanisms for commodity auctions, warehousing and central trading platforms; 3) to invest in research for quality; public-private partnership for financing research and innovations promoted and investments in roads extended to the rural areas including ‘last mile’ roads; and 4) to improve the effectiveness of Government’s affirmative schemes (Uganda Agricultural Insurance Scheme, the Agricultural Credit and Guarantee Facility, aBi financing and grant schemes etc.) in the agricultural sector.

Led by the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, the Jordan Response Platform for the Syria Crisis (JRPSC) constitutes the strategic partnership mechanism for the development of a comprehensive refugee, resilience-strengthening and development response to the impact of the Syria crisis on Jordan.

The current plan 2020-2022 is the latest update of an effort started in 2015.

The plan consists of three essential parts: i. aiding host communities, ii. enhancing institutional capabilities, and iii. aiding refugees. Seven sectors—economic empowerment, education, health, water and sanitation, social protection and justice, housing, and public services—make up the response plan for the years 2020–2022.

The Economic Empowerment Sector under Jordan Response Plan 2020-2022 entails two related interventions: A- Livelihoods and B- Food Security.

The specific objectives for the food security sub-sector are: 1. Access to quality food for vulnerable women, girls, boys and men affected by the Syria crisis through the distribution of food assistances (both cash and in kind) to Syrian refugees and vulnerable Jordanians; 2. Enhance efficient and sustainable use of agricultural resources to promote food security for host communities and Syrian refugees, through green infrastructure projects, promotion of sustainable agriculture development projects, manufacturing of plant and animal waste, agriculture labor and working with agriculture cooperatives; 3. To improve the efficiency of the value chain of agricultural products and food commodities to enhance food security and livelihoods of host communities and Syrian refugees.

The specific objectives for the livelihoods sub-sector are: 1. Improved short-term self-reliance measures in order to promote access to income in preparation for long-term economic opportunities, including interventions that offer short term job opportunities; 2. Increased access to formal employment opportunities meeting decent work and protection standards, through Vocational Training and employability programmes; 3. Increase support to entrepreneurs to develop and scale market-driven businesses within an improved enabling environment; 4. Promote sustainable development and long-term growth through increased capacity of national and local institutions, as in Ministry of Labor, Cooperatives and Community Based Organizations, in addition to fostering implementation of Jordan Compact and enhancing the engagement with the private sector .

Under the Social Protection & Justice Sector, child labourers are prioritized.

Under decent work dimensions (OSH, social dialogue, etc.) are not explicitly addressed.

Total budget requirements for its implementation amount to USD 6 607 129 404.

Led by the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, the Jordan Response Platform for the Syria Crisis (JRPSC) constitutes the strategic partnership mechanism for the development of a comprehensive refugee, resilience-strengthening and development response to the impact of the Syria crisis on Jordan.

The current plan 2020-2022 is the latest update of an effort started in 2015.

The plan consists of three essential parts: i. aiding host communities, ii. enhancing institutional capabilities, and iii. aiding refugees. Seven sectors—economic empowerment, education, health, water and sanitation, social protection and justice, housing, and public services—make up the response plan for the years 2020–2022.

The Economic Empowerment Sector under Jordan Response Plan 2020-2022 entails two related interventions: A- Livelihoods and B- Food Security.

The specific objectives for the food security sub-sector are: 1. Access to quality food for vulnerable women, girls, boys and men affected by the Syria crisis through the distribution of food assistances (both cash and in kind) to Syrian refugees and vulnerable Jordanians; 2. Enhance efficient and sustainable use of agricultural resources to promote food security for host communities and Syrian refugees, through green infrastructure projects, promotion of sustainable agriculture development projects, manufacturing of plant and animal waste, agriculture labor and working with agriculture cooperatives; 3. To improve the efficiency of the value chain of agricultural products and food commodities to enhance food security and livelihoods of host communities and Syrian refugees.

The specific objectives for the livelihoods sub-sector are: 1. Improved short-term self-reliance measures in order to promote access to income in preparation for long-term economic opportunities, including interventions that offer short term job opportunities; 2. Increased access to formal employment opportunities meeting decent work and protection standards, through Vocational Training and employability programmes; 3. Increase support to entrepreneurs to develop and scale market-driven businesses within an improved enabling environment; 4. Promote sustainable development and long-term growth through increased capacity of national and local institutions, as in Ministry of Labor, Cooperatives and Community Based Organizations, in addition to fostering implementation of Jordan Compact and enhancing the engagement with the private sector .

Under the Social Protection & Justice Sector, child labourers are prioritized.

Under decent work dimensions (OSH, social dialogue, etc.) are not explicitly addressed.

Total budget requirements for its implementation amount to USD 6 607 129 404.

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the ILO launched this project in Iraq to contribute to socio-economic development by enhancing the application of International Labour Standards and national labour legislations and promoting social dialogue, social justice, and decent work. The initiative is funded by the EU with a total budget of 3 million EUR.

The project focuses on strengthening the labour inspection system and improving OSH in line with ILS, through policy development and capacity building. The project will also work closely with social partners to raise their awareness on labour inspection, OSH and fundamental principles and rights at work, so they can better engage in programmes to promote compliance with labour legislations and respond to COVID-19. 

The importance of compliance with decent work in agriculture is emphasized. Pilot farm interventions will assist farmers in achieving labor standard compliance, which is a necessary condition to access overseas markets. In addition to supporting employees in understanding their rights, improving their employability through skill development, and assisting labor inspectors in carrying out their duties, a training was provided on labour standards to strengthen their knowledge and capacity. Under the first phase of the project, at least 2 000 workers including 30 percent women and 5 percent Persons with Disabilities, will have their working conditions and skills enhanced.

The project is implemented with a range of national partners, including the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health. Other stakeholders include the General Federation of Workers Unions and the Iraqi Federation for Industries.

More information about a specific training that was held for women in Basra, Iraq is available here.   

This case study examines a pilot initiative conducted as part of the IFAD Rural Youth Vocational Training, Employment and Entrepreneurship Support Project (FIER). The total FIER project cost is USD 52.1 million (of which USD 16.6 million IFAD grant and USD 16.6 million IFAD loan) and is co-financed by IFAD, domestic financing institutions, national government, and beneficiaries. The executing agency is the Ministry of Employment and Vocational Training. FIER has a focus on agriculture and rural youth.

For this initiative, IFAD partnered with France’s ABC Microfinance using its crowdfunding platform, Babyloan, to establish a direct connection between Malian migrant lenders in France and rural microentrepreneurs in Mali. It aims to tap into the more than USD 500 million in annual remittances that the large Malian diaspora in France sends home to Mail to support their families. The money raised through Babylon was lent to partner microfinance institutions (PMFIs) to finance microentrepreneurs with a focus on rural youth in agriculture. Babyloan created a Mali-dedicated webpage on its website where PMFIs upload entrepreneur profiles and descriptions of their projects.

Although the initiative did not meet its targets in terms of the numbers of Malian lenders and the total amount of loans, it was able to crowdfund 307 projects in Mali. In addition, the case study found that the majority (almost 70 per cent) of diaspora lenders surveyed have a positive opinion about the initiative.

A number of lessons learned were drawn, such as i) The Malian diaspora in France is not a homogeneous group of people. Babyloan must go further to adapt its outreach strategy to reach distinct groups within the community; ii) Ongoing communication with the donor base begins with building awareness about the platform and with start-up fund-raising campaigns, and this must be sustained throughout the project cycle; and iii) It is too early to fully assess the microentrepreneurs’ performance.

FIER Project information is available on IFAD Project and Programmes (available here)

Incorporating the most recent labour market information available, the ILO publication Global Employment Trends for Youth sets out the youth labour market situation around the world. It shows where progress has or has not been made, updates world and regional youth labour market indicators, and gives detailed analyses of medium-term trends in youth population, labour force, employment and unemployment.

In particular, the 2020 edition discusses the implications of technological change for the nature of jobs available to young people. It focuses on shifts in job characteristics, sectors and skills, as well as examining the impact of technological change on inequalities in youth labour markets.

The report does not assess in detail the situation of the rural youth and does not included a dedicated assessment of the agricultural sector. On p. 96, the report indicates that, in developing countries, where a large proportion of the population, the majority of whom are young people, lives in rural areas, the adoption of technologies not tailored to the local level of development and infrastructure may lead to the alienation of young rural inhabitants.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework for Guatemala is aligned with the Plan Nacional de Desarrollo K’atun 2032 (PND) and the Politica General de Gobierno (PGG) 2020-2024. It is organized around five main pillars: namely: i. economic development, focused on access to decent work, productive means and economic services; ii. social development, which includes the issues of decent housing, social protection, education, health, and food and nutrition security; iii. strong institutions, addressing democratic governance issues, transparency and data, human mobility, and political and civic participation; iv. peace, security and justice, including in particular violence against women, youth, adolescents and children; and v. environment, focusing on ecosystem management and climate change, as well as natural resource management.

Compared to the previous UN framework, decent work has become a more explicit result. In the results framework (Annex 1), prioritized strategies under Pillar 1 include: Strategic alliances between private sector and national institutions for women economic empowerment and labour inclusion; Strengthening TVET for youth and adolescents to prepare them for the world of work, and the enabling environment for urban and rural entrepreneurship, taking advantage of innovation and technology; Respecting and protecting indigenous peoples rights and forms of organization, especially access to land; Supporting labour and business formalization; Accompanying MINTRAB in  protecting labour rights; Fostering capacity building for employability and entrepreneurship in urban and rural areas with emphasis on MSMEs, small scale producers, and cooperatives; Promote economic diversification, including through the use of ICTs and with emphasis on rural areas; Promoting partnerships and value chain development for decent work in both urban and rural areas; Partner with private sector for promoting human rights; Promote South-South and triangular cooperation, especially for the productive use of remittances.

Under Pillar 2, priorities include: Facilitate the implementation of municipal and territorial development plans, including to foster rural development; Foster inclusive processes of territorial development, establishing rural-urban linkages; and Support the establishment of a public holistic social protection system. Under Pillar 5, priorities include: Promote capacity building and partnerships for the economic empowerment of women and youth related to the sustainable management of natural resources.

The targeted population includes, among others, women, indigenous peoples, children (boys and girls) and adolescents, persons with disabilities, LGTBIQ people, migrants, returnees and refugees, the elderly, people living with HIV, persons deprived of their liberty, the poor and rural people.

This FAO study carries out an evaluation of Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA)’s first ten years of work, including in terms of its effects on agricultural growth and poverty reduction.

FAO’s evaluation utilized a two-stage analytical approach. The first stage of the analysis (micro-level analysis) draws on quantitative quasi-experimental evaluation methods to assess priority area outcomes in ATA treatment areas against a counterfactual population. The second stage brings the results from the micro-level analysis to a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model in order to measure the ATA’s impact to the economy-wide and multisectoral functioning of the Ethiopian economy.

The micro-level evaluation finds that ATA has achieved many of the outcomes it is being measured against, in terms of input use, extension services, and agricultural technology, and the effective removal of bottlenecks in the rural agricultural economy that have since improved the links between producers, input markets and agricultural services. Enhancements in those priority areas are reflected in productivity gains for certain priority crops and in market orientation. FAO’s evaluation has also found positive macroeconomic effects from ATA’s interventions, including in terms of the development of agroindustry and transportation services.

The role of ATA in i. reducing gender inequalities in agriculture and ii. employment creation is also assessed. On gender, the evaluation found that (p. Xiii) “female-headed households disproportionately gained from priority area interventions related to fertilizer and extension, but not from the rest of the priority areas.” On employment, the evaluation found that ATA operations had a positive impact on wages and created a total of 11 000 jobs in the 2013–2019 period, in both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. (P. Xv) Finally, boosting productivity enabled wage growth in agriculture and a reduction in food prices which combined with employment creation explain why the evaluation finds a considerable effect of ATA’s operation on poverty reduction.

Other aspects of decent work, like working conditions, have not been assessed.

The study assesses barriers and opportunities for youth engagement in agribusiness in Zambia and Vietnam. Results show that the majority of youth were engaged in agricultural production, especially in Zambia, while in Vietnam, they engaged in more diversified agricultural activities including input supply, transportation and advisory services delivery. Perceptions regarding the agricultural sector showed significant negative impact on youth participation in agribusiness in Vietnam, but not in Zambia. Barriers to effective youth engagement were: lack of start-up capital, low profitability of enterprises, and personal aspirations.

The study concludes that employing innovative value chain financing and market linkages can enhance enterprise profitability and youth participation in agribusiness.

This work was supported by Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI) Development Fund.

This study has been developed by FAO under the framework of FAO’s Integrated Country Approach for boosting decent jobs for youth in the agrifood system (ICA), which is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

The aim of this publication is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the current state of financial inclusion among the Kenyan youth, especially those residing in rural and financially underserved areas. The research sets out to analyze the core constraints and opportunities associated with the provision of tailored financial services to young Kenyans (especially first-time entrepreneurs), while showcasing the essential role that key supporting actors (such as the government, international development institutions, NGOs, foundations and many others) can play in fostering the provision and uptake of such services.

Recommendations are: 1) to foster initiatives and programmes that promote entrepreneurship and financial access in a synergic manner; 2) to focus on developing public, private, multi-service digital platforms for agricultural entrepreneurship; 3) to reform the digital credit market to ensure a level playing field and better consumer protection; 4) to promote the digital financial inclusion of young women by leveraging their unique client features; and 5) to leverage the potential of digital solutions for agriculture companies as public private partners to foster youth financial inclusion.

The National Plan for supporting income generation for the farming economy (family and community based) is under the overall responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

It has three main pillars, namely: 1. Improve the institutional environment and the generation of income from rural entrepreneurship. 2. Strengthen the incidence of productive rural associativity as an income generation strategy. 3. Improve access and the use of financing and risk management mechanisms for the development of sustainable rural enterprises. Youth and women, as well as small producers and the rural poor, are explicitly targeted.

This report has been developed by the Rural Youth Thematic Working Group, which is one of the working groups within the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development. It was established in 2018 to boost significant youth participation to advise donors, governments and civil society organizations on the most effective strategies to support and empower youth and allow them to productively contribute to and benefit from sustainable rural livelihoods and food value chain system.

This report provides insights from a study carried out to identify different youth networks and youth associations in Africa that focus on or are affiliated to agriculture and rural development. The study aimed to identify youth representation for the Rural Youth Thematic Working Group. 

This report begins with a brief background and methodology of the study and then discusses the justifications for youth networks. It then uses case studies to give insights into three categories of networks identified based on different characteristics such as their background, thematic working areas, structures, location and governance. It then highlights the challenges faced by the networks and finally conclude with recommendations on how development practitioners can continuously engage and facilitate youth networks to amplify their contribution to sustainable food systems development.

The Farm to Fork Strategy of the European Commission (EC) is at the heart of the European Green Deal aiming to make food systems fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly.

A proposal for a legislative framework for sustainable food systems will be put forward to support implementation of the strategy and development of sustainable food policy. Taking stock of learning from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Commission will also develop a contingency plan for ensuring food supply and food security.

The EU’s goals under the strategy are the following:

1. Ensure sustainable food production; which include actions on significantly reducing use and risk and dependency on pesticides and enhance Integrated Pest Management; promoting the wide uptake of sustainable farming practices; legislative initiatives to enhance cooperation of primary producers to support their position in the food chain and non-legislative initiatives to improve transparency;
2. Stimulate sustainable food processing, wholesale, retail, hospitality and food services’ practices; Develop an EU code and monitoring framework for responsible business and marketing conduct in the food supply chain; and Proposal for a revision of EU marketing standards for agricultural, fishery and aquaculture products to ensure the uptake and supply of sustainable products;
3. Promote sustainable food consumption, facilitating the shift towards healthy, sustainable diets;
4. Reduce food loss and waste.

Corresponding to Goal 1, the Strategy (p. 8) mentiones the job creation potential of the circular bio-based economy, such as advanced bio-refineries that produce bio-fertilisers, protein feed, bioenergy, and bio-chemicals. The only mention of young farmers is made under the same goal, p. 10, in referring to its job creation potential and attractiveness for young farmers.

Corresponding to Goal 2, the strategy indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has made us aware of the importance of critical staff, such as agri-food workers. This is why it will be particularly important to mitigate the socio-economic consequences impacting the food chain and ensure that the key principles enshrined in the European Pillar of Social Rights are respected, especially when it comes to precarious, seasonal and undeclared workers. The considerations of workers’ social protection, working and housing conditions as well as protection of health and safety will play a major role in building fair, strong and sustainable food systems. Decent work is not mentioned explicitly.

Corresponding to Goal 3, the strategy indicates that the Commission will take action to scale-up and promote sustainable and socially responsible production methods and circular business models in food processing and retail, including specifically for SMEs, in synergy with the objectives and initiatives put forward under the new Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP).

Chapter 3 on Enabling the transition, (p.17) mentions that the Commission will also update its Skills Agenda to ensure that the food chain has access to sufficient and suitably skilled labour.

This context analysis provides an overview of Guatemala, describing youth employment challenges, policies and programmes in place as well as FAO’s priorities on decent rural youth employment. Finally, it also analyses the country’s child labour and migration trends and dynamics.

The document was developed by FAO during the inception phase of its Sida-funded Integrated Country Approach (ICA) for boosting decent jobs for youth in the agri-food system project, currently implemented in Senegal, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and Guatemala (2019-2022).

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies. ITU's Measuring digital development: Facts and figures 2020 offers a snapshot of the most important Information and Communication Technology (ICT) indicators, including estimates for the current year.

According to the report, in 2019, just over half of the world population was using the Internet, but this proportion increases to over 69 per cent among youth (aged 15-24 years). However, a digital divide emerge. In developed countries virtually all young people use the Internet compared with 66% in developing countries and only 38% in the 47 UN-designated Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

While virtually all urban areas in the world are covered by a mobile-broadband network, many gaps subsist in rural areas. In LDCs, 17 per cent of the rural population has no mobile coverage at all, and 19 per cent of the rural population is only covered by a 2G network whereas in urban areas, 99 per cent of population is covered by either 4G or 3G network.

Agriculture is not a focus of this report.

This brief provides updates on youth labour market trends and school to work transition indicators in Rwanda. In regard to the employment in agriculture, for women, agriculture still employs almost half the workforce at 49.2 per cent. For men, this figure is much lower at 31.9 per cent. Young people (aged under 30) are less likely to work in agriculture – and more likely to work in services – than their older counterparts. Less than 30 per cent of young men (aged 15-29) and just over 40 per cent of young women are engaged in the sector.

This report pulls together different rounds of the labour force survey conducted within a specific year namely February, May, August and November. In addition to the annual results of the year 2020, the current report bring together the annual results of the previous years (2017, 2018 and 2019) to analyze the annual changes of different labour market indicators and provide the trends of Labour force indicators on annual basis.

The distribution of employment under agriculture is 39.1 percent. Under the new international standards, employment in agriculture sector includes only those who produce agriculture goods intended mainly for sale or barter and those who work for pay in agriculture. Compared to 2019, the share of employment increased in agriculture (3 percentage points). Average monthly salary in agriculture (In Frw) in 2020 is 20 813.

Employment to population ratio among youth (aged 16-30) is at 42.6 per cent compared to 49.5 per cent of its adults counterparts. Youth unemployment rate is 22.4 percent, and youth unemployment rate of those participated in subsistence agriculture is at 27.5 per cent while is is 19.2 per cent for those not participated in subsistence agriculture.

Other decent work areas such as child labour are not the scope of this survey.

The National Development Strategy 1: 2021-2025 (NDS1) is developed as the successor to Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP: October 2018-December 2020) which was implemented as a first step of a three phase process to attain the country’s Vision 2030 outcomes. NDS1 is the first 5-year Medium Term Plan aimed at realising the country’s Vision 2030.

NDS1 sets seven objectives below:

 i. Strengthen macroeconomic stability;
ii. Achieve and sustain inclusive and equitable Real GDP growth;
iii. Promoting new enterprise development, employment and job creation (Create at least 760,000 formal jobs);
iv. Strengthen Social Infrastructure and Social Safety nets;
v. Ensure sustainable environmental protection and resilience;
vi. Promote Good Governance and Corporate Social investment; and
vii. To modernise the economy through use of ICT and digital technology.

NDS1 positions agriculture as one of the key locomotive (anchor) sectors along with mining, manufacturing, and tourism in achieving the overall goal of sustainable economic growth. It focuses on increasing agriculture production and productivity, especially by smallholder farmers will ensure food and nutrition security, enhanced income, increased opportunities for value addition and the development of agro-business value chains.

Cross cutting issues including Youth and Gender; Financial Inclusion; Social Protection; Poverty Alleviation and Safety Nets; Environmental Protection; Climate Resilience have been mainstreamed throughout the NDS1 period. In regard to youth, NDS1 aims to increase youth participation in decision-making and development processes from 3.3% in 2020 to 25% by 2025; and­ increase the number of youth who accessed empowerment opportunities in all sectors of the economy from 16 000 in 2020 to 200 000 by 2025.

Decent Work is emphasized, and the following three specific targets are set to be achieved through programmes including the formalization of the informal and rural development:
i. Increase the level of formal employment from 24% in 2020 to 30% by 2025;
ii. Reduce precarious employment rate from 19% to 14% by 2025; and
iii. Increase the proportion of informal sector workers covered by Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Services from 0% to 20% by 2025.
In the Decent Work context, it recognizes that good labour migration governance is essential to promote export of human capital. It ensures that those who elect to work in the diaspora find decent jobs in host countries. During the NDS1 Period, priority will be to develop standard operating procedures for recruitment of Zimbabweans in the diaspora.

Child labour is mentioned as one of the key challenges in improving the social protection system.

This paper highlights the importance and magnitude of internal migration in Senegal. It analyzes the socioeconomic determinants of the decisions of youth for migration to rural and urban areas, and whether these factors differ by gender. Authors use household survey data, and the multinominal logit model for their analysis targeting youth between 21 and 35 years old.

Findings include that young people undertake mostly rural-to-rural and urban-to-urban migrations, and more than half of them are temporary migrants. Also, childhood socioeconomic conditions such as migrants’ father’s education, the demographic composition of the household, and access to educational opportunities in youth’ childhood residence influence the decision of youth to migrate differently by gender. For example, father’s education has an important role in daughters’ migration choices (more than in sons’ ones): the more educated the father, the more likely are daughters to move to urban areas and less likely are they to move to rural areas. In addition, the presence of younger siblings in childhood is associated with high likelihood of female migration. Furthermore, proximity to social infrastructure during childhood, particularly primary school and hospitals, is associated with lower probability of youth migration for both men and women.

The paper concludes with a motivation for further research on the expected consequences of internal youth migration for individuals, their households, and their communities. It points out that despite all the benefits of remittances from young migrants, high costs of financing migration and “brain drain” can possibly leave negative effect for households and communities, and whether benefits outweighs the cost of migration remains an empirical question.

The 2019 Labor Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean contains a synthesis of the economic evolution of the countries of the region and an analysis of the impacts registered in the labor markets in 2019, as well as those expected for 2020. In addition, the report includes a special section on "Youth Employability", which reviews the employment situation of the population between 15 and 24 years of age.

The report alerts on the worsening of quantity and quality of rural employment (p.14), noticing in particular a significant drop in employment in agriculture.

This edited volume provides comprehensive evidence on migration from and within West and North Africa and across the Mediterranean.

It highlights migrants’ agency and contribution to transnational development, as well as the inequalities that shape migration and the risks that migrants are exposed to.

The volume is divided in four sections, dedicated to migration trends, risks, development and governance. The volume features contributions from different IOM offices, as well as from other international organisations, research institutions and civil society organisations.

It was prepared as part of the programme Safety, Support and Solutions on the Central Mediterranean Route, funded by the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID).

Teh document is also available in FR here.

The FAO CPF for Senegal (in French Cadre de Programmation par Pays (CPP) has three priority areas: 1. Promoting a sustainable, diversified, competitive, inclusive and growth-enhancing agro-silvo-pastoral, fisheries and aquaculture sector; 2: Improving food security and nutrition, and strengthening the resilience of vulnerable populations; and 3. Sustainable management of the environment and natural resources.

Youth employment results and correspondent activities are explicit in the document, notably under the first priority where decent rural youth employment promotion, including for migrants, is one of the strategies proposed.

Dedicated targets are:
(1.1.1) By 2023, at least 22 integrated farms will be created with FAO’s support, 1/3 of which are run by women, and all with modern, operational infrastructure and facilities as incubation centers based on the Modèle d’Insertion des Jeunes Agro-entrepreneurs (MIJA);
(1.1.2) By 2023, at least 3,500 young people, 25% of whom are migrants or young people exposed to migration, 20% identified on the basis of vulnerability criteria and 30% women, are trained in rural entrepreneurship, with FAO’s support;
(1.1.3) By 2023, at least 14,000 young farmers are certified, with FAO’s support.
(1.1.6) By 2023, 5,000 producers (70% of whom are women and young people) enhance their access and control of inputs, equipment, financing and other resources and services, with FAO’s support;
(1.1.7) By 2023, more than 20 rural microenterprises, involving at least 300 people, 50% of whom are women, are created and / or supported in the region in terms of production, transformation and commercialization.
Decent work relevant entry points also exist under the second priority, with regard to small producers’ (including youth and women) access to public sector food procurement (2.1.3), access to social protection for the rural population (2.2) and the implementation of the “ caisse de resilience” (resilience funds) approach to enhance risk management at the farm level (2.3).

Finally, relevant to green jobs promotion is target 3.2.1, under the third priority, which aims to establish 25 community micro-enterprises based on non-timber forest products (NTFPs) by 2023.

It is a national initiative endorsed by H.E President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, in January 2019. It seeks to unify the efforts of all the state’s institutions in cooperation with the civil society, the private sector companies and the development partners inside and outside Egypt in the sustainable development field.

The first phase of the initiative targets villages having 70% of poverty rates or more (1413 villages most in need and the most vulnerable ones to extremism and intellectual terrorism).

Second phase of the initiative will target: Villages ranging from 50% to 70% of poverty rates.

Third phase of the initiative will taregt: Villages below 50% of poverty rates.

The Objectives 2 and 4 of the initiative seem more relevant to DRE.

Objective 2: Comprehensive development for the neediest rural communities to eliminate multidimensional poverty in order to provide a decent and sustainable life for citizens.

Objective 4: Providing job opportunities to support the independence of citizens and motivate them to improve the standard of living for their families and local communities.

The overall budget of the initiative or the extent of decent work prioritization could not be assessed online.

The project aims to promote social and occupational inclusion of youth in family farms and profitable ventures that will create income and decent jobs in agro-sylvo-pastoral and fisheries value chains. The project aims to benefit 150.000 rural young people. Among this group, 45.000 young people (50% women) will receive support to start up a sustainable profitable activity in the agro-sylvo-pastoral and fisheries value chains. At project completion, 25.000 viable enterprises in the agro-sylvo-pastoral and fisheries value chains will have been created and/or strengthened, and 35.000 decent jobs generated (50% young women).

Crucial for the project strategy is the need to establish partnerships between youth and farmers’ organizations, umbrella organizations, interprofessional associations, and other private sector operators. Decent work elements are not explicitely addressed.

The project has budget of USD 93,74 millions, of which IFAD finances USD 52,31 million (loan) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) 10.74 million (loan). Executing agency is the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Equipment.

The area of intervention include four agroecological areas: les Niayes, Bassin arachidier,the sylvopastoral zone, and low and medium Casamance.

Target group is composed of rural youth aged 15 to 35 years.

Current cooperation programme between Senegal and ENABEL, the Belgian Development Agency, signed in 2019. It aims to support socio-economic development and decent rural employment in Siné Saloum region.

The programme consists of two main pillars: (i) sustainable entrepreneurship and DRE promotion in agribusiness, with the expected impact of creating 3.600 new jobs (including through the development of two agropoles in Kaolack et Foundiougne); and (ii) reproductive health. Cross-cutting themes include climate change and gender equality, decent work and ICT. 

Budget: EUR 45 millions

This OECD report aims to assess the role of global value chains (GVCs) in terms of returns to labour and thereby employment, not only within the agricultural sectors, but across other sectors of the economy.

Based on the report, at the global level, trade and agro-food GVCs generated an average of between 20-26% of total agricultural workforce returns between 2004 and 2014, and labour returns were generated from both direct participation in trade and from indirect participation through other downstream sectors. Employment reliance on trade and GVCs varies across different agricultural sectors. It is greatest in the sectors of wool, oilseeds and plant-based fibres, which have 48%, 39% and 38% of sector employment respectively reliant on agro-food GVCs (global averages). These sectors are those that feed most into other production activities, both food, in the case of oilseeds, and manufacturing.

This report finds that the impact on economy-wide labour returns is on average greater for countries specializing in direct exports of primary products as compared to those specializing in indirect agricultural exports. Beyond the agriculture sector itself, trade and GVC participation creates employment in other sectors (notably more in the service sectors than in the industrial sector).

The study concludes that recent developments in this sector give new opportunities for rural youth but also highlight persistent barriers that prevent rural youth from accessing financial and non-financial services.

The Agricultural Sector Growth and Transformation Strategy (ASTGS) is Kenya’s strategy to transform and modernize the agricultural sector, under the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI). The effort is supported by the Agriculture and Rural Development Donor Group (ARDDG) - comprised out of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), FAO, the German Development Cooperation (GDC), GIZ, JICA, the Swedish Embassy, UNEP, and USAID, among others.

The strategy outlines nine flagships projects, grouping them in Anchors and Enablers, as follows:

Anchor 1. Increase small-scale farmer, pastoralists and fisherfolk incomes: - Flagship 1. Target 1 million farmers in 40 zones (initially) served by 1,000 farmer facing SMEs; - Flagship 2: Shift nationwide subsidies focus to register 1.4 million high-needs farming households and empower them to access a range of inputs from multiple providers through e-vouchers;

Anchor 2. Increase agricultural output and value addition: - Flagship 3. Establish 6 large-scale agroprocessing hubs through a one-stop shop for agro-processors; - Flagship 4. Unlock 50 new large-scale private farms (bigger than 2,500 acres) and sustainable water supply for more than 150,000 acres of irrigation from existing infrastructure;

Anchor 3. Boost household food resilience: - Flagship 5. Restructure governance and operations of the Strategic Food Reserve (SFR) to better serve 4 million vulnerable Kenyans; - Flagship 6: Boost the food resilience of 1.2 million farming and pastoralist households in arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) through community-driven intervention design.

Enablers: - Flagship 7: Launch three skill programmes for 200 government leaders, flagship implementers and 3,000 youth-led and digitally-enabled extension agents; - Flagship 8: Strengthen research and innovation as launch priority digital and data use cases to drive better decision-making and performance management; - Flagship 9: Monitor two key food system risks – those addressing sustainability and climate, and a second category for crisis management for pests, diseases and global price shocks.

The flagships are designed to ensure the inclusion of women, youth, and people with disabilities (PWDs). Flagship 1 determines a minimum participation of 33% women and 30% youth. Flagship 2 and 6 mention youth as beneficiaries without specification. Flagship 7 aims to train 3,000 youth-led and digitally-enabled extension agents. Decent rural employment specific priorities are not explicitely addressed in the document.

The 100,000 MSMEs Initiative for the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises is an initiative of the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD). It contributes to the “1 Million Jobs Initiative” of the African Union (AU) and aims to reach 100,000 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) across the continent by the end of 2021, and 1 million MSMEs by the end of 2024. AUDA-NEPAD launched the 100,000 MSMEs Initiative with advisory support from McKinsey & Company, financial and technical support from Ecobank (see info here), UNDP, Microsoft and the World Bank to accelerate African economic transformation, provide skills development programming and build resilience against the economic shock triggered by the global pandemic.

On 21^st June 2021, the U.S. Mission to the African Union, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), also announced their collaboration (see news here).

The Initiative comprised of three pillars underpinned by a digital platform (the latter still in the making): MSME Academy (trainings so far are not specific on agriculture), MSME Finance, and MSME Marketplace. Between August 2020 and February 2021, the MSME Academy launched in thirteen countries (Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, and Togo) and recorded the following results: registration by more than 25,000 MSMEs, 14,000 MSMEs attended online events, and more than 3 million participants tuned into webinars held on radio and online platforms. The next step is to launch the Academy in the other Member States, with training modules delivered in at least five languages accessible across all 55 African countries. Having successfully launched the MSME Academy in a few countries, AUDA-NEPAD and Microsoft are now partnering on a digital learning platform to enhance free access to learning content online to help African youths gain the much-needed skills that would be a criterion to transit to an impending digital economy post-COVID-19.

Ecobank and AUDA-NEPAD started to pilot the MSME Finance pillar in May 2021 in 8 pilot countries namely Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda and Togo. Successful candidates can access between USD 1,000 and USD 5,000. About 3,000 MSMEs applied to the MSME training for the Ecobank Financing program, out of which 850 were short-listed in the 8 pilot countries. The 6 weeks long programme covered 4 modules and 15 training sessions per country – in total – 120 sessions were delivered in all 8 countries. In Q3 2021, Ecobank will deliver a unique sandwich programme for the remaining over 2,000 SMES who registered but were not shortlisted in the training programme.

While the Initiative does not have an explicit DRE focus, it addresses the needs of micro and small businesses (all sectors), which have been among the most negative affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The evaluation was able to map two thirds of the 77 projects. In the most successful cases, a common trait was that IFAD had long experience in the project area and had supported multi-stakeholder platforms and interprofessional associations.

Para 44 indicates that engagement with youth emerged as a focus area in more recent projects. An effective strategy for reaching large numbers of young people was to select value chains in which youth were already engaged and mainstream youth inclusion across all project activities. In other cases, lack of access to land and other assets was a barrier to young people’s involvement. In general, there was little investment in vocational training linked to value chain requirements. In Viet Nam, for example, there was a shortage of skills in the expanding agrifood industry, but TVET centres did not offer the right type of training. Yet, available studies suggest that most future work opportunities for underemployed rural workers will occur in manufacturing or service industries affiliated with agriculture (e.g. food and agro-industrial processing, agro-logistics, and food distribution services). For IFAD, this is a strategic long-term opportunity in several countries.

The evaluation assesses that decent work elements have not been explicitly addressed to date, which is a gap, considering the prominence of this issue for the SDGs.

The G5 Sahel Development and Security Strategy (SDS) responds to the vision of Heads of State to turn G5 Sahel countries into an economically integrated, socially prosperous, culturally rich space where security and peace reign.  To achieve these objectives, four strategical axes have been identified: (i) Defense and security, (ii) Governance, (iii) Infrastructures, (iv) Resilience and human development. Among the main challenges identified (p.17), the document lists the creation of decent jobs for youth and women.

The 1rst axis aims at reinforcing the security of people and goods by fighting against terrorism, organized criminality, illicit traffic and clandestine migration in the respect and protection of human rights. The 2nd axis aims at promoting good governance on the basis of fundamental principles of participation, accountability, transparency and responsibility of the State and of citizens in order to guarantee a decent and fair human development. It includes a priority action on the development of a programme on the prevention of violent extremism and terrorism against young people. The 3rd axis aims at promoting internal and intra-regional exchanges through the realization of transport infrastructures, improving the access to energy supply, ICTs and potable water.

The 4th axis aims at building and reinforcing the resilience of the populations, with priority actions on contributing to the development of economic opportunities by creating decent jobs for the benefit of young people and women, and enhancing access and equity, education and training for young people living in cross-border areas. Additional priority actions in this area look into the support for improving the livelihoods of rural populations in cross-border regions; the support for land security, and prevention and management of rural land conflicts; the support for the defense and restoration of agricultural land; and the support for resilient pastoralism.

 Other aspects of decent work are not explicitly addressed.

The FAO Rwanda CPF signifies FAO’s mandate and commitment towards contribution to the GoR’s priorities in food security, nutrition and rural development, as enshrined in the Fourth Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation (PSTA 4 2018-2024) and with the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1 2017-2024).

The CPF has identified four priorities, namely:

1. Innovative approaches to promote sustainable and integrated Crop, Livestock and Aquaculture production systems promoted (See in particular: Output 1.3:Skills developed for agriculture value chain including farmers’ organization, women and youth);
2. Food security, nutrition and climate and other shocks resilient agriculture improved through sustainable and diversified production systems (no specific youth or decent work indicators included);
3. Inclusiveness of agricultural market systems as well as value addition and competitiveness of diversified agricultural commodities in domestic, regional and international markets promoted; and
4. Enhanced enabling environment and responsive institutions for effective and efficient delivery of Services (see indicator on the update of the agriculture gender strategy; see indicator on conducting cross-sectoral policy dialogues on the coherence and harmonized programming on cross-cutting issues (e.g. nutrition, food safety, youth and gender, resilience, climate change adaptation, social protection etc.)). Furthermore, Output 4.4 is on Strengthened capacities targeting private sector engagement in agriculture sector. It includes the two following indicators: By 2023, at least one youth employment facility in agriculture is established; and By 2023, at least ten (10) sessions of capacity development are conducted for youth, men and women organizations engaged in agri-business.

The main themes cutting across these outputs are the mainstreaming of gender issues and due consideration and inclusion of the youth (p. 18). Other aspects of decent work are not addressed, including OSH, child labour, access to social protection.

The current CPF is expected to cost USD 22 000 000. About 22 percent of the total required resources is available while 78 percent will need to be mobilized, mostly from bilateral and multilateral donors.

The report examines the dynamics of employment in agriculture and the agri-food system in Tanzania and Malawi by assessing the population age structure and movements of youth (aged 15-24) and young adults (aged 25-34) in and out of agriculture and the agri-food system.

Using internationally comparable integrated household and agriculture surveys, teh study indicates that the average age of a person who works in farming as own-farm labour is 34 years in Tanzania and 31 years in Malawi. Examination of the movements into and out of the agri-food system demonstrates a high degree of short-term stability of youth and young adult participation in farming in both countries. Specifically, 59 per cent of rural Tanzanian youth and 56 per cent of rural Malawian youth are consistently engaged in farming.

The study points to the fact that even though the high degree of stability in farming participation is encouraging, it is likely that the poor economic prospects outside farming are what is driving strong participation in single-occupation farming. Thestudy concludes by recommending that the countries attempt to diversify the rural economy by developing the many economic opportunities within the agri-food system.

The development and security strategy (SDS), adopted by the Heads of State of the G5 Sahel countries contains multi-annual action plans to be operationalized through the Priority Investment Programme (PIP), which is composed of structuring regional projects around the four SDS strategic axes (Defense and Security, Governance, Infrastructure and Human Development and Resilience). The PIP's overall objective is to contribute to ensuring development and security in G5 Sahel countries.

For the 2019-2021 period, a portfolio of 40 structuring projects was selected.

Under the Governance Axis, there are the following relevant projects: 2. Support youth empowerment in zones affected by conflicts and migration; 3. Youth Integrated Initiatives Project and  4. Implementation of the G5 Sahel Integrated Youth Strategy.

All the projects under the Resilience and Human Development Axis are relevant, namely: 1. Strengthening the resilience of the young small-scale farmers in the Sahel thanks to a climate-smart farming; 2. G5 Sahel Women Leaders Project to strengthen the role of women in the consolidation of social peace, development and security in the Sahel; 3. Strengthening the resilience of the mobile populations and vulnerable communities of G5 Sahel countries; 4. Educational response to children outside the education systems living in G5 Sahel countries; 5. Support the development of resilient pastoralism in the Sahel (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Senegal); and 6. Diagnostic study of the potentials of agricultural, animal and fisheries products of G5 Sahel Member States.

The project's overarching objective is to lessen poverty and vulnerability in the mountainous pre-Rif region of Taza Province.

The development goal is to steadily raise rural households' incomes who participate in the almond, fig, olive, and honey value chains in Aknoul and Tainast regions. The technical components are: (i) the development of climate-resilient orchards and beekeeping;  (ii) the improvement and marketing of crops.

Under Subcomponent 2.3, the project aims to support 100 rural microenterprises in the poorest areas, opening up income and job opportunities for women and youth. Further, three thousand women and youth will take the functional literacy course. Four hundred young farmers, female and male, will participate in the certificate training modules.

Decent work dimensions are not explicitly addressed.

The project has an overall cost of 93.54 million USD, with a contribution from IFAD of 36.69 million USD.

FAO has partnered with EcoVentures International (EVI), a leader in market systems development approaches, to highlight successful African agripreneurs in order to inspire budding entrepreneurs and guide policy-makers to support them. This work has led to the documentation of 12 inspiring cases of successful agripreneurs, which form the basis of this publication on African agribusiness entrepreneurship. Examples were selected from 10 African countries, working in production, processing and input supply, to demonstrate the diversity of African agripreneurs. The study explores four topical themes that are at the core of agribusiness in this context – achieving success at scale, women’s entrepreneurship, youth entrepreneurship, and agripreneurship in challenging environments.

The RAYEE project, implemented by SNV, aims to create meaningful employment in agriculture and agri-business for 240,000 young people (of which 70% are women) until the end of 2024. RAYEE will target five geographical areas: the SNNPR, Oromia, Amhara and Tigray regions as well as the Dire Dawa city. 

The project is funded by the Mastercard Foundation as part of its Young Africa Works strategy. 

The project will be applying SNV Opportunities for Youth Employment product, tailoring it to local needs. In the target areas, the RAYEE project will identify the skills that potential employers require from prospective employees and will provide tailored training courses in life and technical skills for young women and men. The trainees will be actively linked to identified employment opportunities.

SNV will support existing SMEs, to grow employment opportunities for young people. They will also provide business development services to ambitious young people to enable them to establish new enterprises. Business development services include training on business, administration and marketing, improved access to inclusive financial services, input supply, and market information.  

The JEEN project aims to improve the entrepreneurship, employability and economic opportunities of young people in the Tahoua and Zinder regions in Niger to reduce emigration of young people out of these areas.

SNV implements the project together with partners Oxfam, APF/Partners for Innovation (Pfl), funded by the European Commission (9 419 400 EURO).

The project has the following objectives:

Agriculture or rural focus are not explicit; other decent work aspects are not explicitely addressed.

The programme (40 Million EUR) is the result of a partnership involving ILO, UNICEF, UNHCR, IFC and the World Bank, with financial support from the Netherlands.
The programme focuses on the creation of jobs and livelihoods so that refugees can contribute to their new communities and prepare for a possible return to their countries of origin once that becomes possible. The idea is also to strengthen the resilience of those countries and communities that continue to offer their support to refugees. Besides job creation, programme activities will focus on skills development, prevention of child labour, strengthening of public employment services and social protection, as well as partnerships with the private sector.

The IFAD Rural Youth Action Plan sets out the framework and guides youth-sensitive agriculture and rural development investments at IFAD. The targets are that all country strategies and 50 percent of IFAD new project designs between 2019 and 2021 will be youth-sensitive, and 70 percent of new project designs are to be youth-sensitive by the end of the Thirteenth Replenishment of IFAD’s Resources in 2027.

Priority themes are: i. Youth employment and entrepreneurship; ii. Access to land and natural resources; iii. Access to rural finance; iv Access to climate-resilient productive technologies and practices; and v. Profitable smallholder organizational models. Emerging themes are: Decent employment; Child labour in agriculture; and Adolescent girls, indigenous youth and youth with disabilities.

This book seeks to contribute to the quest for effective ways to consolidate the design and implementation of social policy to reduce inequalities and poverty. It was prepared under the cooperation programme between ECLAC and the Government of Norway, entitled “Vocational Education and Training for Greater Equality in Latin America and the Caribbean”.

It focuses on three types of non-contributory social protection programmes: conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes, inclusive labour and production programmes, and social pensions. The analysis concerns progammes active in both urban and rural areas.

The study is also available in Spanish "Programas sociales, superación de la pobreza e inclusión laboral: aprendizajes desde América Latina y el Caribe".

The COSOP is intended to guide the IFAD portfolio in the Republic of Tunisia for the period 2019-2024. Its overarching goal is to increase the incomes, living standards, and climate change resilience of disadvantaged rural population, especially women and young people.

Three strategic objectives serve as the framework for the COSOP:

1. better access to productive infrastructure and sustainable natural resource management;

2. inclusion of poor rural people in more structured agricultural value chains;

3. economic and social empowerment of vulnerable rural women and youth. 

Under the third objective specific indicators refer to access of employment for vulnerable rural youth and women and increased incomes (at least reaching the minimum wage – SMAG) from agripreneurship activities. Other aspects of decent work are not explicitly addressed.

(Para 5). Two new projects will be prepared during the COSOP period: the first project will take place in the state of Kairouan, promoting a value chain approach that links the various actors in the value chain and includes a component on access to finance for economic activities, and the second project on a national scale will focus specifically on women's empowerment and rural youth employment, and will be implemented in different parts of the country where rural poverty is prevalent.

The Government of Rwanda adopted a Revised National Employment Policy and its Implementation Plan on 7 June 2019. The Policy was developed through the coordination of the Ministry of Public Service and Labour (MIFOTRA) in consultation with other key government institutions, social partners, and other stakeholders under the employment sector-working group. The revised employment policy replaces the Rwanda Employment Policy adopted in 2007. ILO provided technical support throughout the drafting and validation process, as well as background studies on employment impact assessment.

The overall objective of the National Employment Policy is to create sufficient and productive jobs in order to reduce labour underutilization and enhance productivity and competitiveness. Its target is to create 1.5 million productive jobs by 2024. The policy prioritizes the following policy areas: (i) Pro-employment macroeconomic framework and sectoral policies; (ii) Enterprise development and private sector competitiveness (including entrepreneurship support especially for youth and women); (iii)Agricultural productivity and rural development; (iv) Linkage between education, skills development and labour market needs; (v) Labour mobility and migration; (vi) Formalization of informal economy; (vii) Strengthening labour market  policies and labour market information system; (viii) Social protection, working conditions and productive jobs (across sectors, not specific for agriculture or rural areas); (ix) Promotion of employment opportunities for specific groups; (x) Coordination, monitoring & evaluation.

Under policy area iii, the following measures are given priority: (i) To maximize labour intensive by fostering productivity gains among staple and cash crops, and commercialization of agriculture and value chains;  (ii) To modernize agriculture for productive employment promotion; (iii) To encourage diversification of agricultural commodities and value addition through the development of agro-processing industries.

Youth women and persons with disabilities (PWD) are priority groups.

The role of MINAGRI is mentioned at p. 25 and refers to initiate, follow-up and evaluate policies, strategies and programmes of modernization of market oriented agriculture and livestock in line with productivity and employment generation emphasizing on professionalism. The Ministry shall develop appropriate systems of transfer of production technologies, processing, storage and transformation of agricultural products which will tackle the bottleneck of seasonality of employment, time-related underutilization and subsistence agriculture especially among women.

The SRAD Programme is a flagship programme of the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture (MoEWA). It is one of the most important programmes under the country National Agriculture Strategy which has been formulated within the context of the Saudi Vision 2030.

It focuses on strengthening the capacities of small agricultural producers, cooperative societies, and rural institutions, with the final aim of diversifying the production base of agriculture and contributing to achieving food security on the national level by providing 43% of the total needs of food energy for the population of the targeted areas, and about 19% of the total food needs.
The national programme also seeks to ensure the consumption of safe and healthy food, and to increase the participation rates of women in the labour market in addition to preserving the environment and natural resources in accordance with the objectives of "Vision 2030".

The programme includes an integrated package to support agricultural products in various regions of the Kingdom, including: development of coffee Arabica production, processing and marketing; development of beekeeping and honey production; development of rose production and trade; sub-tropical fruits production, processing and marketing; strengthening capacity of small-scale fishermen and fish farmers; strengthening capacity of small-scale livestock herders; Development of rain-fed cereals production; Enhancing value addition from smallholdings and rural activities; and Strengthening MoEWA’s Capacity in Sustainable Management of Rangelands, Forests and Natural Resources to support Sustainable Rural Development.

The Royal Decree No 1366 has approved the following budgetary allocations for the SRAD programme (2019-2015): 1) SAR 1500 Million for one time to cover the cost of capital investment to support the implementation of the SRAD Programme; 2) SAR 1000 Million annual financial support to small agricultural producers throughout the SRAD Programme duration; and 3) SAR 50 Million annual allocation to cover the cost of FAO technical assistance to the implementation of SRAD Programme. In addition, the Royal Decree has approved the following allocations to the programme for retargeting of agricultural subsidies: 1) SAR 1200 Million annual targeted subsidy to livestock sub-sector; 2) SAR 700 Million annual targeted subsidy to poultry sub-sector; 3) SAR 150 Million annual targeted subsidy to marine aquaculture sector; and 4) SAR 250 Million annual targeted subsidy to date palm sub-sector.

FAO supported the formulation of the SRAD Programme and also support its implementation through the “Strengthening MoEWA`s Capacity to implement its Sustainable Rural Agricultural Development Programme” (UTF /SAU/051/SAU).

Under this programme, FAO provides technical and advisory assistance to the implementation of the Sustainable Rural Agricultural Development (SRAD) Programme (2019-2025) which has been jointly formulated by FAO and the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture (MoEWA).

The programme has 6 outcomes, namely: 1) technologies and innovative practices identified and adopted to sustainably increase rural agriculture productivity; 2) Innovative practices and technologies pilot tested and adopted to restore and conserve natural vegetation cover and sustainably manage vital natural resources; 3) capacity of rural agriculture institutions and small producers enhanced for better access to resources, services and markets; 4) Technical capacity of government and stakeholders strengthened to curb land degradation and combat desertification; 5) capacity of public and private sector actors strengthened to develop rural agro-enterprises and create productive and decent rural employment, particularly among youth and women; and 6) information and knowledge products developed and disseminated for evidence based sustainable rural agriculture development.

According to section 3.2 of the prodoc: The project is expected to contribute to creation of more than 29000 new jobs for Saudis, particularly youth and women, therefore reducing the unemployment rate in the target regions from 10.14% to 6.3%. To do so the programme will promote rural natural resources and agribusiness enterprises particularly among youth and women by establishing an agribusiness incubation programme, developing agri-entrepreneurs models and a mentoring programme. Further, the programme will strengthen small producers’ collective action and representation through establishment and empowerment of agricultural cooperatives and rural institutions.

Among the impact indicators are: Average monthly income of small agricultural producers in the target regions; Average number of new jobs created for Saudis in the target regions; Average net migration rate in the target regions. Relevant outcome indicators include : (Outcome 1) productivity per unit of land; (Outcome 3) Number of specific institutions with capacity to provide agricultural services strengthened and Number of small producers whose capacity to access resources, services and markets enhanced; and (Outcome 5) Number of rural agro-enterprises established; Number of decent jobs created for Saudi youth and women; Number of rural agro-enterprises developed by rural youth women

Most relevant Outputs from a DRE perspective are the following: Output 5.1 Rural agribusiness enterprises promoted particularly among youth and women entrepreneurs; Output 5.2 Technical skills of smallholders and agri-entrepreneurs and other value chain actors strengthened on agri-business management and value chain development and decent work standards (even though specific activities on the promotion of decent work standards or a decent work strategy are not made explicit); and Output 6.3: Diagnostic assessment conducted to generate knowledge on smallholder’s farming systems, rural labor market, value chain development and gender analysis to support rural and agricultural development

The total project budget is USD 93 333 333 funded by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia via a Unilateral Trust Fund (UTF) modality.

According to FAO January-June 2022 progress report:

- A total of 589 MoEWA officials, farmers, cooperative members, youth, and women benefited from the training courses;

-  Under Output 5.1: An Agribusiness Incubation Programme (AIP) proposal was developed;  a compilation of 15 viable agribusiness opportunities has been prepared; several small-scale agribusiness-related training courses have been designed to capacitate agripreneurs (especially youth and women) and MoEWA staff and other value chain actors with a focus on aquaculture and honey value chain.

-  Under Output 5.2: piloting of improved technologies and practices was initiated for the targeted commodities, concentrating on reducing post-harvest losses and improving the quality of the product for better marketability and income generation (fisheries, subtropical fruits, coffee, and livestock were prioritized for the demonstration of technological packages); business management and value addition sessions were also incorporated into the commodity-specific training courses; Integration of agritourism activities with the other value chain activities was initiated to maximize profits and engage youth in agribusiness activities.

- Under Output 6.3 Report is under finalization: the findings will improve knowledge of the typology of farming systems, available resources inputs, agricultural practices, and different types of constraints faced by farmers.

Kenya Youth Development Policy is designed to promote the holistic empowerment and participation of the youth in socio-economic and political spheres for national development. The vision of the Policy is a society where youth have an equal and responsible opportunity to realize their full potential in socio-economic and political aspirations, through honest and hard work.

The Policy defines the Youth as a person aged 18 years and who has not reached the age of 35 years (Kenya Constitution 2010). However, to ensure that youth issues are addressed comprehensively, this Policy also includes young people aged between 15 to 17 years.

Rural agriculture is one of the focuses of the policy. The policy sets “transforming agriculture to make it attractive to youth” is one of the 18 policy priority areas. It recognizes the importance of agriculture as one of the main activities in the Country. However, youth are not adequately involved in agricultural activities. There is need to develop mechanisms of enhancing youth involvement in agriculture.

For this sake, the government with support from other stakeholders shall: increase investment in rural farm and non-farm activities and social and economic infrastructure to offer youth attractive job prospects and living conditions; support youth’s access and ownership of land for agri-business as well as access to innovative agricultural technologies, including climate change adaptation; and promote innovation and incubation of agricultural technologies, youth access to credit for agricultural development.

The Policy mentions other decent work aspects, such as including child labour as one of the emergency situations for youth, promoting green jobs, and developing an effective labour migration policy.

The United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) of Senegal has three priority areas: (i) Inclusive and sustainable economic growth; (ii) Access to basic social services and social protection; and (iii) Governance, Peace and Security.

Priority area 1 includes three Outcomes, all directly or indirectly relevant to the promotion of more and better jobs in rural areas, notably Outcome I on the development of integrated sectoral policies contributing to structural transformation, the reduction of inequalities and the capture of the demographic dividend, Outcome II on enhancing the access of the most vulnerable populations to economic opportunities to improve their food security and to create wealth; and III. on livelihoods resilience for vulnerable communities. Especially relevant indicators are: 1.3 on Number of projects implemented, derived from sector planning, which harness the demographic dividend; 2.2. on the employment rate; 2.3 on MSMEs access to finance, and 3.3 on the number of green jobs created.

On p. 31, the narrative description of Priority area 1 indicates that, in the employment sector, the UN System in Senegal intends to continue building the capacity for coordination among development actors under the leadership of the Government in order to (i) support SME development and income generating activities, and the modernization of the informal sector; (ii) advocate and communicate about the need to improve access to employment for vulnerable communities and youth to the international community and the Government; (iii) support the production and processing of agricultural products;  (iv) contribute to the food and nutrition security of vulnerable communities; (v) support the production and productivity of smallholder farmers and the development of value chains; and (vi) contribute to improving the food and nutrition security of vulnerable communities and households.

Priority area 2 on social protection includes Outcome 4 on enhancing access for children and the most vulnerable populations to quality education and training opportunities. However, this priority does not establish explicit synergies with agriculture and rural development.

Priority area 3 on good governance, peace and security prioritizes the enhancement of women's engagement in local governance structures. 

The financial resources available are USD, 273, 211, 303 (48%), while USD 300,594,008 are to be mobilized on the basis of a joint mobilization strategy. The employment sector (33%), followed by environment (18%) and health (17%), will absorb a larger share of resources than other sectors.

The Agriculture Gender and Youth Mainstreaming Strategy of the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI) in Rwanda aims to guide the Ministry in better mainstreaming gender and youth into its programming. In so doing, it aims to support the implementation of the Fourth Strategic Plan for Agricultural Transformation (PSTA4, 2018) and the National Agriculture Policy (NAP, 2018).

The Vision is for increased and sustainable productivity in the agriculture sector for healthy and wealthy women, men and youth.

The five action areas for the strategy for the next 7 years are: 1: Financial services (including emphasis on eliminating barriers for accessing social protection finance and programmes); 2: Markets and Value Chain representation; 3: Extension, support, inputs and technologies; 4: institutional Mainstreaming; 5: Empowerment and decision-making. Of the third Decent Work Pillar (Standards and rights at work), only promotion of gender equality aspects are addressed. Other qualitative aspects are not addressed (ex. labour rights and working conditions, OSH, maternity protection, etc.).

The Guatemala financial inclusion strategy (ENIF) has the objective to expand and improve the access and use of financial products and services to the different segments of the Guatemalan population according to their needs, especially those that are not currently integrated into the financial system.

The strategy is structured according to four thematic areas, namely: Payments, Financing, Savings and Insurance (including specific measures in the action plan on Agricultural insurance provisions and Design of new agricultural risk products). The Strategy has also four crosscutting axes that complement the aforementioned four thematic areas, namely: Financial Education, User Protection of Financial Products and Services, Communication of the Strategy itself, and Entrepreneurship and development of MSMEs (with the explicit aim to contribute to employment creation).

The Strategy will be coordinated by a Financial Inclusion Commission (COMIF), made up of the President of the Monetary Board and the Bank of Guatemala, the Minister of Economy and the Superintendent of Banks.

Youth, rural areas or indigenous people are not specifically addressed.

The general objective of this sub-regional strategy, developed with financial support of the Swiss Cooperation, is to facilitate the socio-professional integration of young people (men and women) in the agro-sylvo-pastoral, fishery and agri-food value chains to: (i) reduce unemployment, and (iii) minimize uncontrolled migrations. Its ambition is to create the conditions to guarantee an appropriate integration of young people in the agro-sylvo-pastoral and fishery sector and in the agri-food value chains. Specifically, the strategy aims to support States, technical cooperation institutions, organizations of agricultural producers, breeders, pastoralists, fishermen, young people, the private sector, to develop initiatives aimed at promoting the integration of young people (men and women) in the agro-sylvo-pastoral, fisheries and agri-food sector.

The expected impacts of the strategy are that by 2030: a. At least 25% of the young people who enter the labor market each year are integrated into the agro-sylvo-pastoral, fishing and agri-food value chains; b. The rate of unemployment and youth underemployment (men and women) is reduced by three quarters; c. The proportion of young, uncontrolled emigrants is substantially reduced.

The strategy is organized along the following pillars:

• Pillar 1: Strengthen actions to prepare young people for careers in the sector (including through access to information, training and incubation);
• Pillar 2: Promote an enabling environment for the integration and empowerment of young entrepreneurs in the sector (including through access to finance, land and markets);
• Pillar 3: Support the economic and social empowerment of young people within the agri-food value chains (including by strengthening ECOWAS leadership on this topic).

While the strategy aims to generate decent jobs, decent work aspects are not reflected in the strategy. Also while the strategy targets both young men and women, a dedicated gender equality strategy or specific actions in support of young women are not detailed.

The overall objective of this youth in extension diagnostic study is to design a pilot engagement in Guatemala and one or two other Feed the Future countries to support and strengthen the inclusion of youth in extension – both as providers and recipients of extension services –as a mechanism to both improve the economic opportunities and livelihoods of youth and increase the effectiveness of extension and advisory service systems.
The assessment was conducted in the frame of the Developing Local Extension Capacity (DLEC) project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), under the Feed the Future initiative.

The recommendations from the study are the following:
1: Help reposition extension as an apolitical delivery mechanism for practical knowledge (extension research, evaluation, and innovation) by strengthening the role of Guatemalan universities in extension youth programs;
2: Update Guatemala’s National Agricultural Extension Strategy to infuse positive youth development knowledge and practice for extension staff working with youth in extension (including by building an extension system for youth under 13 years of age);
3: Strengthen engagement with marginalized populations such as women and indigenous communities.

The programme, implemented by OIM and funded by the Department of State of the United States, aims to strengthen the capacities of governments and civil society actors to develop policies and promote safe, orderly, and regular migration.

It has four pillars, namely:  Migration Management (by promoting inclusive labor migration policies), Partnerships (including by supporting the Regional Conference on Migration, the establishment of the Caribbean Migration Consultations and improving regional coordination on topics such as labor migration, emergency migration management, combating migrant smuggling and human trafficking, diaspora engagement, and health and migration), Emergency and Crisis Response, and Communication  (especially Communication for Development (C4D) initiatives and the mobile app MigApp).

The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) conducted an assessment of youth participation in small-scale fisheries (SSF), aquaculture and value chains, as part of the CGIAR Research Program (CRP) on Fish Agri-Food Systems (FISH) led by WorldFish and IWMI. The geographical focus of the study was Africa and the Asia-Pacific, particularly the FISH focal countries of Egypt, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia (in Africa) and Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar and Solomon Islands (in the Asia-Pacific). This study has a specific focus on rural agriculture.

The study finds that in many contexts, involvement in SSF, aquaculture and value chains, especially SSF is not the first choice of livelihood for most youth. An in-depth understanding of how youth participate in the SSF and aquaculture value-chains is, however, obscured by the limited number of studies available on the topic. Information on the participation of young women is scarcer.

While there are youth-specific challenges such as in accessing land, financial services, and other resources as well as their limited knowledge and experience, the study mentions that there could be potential in existing and newly opening up spaces for youth participation in SSF and aquaculture. The aquaculture sector appears to employ a large number of young people in certain contexts, and it is believed that this potential can be further strengthened. It might be possible that moving further down the value chain to areas such as processing and trading may hold opportunities for youth employment. Since young people are commonly associated with being agile, able to take risks, and responsive to new knowledge and technology, increased integration of information and communication technology (ICT) and a focus on entrepreneurship are widely considered as pathways for youth engagement.

Taking stock of these findings, the study recommends that further work is needed to understand better why, where, how (and which) youth engage in SSF and aquaculture, and how these sectors can be made more youth inclusive. In particular, it proposes the following four research pathways:

1. understanding the impact of economic, political and social shifts at global to local levels on youth involvement in SSF and aquaculture

2. analyzing the policy architecture that impacts youth involvement in the SSF and aquaculture sectors

3. understanding the diversity among youth engagement in SSF and aquaculture

4. building a youth-oriented approach to SSF and aquaculture.

This National Agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP) is a nationwide sectoral document accompanying the Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS) to support transformation of the agricultural sector over the 10-year period 2019-2029. The NAIP covers the first five of these years. The NAIP will underpin Kenyan agriculture’s shift towards a commercial and modern agricultural sector that sustainably supports Kenya’s development and 100% food security aspiration.

To this end, there are three main outcomes for which targets are set for the NAIP, they are (i) increasing of small-scale farmer incomes and the number of farmers benefiting from the strategy; (ii) increasing of agricultural GDP and value addition; and (iii) reduction in food-insecure population and a reduction in the cost of food.
The investments proposed by the NAIP cover the following (i) investment in post-harvest handling; (ii) more agricultural research and innovation; (iii) create enabling environment for partnership; (iv) strong intra-African trade policy; (v) increase investment in policy, infrastructure and PPPs; and (vi) resilience building of production systems.
Finally, there are investments in sectors other than agriculture that will support the NAIP implementation and will be borne by other government ministries. They consist of (i) access roads to the new private farms (Ministry of Transport); (ii) food price stabilization (Ministry of Finance); and (iii) electricity grid expansion (Ministry of Energy).

As in the Kenya Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy 2019-2029, the flagships are designed to ensure the inclusion of women, youth, and people with disabilities (PWDs). The youth focused include: Flagship 1 and 7. 

Other specific labour/decent work aspects are not addressed, such as OSH, child labour, workers' rights, wages, etc.

This context analysis provides an overview of Kenya, describing youth employment challenges, policies and programmes in place as well as FAO’s priorities on decent rural youth employment. Finally, it also analyses the country’s migration trends and dynamics.

The document was developed by FAO during the inception phase of its Sida-funded Integrated Country Approach (ICA) for boosting decent jobs for youth in the agri-food system project, currently implemented in Senegal, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and Guatemala.

This context analysis provides an overview of Rwanda, describing youth employment challenges, policies and programmes in place as well as FAO’s priorities on decent rural youth employment. Finally, it also analyses the country’s migration trends and dynamics.

The document was developed by FAO during the inception phase of its Sida-funded Integrated Country Approach (ICA) for boosting decent jobs for youth in the agri-food system project, currently implemented in Senegal, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and Guatemala.

The Join Programme aims to coordinate UN efforts in the country in support of youth development. Main implementating partners are the Ministry of Youth and the Imbuto Foundation.

The project has 3 Outcomes, namely: 1. Young people in Rwanda (boys and girls) have increased access to decent jobs; 2. Young people in Rwanda are  empowered to fully participate in policy making and civic engagement; and 3. Youth in Rwanda have increased utilization of health services and adopt healthy and safe attitudes and behaviours, including in humanitaian settings.

Under the first Outcome, Output 1.1 on "Youth have increase employability/job-related skills and entrepreneurship knowledge" includes a strategy on agriculture value chain development, even though still withouth specific activities or associated indicators. No other specific reference is made to agriculture or rural areas in the project logframe, even though the Joint Programme promotes the expansion and strentghening of the Youth Connekt initiative, which has awarded and supported many young agipreneurs since 2012.

The UNJP is co-managed by UNFPA and UNDP, and among the participating agency are also WHO, UNESCO and UNWOMEN. FAO participated in the development of the programme, and will likely join the joint programme in mid-2019, when resources will be committed through the Integrated Country Approach (ICA) for boosting decent jobs for youth in the agri-food system (GCP/INT/335/MUL), starting in Rwanda in 2019 (2019-22).

The project has a total budget of USD 12 M (already funded), including funded from Koika (8 M USD).

This context analysis provides an overview of Uganda, describing youth employment challenges, policies and programmes in place as well as FAO’s priorities on decent rural youth employment. Finally, it also analyses the country’s child labour and migration trends and dynamics.

The document was developed by FAO during the inception phase of its Sida-funded Integrated Country Approach (ICA) for boosting decent jobs for youth in the agri-food system project, currently implemented in Senegal, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and Guatemala.

This sub-regional strategy developed by ROPPA (Réseau des organisations paysannes et de producteurs de l’Afrique de l’Ouest) has the Objective to contribute to the transformation of family farms through the sustainable empowerment of young rural men and women in the agro-sylvo-pastoral and fisheries sector.

The strategy has 3 Pillars:

1. Rehabilitate and enhance the status of young people;
2. Facilitate young people's access to productive resources;
3. Encourage regional and national policies favorable to the integration / settlement of young people.

Decent work aspects are not explicit in the strategy. Attention is given to both young women and men, even though a dedicated gender strategy is missing. Some reference to access to social protection and insurance is included in the document.

This context analysis provides an overview of Senegal, describing youth employment challenges, policies and programmes in place as well as FAO’s priorities on decent rural youth employment. Finally, it also analyses the country’s migration trends and dynamics.

The document was developed by FAO during the inception phase of its Sida-funded Integrated Country Approach (ICA) for boosting decent jobs for youth in the agri-food system project, currently implemented in Senegal, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and Guatemala.

The TVET Policy, under the coordination of the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES), is to support the creation of needed employable skills and competencies relevant for the national transformational labour market as opposed to just acquisition of educational certificates. It targets all Ugandans in need of skills for employment. The Policy emphasizes a flexible workplace-oriented (practical) delivery and it shifts TVET management from the government led to Public- Private Partnerships (PPP) delivery.

The Specific Objectives of the TVET Policy are to: a) Promote economic relevance of TVET; b) Improve equitable access to TVET and employability of TVET graduates; c) Improve quality of TVET;
d) Promote sustainable TVET financing; and e) Ensure effectiveness in TVET management and organization.

The policy does not put specific emphasis on agriculture, rural aspects or decent work aspects. A dedicated gender strategy seems also missing. The policy targets both Formal, Informal and Non-Formal systems, and (G37) mentions the need for the TVET curricula to include additional courses such as entrepreneurship and enterprise
management. Para 6.2c mentions the need to enhance TVET provision and access to the vulnerable, and disadvantaged persons of all age groups through affirmative action.

The Ministry of Agriculture is part of the multi-ministerial committee at the Permanent Secretary level to give policy direction.

The Cadre stratégique pour la Relance économique et le Développement durable (CREDD 2019- 2023) is Mali's national development strategy with a vision of a well-governed Mali, where social cohesion, peace and security are strengthened by sustainable economic growth inclusive of youth and women.

Its overall objective is: to promote inclusive and sustainable development in favour of poverty and inequality reduction in a united and peaceful Mali, building on the potential and resilience to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. To achieve these objectives, the CREDD 2019- 2023 is structured around 5 strategic axes, namely: (i) Consolidation of democracy and improvement of governance; (ii) Restoration of peace, security and strengthening of living together; (iii) Inclusive growth and structural transformation of the economy; (iv) Protection of the environment and strengthening resilience to climate change; and (v) Development of human capital.

 The third axis, which aims at inclusive growth and structural transformation of the economy, deals with youth employment. Under this axis, global objectives 3.2 and 3.3 deal in particular with job creation in agricultural value chains.

Axis 5 addresses migration issues: Better manage population growth and migration so that it contributes to poverty reduction and sustainable development of the country. The same axis also includes strengthening the participation of women and youth in socio-economic activities, girls' schooling and women's empowerment. The ambition of this axis is to ensure that development efforts translate into quality education, good health, decent jobs, universal access to safe drinking water, with a focus on strengthening social protection for the population, especially young people, women and people with disabilities.

The ‘High Flyers’ programme is implemented by ICCO Uganda (part of the wider global Dutch not-for-profit organisation ICCO Cooperation) in partnership with Youth Business International (YBI) and Enterprise Uganda and is funded by the Argidius Foundation, Government of Uganda, Accenture and Enterprise Uganda. 

It plans to provide 1,700 young high-potential entrepreneurs in Uganda with financial and non-financial support including enterprise training (focused on access to markets, value addition and value chain integrations), ongoing mentoring support, access to finance and additional business development support. In addition to this, the programme aims to help these entrepreneurs increase their income and generate 1,700 new paid jobs. 

As part of the programme, YBI together with the consortium of partners will also establish a cross African Regional Community of Practice. This initiative will act as platform for YBI member organizations such as ICCO Uganda in Africa, enabling them to share knowledge and expertise, products and services and collaborate in tackling the common challenges faced in the region.

This document provides a review of the main findings in the literature on rural youth in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), as well as a systematization of the data available for this population group, addressing the period between 2008 and 2018. The rural youth of the region, although they are a heterogeneous group, face significant disadvantages and have higher levels of poverty than rural adults, as well as urban youth, which places them as a particularly vulnerable group, a situation that is aggravated even more for young woman, indigenous or Afro-descendant. In terms of education, although the gap between urban and rural areas has tended to close, it still persists; worse indicators of educational completion, attendance and access to tertiary education are evidenced.

In terms of employment, rural youth enter the labour market earlier than their urban peers and do so in a greater proportion in low-productivity jobs, with lower income and less social security coverage. Due to this lack of opportunities, rural areas continue to be poles of expulsion for the young population, which presents the highest rates of emigration to urban sectors. Likewise, particularly problematic situations are recognized in some countries of the region regarding digital skills, sexual and reproductive health, and situations of violence. A series of recommendations are made that aim to recognize rural youth as subjects of productive, social and political change in Latin American societies, realizing the importance of having up-to-date information and of including the focus of youth in public policies oriented to rural development.

This project, implemented by GIZ and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), aims to promote rural employment through three different axis:

Labour supply: it targets young people to increase their job opportunities and access modern, market-oriented agricultural qualifications.
Labour demands: trhough MSMEs growth and startups.
Matching: bringing together potential employers and employees trhough a supportive business environment.

The project adopts a gender approach as it takes into consideration the different roles of young men and women and integrates them in the world of work on the basis of their roles and needs.

The implementation of the project in the various countries is expected to contribute to the exchange of good practices and educational experiences.

According to information abvvailable on the project webpage, this project has already reached 29000 young women and men in the four countries.

The objective of the project, co-funded by the EU and implemented by FARM AFRICA in partnership with Twin and  the Ugandan National Young Farmers Association, is to enhance youth employment opportunities by setting up profitablee coffee business.   

The project, implemented in Kanuangu, has three compontents, namely: i. improving agricultural knowledge; ii. creating jobs and building businesses;  and iii. providing young agricultural leaders with training in advocacy.  

Farm Africa is equipping 168 lead farmers with the ability to deliver training in sustainable high-quality coffee production. Lead farmers will use smartphones, preloaded with interactive learning materials, to train 4,800 farmers in sustainable production practices, how to increase yields, when to harvest and post-harvest handling. Also, through tailored training and mentoring, Farm Africa is supporting the growth of businesses at all steps of the coffee production process from selling seedlings to processing the coffee to adding value before it’s sold. The project is linking these enterprises to financial institutions to fund their growth.

Finally, Farm Africa has set up the Kanungu chapter of the Ugandan Young Farmers’ Association. Young leaders have been trained in advocacy, and are carrying out a community-level land access campaign. The project is working with families to set up voluntary land use agreements, which provide young and female family members with land to grow coffee on for an agreed period of time.

This paper analyzes the role of the food economy in West Africa, where the sector is the the biggest employer accounting for 66% of total employment. It considers that while the majority of food economy jobs are in agriculture, off-farm employment in food-related manufacturing and service activities is increasing as the food economy adapts to rapid population growth, urbanisation and rising incomes. In particular, the paper quantifies and describes the structure of employment in the food economy across four broad segments of activities: agriculture, processing, marketing and food-away-from home.

Given the importance of the food economy in generating employment, the paper indicates that the current structure and projected changes in the sector should have major implications for the design of jobs strategies. It looks at policy considerations for designing targeted employment strategies that leverage the links between agricultural productivity, off-farm employment and rural-urban areas and that ensure inclusiveness, particularly for youth and women.

The paper has been developed within the framework of the programme of work and budget of the Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat, which is an independent, international platform, whose Secretariat is hosted at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has contributed additional funding to this work.

The new General Delegation to Women's and Youth Fast Entrepreneurship (DER) was created by the President of the Republic with the objective of financing more than 50,000 entrepreneurs per year and creating 100,000 direct jobs and 200,000 indirect jobs per year.  It is one of the flagship programmes of the Senegalese Government and is mainly financed by national resources.

The DER targets men aged 18 to 40 and women with no age limit. Positive discrimination is also practiced in favour of people with disabilities for whom a 0% interest rate is applied without any age limit. So far, the DER has prioritized the fowwlowing sectors: i. agriculture, livestock and fisheries, ii. crafts and iii. transport.

The DER has four funding modalities: i. the entrepreneurs' fund for economic empowerment (up to 500,000 FCFA, without contribution); ii. the enterprises' fund (investments and / or working capital beyond 500,000 FCFA); iii. the value chain fund ; and. iv. the incubation fund. Across modalities, financing is granted at the maximum rate of 5%.

According to the document of the Plan D'Actions Prioritaires (2014-18 and 2019-23) of the Plan Senegal Emergent (PSE), the preliminary results for its first year of operation (2018) include: nearly 300,000 requests for financing received, representing 361 billion FCFA; 4 partnership agreements signed with the Banque Nationale pour le Développement Economique (BNDE), the Caisse Nationale de Crédit Agricole du Sénégal (CNCAS), the Crédit Mutuel du Sénégal (CMS ) et the Programme d'Appui aux Mutuelles d'Epargne et de Crédit au Sénégal (PAMECAS) to create a national network of nearly 370 distribution points to increase the accessibility of financial products and services throughout the country; 17 billion FCFA already invested in the bank accounts of 15,000 beneficiaries whose accounts were opened by the DER at the BNDE and the CNCAS; the establishment of a decentralized system involving all territorial authorities through the establishment of 45 windows to ensure territorial equity; nearly 50 start-ups financed in the digital sector for a total of one billion FCFA.

Rwanda’s Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation phase 4 (PSTA 4) outlines priority investments in agriculture and estimates required resources for the agriculture sector for the period 2018-2024. It is the implementation plan of the National Agricultural Policy (NAP) and represents the agriculture sector’s strategic document under Rwanda’s National Strategy for Transformation.

The PSTA 4 is designed to achieve four strategic impact areas that are in accordance with the CAADP framework. Namely, A) Increased wealth contribution; B) Increased Economic Opportunity; C) Improved Food Security; D) Increased Resilience. Impact will be measured by 8 specific indicators, including specific ones on: (B2) Number of jobs related to agriculture compared to baseline (gender disaggregated) and (B3) Average income per smallholder farming household (gender disaggregated).

In the PSTA 4 scenario, with significant productivity growth in agriculture, it is projected that 45,000 jobs will be created within the agri-food system (28,000 jobs in agricultural production, while the remaining 17,000 in the agriculture-linked value chains: agro-processing, agro-inputs, trade in agri-products, and hotels& restaurants using agro-products).

Beyond job creation, maximizing the contribution of, and benefits to, women and youth in agriculture is a priority for PSTA 4. Under Priority Area 1: Innovation and Extension, Output 1.2.2 is on Quality Proximity Extension Services to Farmers, Output 1.3.1  on Support to cooperatives and farmer organizations, Output 1.3.3 on Women empowerment and skills development, and Output 1.3.4 is on Youth in agribusiness development. Under Priority Area 2: Productivity and resilience, Output 2.5.2 on Asset building of vulnerable groups and resilience addresses the issue of strengthening the linkages between existing agricultural support and the social protection programmes.

Also, cross-cutting areas of importance under PSTA 4 include nutrition, gender, youth and resilience (climate and environment) (p. 67). Other decent work aspects are not explicitly addressed.

The ILO Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP) for Senegal follows the previous DWCP (2012-16), which was extended until 2018. It aims to face the selected persistent challenges in the world of work, among which: the persistent unemployment levels, especially among the youth, women and rural people; the low employability of young people due to the mismatch between training and the needs of the labor market;  the lack of financial viability of the main institutional structure for promoting youth employment (ANPEJ); and the hypertrophy of the informal sector (p. 12).

As for social protection, the document mentions the poor targeting of the most vulnerable workers, and the limited extension of social protection to workers in the informal economy and the rural economy.

Based on this diagnosis and of national priorities the DWCP adopts two priorities: (i) promoting decent job creation for men and women, and (ii) strengthening and extending social protection. A crosscutting priority is the transition from a largely dominant informal sector that is disrespectful of the principles of decent work to the formal sector. (p. 13)

Expected Outcomes that are particularly relevant for decent rural employment include: Outcome 3 (under priority i) Measures promoting employability, the promotion of MSMEs and the integration of young people in rural and urban areas are put in place (which includes Output 4 on the development of a gender-sensitive national strategy for rural youth employment); and Outcome 8 (under priority ii) OSH and working conditions are enhanced in private and public sectors, as well as in the informal and agriculture sectors.

The ILO DWCP for Rwanda has identified the following priorities: i. Employment promotion for youth, women and PWD; ii. Social Protection for all; iii. Promotion of social dialogue and iv. Rights at work.

Under the first priority, focus is on TVET, skills and enterprise development and scaling-up public works. Under Strategy 2 “Development of demand driven employability skills”, agriculture and natural resources are retained among the high priority sectors. Under strategy 3 “Enhancing entrepreneurship and enterprise development”, the DWCP mentions support to Community Processing Centers (CPC) (p. 20). Under Strategy 7 “Enhance women’s participation in productive employment”, the DWCP includes supporting women in agriculture activities.

Under the second priority on social protection, Outcome 2.1 is on Extended coverage of social security for workers in the informal sector (even though without specific mention of agriculture); while Outcome 2.2 is on Extended coverage of social protection schemes for most vulnerable groups of citizens (even though without specific mention of agriculture or rural areas).

As for priorities 3 and 4 on Social dialogue and Rights at work, there is no explicit focus on agriculture and rural areas. Strategy 3 “Support policy design and enforcement of a minimum guaranteed wage” will apply to both formal and informal sectors. Outcome 3.4 is on “Improve safety and hath conditions at work and compliance with relevant OSH legislation.

The government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (MoALFI), is implementing the Enable Youth Kenya programme.

ENABLE Youth Kenya is one of AfDB’s ENABLE Youth Initiatives under the Bank’s Feed Africa Strategy for Agricultural Transformation in Africa. The objective of the programme is to create business opportunities and decent employment for young women and men along priority agricultural value chains in Kenya through the provision of entrepreneurship skills, funding and business linkages.

The programme components include: (1) Establishing an enabling Environment for Youth Empowerment in Agribusiness through: Awareness creation and promotion of agriculture as a business; Providing Access to land and financial services for youth agribusiness ventures; Upgrading of Youth Agribusiness Incubation Centres (YABICs); (2) Entrepreneurship and agribusiness incubation: through promoting Agribusiness Incubation and Acceleration Activities; and Supporting Business plans and loan applications; (3) Financing Youth Agribusinesses through operationalizing risk sharing & financing mechanism (RSFM).

The targeted youth beneficiaries will fall in two categories: i. unemployed graduates who have completed post-secondary education (incubation); and ii. graduate youths who are already engaged in agribusiness but have no or limited access to commercial loan to grow their businesses (acceleration).

The programme is expected to train and empower 2,080 Agricultural Entrepreneurs (Agripreneurs), out of which 1,200 agribusinesses are expected to be generated. Each of the agribusinesses is expected to employ on average five other support workers, generating about 8, 000 direct jobs (including at least 4,000 for young women) in the first five years of the programme. The programme cost is estimated at UA 25.77 million, of which AfDB is financing UA 21.28 million or 82.58 % and the Government of Kenya will contribute UA 4.49 million or 17.42%.

The Kenya UNDAF 2018-2022 articulates the commitment of the United Nations (UN) to support the people of Kenya realize their development agenda. The UNDAF is aligned with Kenya Vision 2030 and national priorities as outlined in the the Medium-Term Plan III, the “Big Four Agenda” and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The UNDAF has three Strategic Priority Areas that are aligned to the three MTP III Pillars (Political, Social and Economic) of the Government’s Vision 2030 : 1) Transformational Governance encompassing respect for the rule of law, improved security, and effective implementation of devolution, 2) Human capital development comprised of education, training and learning, health, multi-sectoral HIV and AIDS response, access to safe water and sanitation, social protection, gender based violence and violence against children, access to adequate housing and strengthening capacities for addressing disaster and emergencies, and 3) Sustainable and inclusive growth focusing on a competitive and sustainable economic growth that is increasingly resilient, green, inclusive, equitable, and creating decent jobs and quality livelihoods for all.

Under Strategic priority II, Outcome 2.6 is on Social Protection, and prevention and response to violence against women and children. Among the strategies listed under this outcome are the following two: Enhancement and scaling of complementary models which link social protection and other outcomes related to education, health, nutrition, food security, child protection and livelihood; and Improved inter-and intra-sectoral coordination of social protection both at national and county level.

Strategic Priority III includes 3 outcomes, namely: 1) By 2022, productivity in services sectors, agriculture, manufacturing, extractives, blue economy and their value chains increased; 2) By 2022, marginalized vulnerable groups (among which youth) and regions in Kenya have increased access to decent jobs, income and entrepreneurship opportunities and 3) By 2022, people in Kenya benefit from sustainable natural resource management and resilient green economy.

In addition, the UN will address youth as a specific priority group by mainstreaming youth perspectives and relevant action across all UNDAF outcome areas. The UN will promote an enabling environment that recognizes the rights of youth, and enhance meaningful engagement of youth as essential actors in civic and political decision-making processes at all levels (p.22).

The UNDAF will mainstream the principle of leave no one behind (LNOB), and deliberate interventions will be undertaken to ensure equitable social development focusing on the marginalized and vulnerable groups including (p.23) : Women;  Youth; Children; children under 5 years of age ; children with disabilities ; out of school children, particularly girls and children living in marginalized Arid and Semi- Arid Lands (ASAL) counties and urban informal settlements as well as refugees; Pregnant and lactating women ; Persons with disabilities ; Key populations at higher risk of HIV infection; Refugees ; Populations living in urban informal settlements ; Rural communities that lack access to basic services such as drinking water and sanitation services;  Nomadic populations and those living in ASALs/areas of water and food scarcity.

Other specific decent rural employment aspects, such as child labour in agriculture, occupational safety and health, rural migration, or working conditions in agri-food sectors, are not explicitely addressed in the document.

The overall objective of the policy is to develop a productive agrosilvipastoral sector that ensures food security and is more market-oriented, while creating decent jobs, and based on sustainable modes of production and consumption. In terms of impacts, the policy aims at: i) reducing by 50% the proportion of people vulnerable to food and nutrition insecurity, (ii) developing an agrosilvipastoral sector that is competitive and generates at 267 500 jobs by 2027, (iii) bringing below 35% the incidence of poverty in rural areas; (iv) inverting the tendency of natural resources degradation and (v) doubling the commercialization rate of agricultural products, while increasing value addition.

To achieve these objectives, three (3) strategic Axes have been defined: 1: Food and nutrition security, resilience of vulnerable populations; 2: Competitiveness of the agrosilvipastoral, fishery and wildlife sectors and access to markets; and 3: Sustainable management of natural resources.

The strategic objectives (SO) linked to these Axes are the following: (SO 1.1): Increasing the productivity and agricultural production and reduce harvest and post-harvest losses (including emphasis on access to land); (SO 1.2): Contributing to food and nutrition security; (SO 2.1) Developing agrosilvipastoral value chains (including emphasis on POs and TVET, especially the training of young producers, with a dedicated indicator under Outcome 2.1.2); (SO 2.2) Improving access to finance; (SO 3.1) Preserving and protecting forests and wildlife resources; (SO 3.2) Creating a secure and favorable environment for sustainable animal production; and (SO 3.3) Contributing to the integrated management of water resources.

While Decent Jobs are a priority for the policy, a specific strategy on how to promote these aspects is missing. Aspects of social protection, working conditions and workers rights, OSH and child labour are not addressed. Gender equality is promoted, including in the log frame, but without specific targets.

The Kenya Third Medium Term Plan (MTP III) 2018-2022 succeeds the Second MTP (MTP II) 2013-2017”. As with its predecessor, this Plan has been aligned with the Jubilee Manifesto 2017, with particular focus on implementing policies, programmes and projects designed to achieve the Government “Big Four” initiatives : Industrialization, Manufacturing and Agro-processing; Affordable Housing; Food and Nutrition Security; and Universal Health Coverage. Eight (8) priority Sectors have been identified to drive economic growth. These are: Agriculture and Livestock; Manufacturing; Tourism; Trade; Business Process Outsourcing; Financial Services; Oil, Gas and Mineral Resources; and the Blue Economy. (p. xxii)

Already in the Foreword, the MTP III indicates that Employment creation is at the heart of the President Second Administration. The MTP III aims to create at least 6.5 million jobs, 1.3 million new jobs per year (p.xxi). The MTP III employment creation strategy includes: Implement the “Big Four” initiatives; Support MSMEs; Facilitate establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and industrial parks;  Support skills training and internship programmes for the youth; and Initiate labour intensive public works programme including re-afforestation, environmental waste management and other green projects (p.13). In particular, the manufacturing sector will expand to increase its contribution to GDP from 9.2 per cent in 2017 to 15 per cent and agro-processing to at least 50 per cent of total agricultural production. [...] Section 3.6 is on Labour and Employment. The section includes among the challenges "Inadequate up-to-date data on child labour" and "Inadequate framework to regulate and manage labour migration". The section also list priority programmes, among which programmes on employment (including development and implementation of a Pre-Departure Training and Orientation Programme for prospective migrants and development of a framework for return and re-integration of returnees), on social security (not specifically for agriculture or rural areas) and on the improvement of occupational safety and health standards in MSEs, manufacturing, agriculture and construction sectors.

According to the MTP III, (p. XXiii) Gender equality, empowerment of women, youth, and persons living with disability and other vulnerable groups as well as full realization of human rights will continue to be a priority during the Plan period. The Women Enterprise Fund will increase loan disbursement from a cumulative Ksh.10.4 billion to Ksh.25.7 billion targeting 2,157,653 beneficiaries by 2022. In addition, the number of women trained on entrepreneurship skills will be increased from 956,493 to 1,632,806. The Uwezo Fund will be scaled up by Ksh.2.5 billion to cover additional 500,000 beneficiaries. Capacity building will also be undertaken to 25,000 groups reaching 500,000 individuals. The number of Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO) registered enterprises will be increased to 210,000 to ensure full access to 30 per cent of government procurement opportunities. Section 5.5 details the priorities for Gender, Youth and Vulnerable Groups (the only specific rural / agri-programme listed is the  School of agribusiness, which will aim at developing abilities of students for resourceful and innovative agricultural production).

The PSDYES 2018-2024 has the overall goal increasing the competitiveness of the Rwandan economy, with focus on key value chains. Para. 4.2 indicates that Productive  employment  creation  potential should be among the criteria for VC selection: The  VC  must  be  labour-intensive  and demonstrate  clear  potential  to  create  significant  numbers  of  productive jobs  throughout the various stages of the value chain, especially low-skilled jobs and jobs for women and youth. Based on the selected criteria, the PSDYES prioritizes, among others, the horticulture value chain, together with agroprocessing, namely for meat and dairy, milling products, sugar, soy beans and Irish potato.

The strategy has the following Pillars: Pillar 1, Promoting Competitive Value Chains Made in Rwanda, including through Capital access to start-ups and growing SMEs for youth in the VCs (para 5.1.4); Pillar 2: Increasing Firm-level Productivity and Enhancing Diversification, including through Employment Promotion through Skills Development and Entrepreneurship (para 5.2.1.); and Technology, Innovation,Standardsand High-Growth Entrepreneurship (para 5.2.2); Pillar 3. An Ecosystem Approach to Increasing Exports, and Pillar 4: Streamlining the Regulatory Environment and Sharing Information.

The strategy does not have an explicit rural focus and aspects of decent work are not addressed. Achieving gender equality and family promotion is mentioned under the crosscutting area, together with access for people with disabilities (PwDs) and social inclusion, and green growth.

This study was commissioned by UNCDF and realized by Dalberg Advisors to assess the financial needs of young people in the Senegal groundnut basin.

According to the study, whatever their profile, the young people interviewed mentioned that they faced four main financial and non-financial challenges that had an impact on the achievement of their socio-economic ambitions: (i) a low level of financial literacy; (ii) the geographic remoteness of financial institutions; (iii) conditions deemed difficult to fulfill in order to access certain financial services, and (iv) social obligations limiting the ability of young people to save, take a credit, etc. Also, the study concluded that young people use informal rather than formal mechanisms to meet their financial needs. Insurance is the least used service among the young people encountered.

The study reccomended that in addition to the classic portfolio of financial products and services, new products could be considered to better meet the needs of young targets, such as micro-lease products for the acquisition of agricultural machinery and micro-insurance for livestock. In terms of non-financial services, trainings are needed in financial literacy, micro-enterprise or commercial farm management, or even technical agricultural training.

The Política Pública de Agricultura Campesina, Familiar y Comunitaria (ACFC), under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, is organized around the following axes: 1. Comprehensive rural extension and capacity building (including a priority on young rural extensionists); 2. Rural Public Goods (Rural education, and Water and rural basic sanitation); 3. Access and land tenure 4. Incentives and financing; 5. Sustainable production systems; 6. Short marketing circuits (including local agri-food public purchases); 7. Social Marketing; 8. Non-agricultural productive diversification (including a priority on Rural tourism and sustainable use of biodiversity; 9. Incidence and participation; and 10. Information Systems.

While the policy recognizes the overall importance of family and community farming for employment generation, it does not include a dedicated strategy for employment and decent work. Nevertheless, several actions directly link to employment objectives, namely: on youth engagement (as extensionists for instance – lineamiento 1.2), on vocational education for employability in territorial agri-food value chains (lineamiento 2.1), on rural financial services (lineamiento 4.1) or on rural tourism and biodiversity (lineamiento 8.1).

Rural youth and women are priority groups. Aspects of child labour, working conditions and occupational safety and health are not addressed. Aspects of formalization are taken into account in terms of access to land, registration of organizations and marketing agreements.

The overarching goal of the UN Support Plan for the Sahel is to scale up efforts to accelerate shared prosperity and lasting peace in the region. The Support Plan is not a new strategy; rather it is an instrument to foster coherence and coordination for greater efficiency and results delivery under the United Nations Integrated Strategy for the Sahel (UNISS) framework, which is at the center of the international response in the Sahel, in accordance with Security Council Resolution 239.

The Support Plan is built around six priority areas, which are: i. Cross-border cooperation; ii. Prevention and sustaining peace; iii. Inclusive growth; iv. Climate action; v. Renewable energy, and vi. Women and youth empowerment. For each of the six priority areas, an average of 3-5 strategic interventions is identified.

The document (p.8) lists the risks to a Prosperous and Peaceful Sahel, including endemic poverty, inequality (including gender inequality), deep exclusions and human rights abuses; and high rate of youth unemployment.
Under priority 3, see Strategic intervention 3.1: Promote economic growth, decent jobs and sustainable livelihoods with a special emphasis on women and youth, through vocational training, technological innovation, skills and entrepreneurship development; and 3.3. Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems, including cash transfers and social safety measures, for the population living in extreme poverty.

Under priority 4, see 4.1 Build the resilience and adaptive capacities of rural women and their communities to the impact of climate change, empower them and contribute to social cohesion, through regional programs such as the Climate-Smart Agriculture and Resilient Pastoralism Programme; 4.2 Promote land use planning and better governance of land and water to prevent and manage conflicts between farmers and pastoralists; and 4.3 Support national capacities to protect marine and coastal ecosystems, with emphasis on monitoring control, surveillance of illegal fishing and other infrastructure to support effective management of fish stock.

Under priority 6, see Strategic intervention 6.1: Increase the number of women and youth participating in leadership positions at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life; and 6.2 Promote legislation to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services and inheritance, in accordance with national laws.                             
Even though the importance of the rural economy is recognized, there is no explicit reference to decent rural employment or employment in agriculture in the Strategic interventions. No strategic intervention is mapped against SDG8. Child labour issues are not addressed.  

The World Youth Report on “Youth and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, prepared by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), considers the role the 2030 Agenda can play in enhancing youth development efforts and examines how evidence-based youth policies can help accelerate youth-related objectives. The main conclusion of the report is that for youth-related development objectives to be realized, much more is needed in terms of financial support, data collection and analysis, agreed standards of measurement, and targeted interventions.

Chapter 3 is on youth employment and Chapter 4 on the nexus between education and employment. While there is no specific focus on decent employment promotion for youth in rural areas, the report emphasizes several specific challenges faced by the rural youth. On p. 1, the report indicates that "disparities within and between countries in educational participation among youth are stark, with female gender, poverty, rurality, disability, and migrant/refugee status all being major determinants of disadvantage". Further, on p. 71, the report emphasizes the fact that "while stand-alone youth policies target youth-specific issues and challenges, the mainstreaming of youth policies and priorities into the sectoral policies of line ministries can contribute to more holistic youth development and may reduce the likelihood that vulnerable and marginalized youth will fall through the cracks in policy and programme implementation. Rural youth, for example, are often marginalized and hard to reach, and ensuring that the challenges they face—including limited access to education and broadband technology—are addressed in a country’s livelihood/rural policy will increase the visibility of this youth demographic". Among the succesful initiatives listed, some directly targeted the rural youth, such as the Programa Jóvenes Rurales Emprendedores in Colombia (p.60) and the CODEPHIL initiative on digital literacy in the Philippines (p. 107).

The FAO Refugee and Host Community Response Roadmap (2018-2020) complements the Refugee and Host Population Empowerment Strategic Framework (ReHoPE), which is the strategic document guiding Government of Uganda and UN interventions in support of refugees and host communities, in describing how FAO will use its comparative advantage to support refugee and host communities to achieve sustainable resilience and food and nutrition security. The Roadmap is built on three pillars, namely I. Livelihoods stabilization; II. Socio-economic empowerment; and III. Enabling  environment.

Under Pillar II, there are three Outputs, all very conducive to decent rural employment promotion:

Output 2.1: Market-oriented agriculture production reinforced (where the document indicates that youth-focused value-chain development interventions will be included in favour of youth engagement in agribusiness for increased job creation, and specific cross-cutting issues will be central to FAO support, notably child labour p. 8);

Output 2.2 – Agri-businesses strengthened;

Output 2.3 – Agro-enterprise and employment opportunities strengthened (intentional targeting of youth and other extremely vulnerable populations) (where the document indicates that to reach youth, the main entry point will be JFFLS groups and existing common-interest groups; also, under this strategy, FAO’s catalytic agricultural champions model will be scaled-up; specific vulnerable groups targeted include people living with disabilities, chronically ill, elderly, pregnant and lactating women and school drop-outs (adolescents aged 14 – 17), p. 9-10).

In addition, attention to social protection is mentioned under Pillar I (p. 8 "FFS are  an important platform through which FAO will support linkages with other technical humanitarian and development actors (e.g. UNHCR, UNICEF and UNFPA) to promote topics of social protection to address gender and social barriers that reinforce marginalization and inequalities between different populations") and Pillar III (p.12 "FAO will support line ministries to integrate social protection needs through data-driven planning and policy decision-making as well as best practices and lessons learned, to reinforce coherence between agriculture and social protection"). 

Finally, the document indicates that special attention will be given to cross-cutting issues (e.g. conflict, women’s empowerment, gender, accountability and gender-based violence). (p. 7)

This strategy presents a synthetic review of FAO's major opportunities and challenges in the subregion. It is based on (i) the needs expressed by the countries; (ii) trends in the agro-food sector at local, national, regional and global levels, (iii) International Agreements' provisions; and (iv) FAO's comparative advantage.
The strategy proposes a coordinated approach to FAO's interventions for sustainable food and agriculture that responds to the needs and expectations of the countries concerned.
Relevant to the promotion of employment and decent work in rural areas are the actions aimed at strengthening the institutional mechanisms to promote youth employment, women' s empowerment and gender equality (under the thematic axis 3. Diversification and Economic, Agricultural and Social Development) and at supporting the development of professional organizations and cooperatives at national and sub-regional level, as well as supporting to agri-entrepreneurs especially youth (under thematic axis 7. Strengthening of professional organizations).

The AgriFI Kenya Challenge Fund is a 18,000,000 EUR initiative by the European Union to support productive and market-integrated smallholder agriculture through the provision of financial support to agri-enterprises. The programme is funded by the European Union and co -funded by SlovakAid and is implemented in parallel with a planned European Investment Bank (EIB) facility provided to local banks.  Self Help Africa and Imani Development Limited are the Fund Managers for the programme. The Challenge Fund is part of the wider AgriFI programme in a financing agreement between the European Commission and the Government of Kenya under the 11th EDF signed in 2017 to unlock, accelerate and leverage investments within value chains. 

By supporting and enabling at least 50 agri-enterprises to increase their turnover (by at least 25%), the initiative expects to increase incomes and food security for at least 100,000 smallholders/pastoralists and create a minimum of 10,000 net equivalent jobs. The financial support will require match funding from the agri-enterprise making the application. The match funding may be through own resources available to the agrienterprise or may be sourced through external finance such as credit or external equity investment.

In line with AgriFI Kenya Challenge Fund objectives, agri-enterprises are considered for funding based on a set of weighted criteria including its potential for positive impact on smallholder farmers. The specific areas for assessment include: a) Economic Drivers/Viability (e.g. business revenue growth and market potential);  b) Social impact (e.g. : smallholder farmers and pastoralists’ inclusion, job creation, food security and improved nutrition as well as inclusion of gender and youth in the proposed project); and c) Environmental impact.  Additional eligibility criteria for the agri-enterprises are: the business must have at least three years of uninterrupted operations; must have a yearly turnover in the range of EUR 200,000 to EUR 50,000,000; must have an asset base of less than EUR 43,000,000.

This ILO project, funded by the Netherland Government, has the overarching goal to accelerate the elimination of child labour in Africa, through targeted actions in selected supply chains in Egypt, Côte d'Ivoire, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, and Uganda.
Country interventions under the project can be found at this page. In Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria, ACCEL Africa focuses on Cocoa and Gold; in Egypt on cotton, textile and ready-made garment; in Malawi and Uganda on tea and coffee; and in Mali on traditional gold panning and cotton.
See here a study conducted under the project which presents examples of campaigns focusing on Africa, but also on consumers and companies in Europe that buy products possibly made by children in Africa. 

The project is implemented in partnership with the African Union, UN agencies, Governments, workers and employers' organizations, among others, and has an overall budget of 23 500 000 EUR.

Launched in 2018, the ‘Farming is Cool Rwanda’ campaign is promoted by Balton Rwanda, a subsidiary of the Balton CP group, a British multinational company with a strong presence across Africa. It is aimed at changing youth mindset towards agribusiness while empowering youth with the technology, knowledge, skills, support, and financing to engage in modern agribusiness.

Balton Rwanda aims to emulate the success of the ‘Farming is Cool’ campaign initiated in Kenya in 2011 and implemented successfully during the last 4 years by its sister company Amiran Kenya.

In Uganda, Balton Rwanda partnered on this initiative with the Government of Rwanda (Ministries of Youth, Agriculture and BDF) and The Private Sector Federation. During the launch, a schools’ competition was announced, in the format of a call on University, TVET/Polytechnique and secondary school students to provide a viable business idea for a Balton Farmer’s Kit and win a greenhouse and entrepreneurship and work readiness training from EDC/Kazi Konze (a project under USAID). 

Information on progress seems not available online. Also information is not available on the extent of decent work inclusion and on the scope of the initiative.

The objective of the NAP is to contribute effectively to the elimination of child labour in all its forms by 2025 with emphasis on the provision of inclusive social protection for targeted children and their families.

The context analysis (p.19) points to the fact that: the incidence of child labour in Egypt seems to be much higher in rural than in urban parts of the country; and that the most common types of hazardous child labour in Egypt are in agriculture (63%), followed by mining, construction and manufacturing (18.9%) and the services sector (17.6%).

The strategy of the NAP is based on the following six strategic issues:

1. Improving knowledge of child labour (including by. 1.1.1.7 Conducting sectoral studies on hazardous work for taking adequate protective measures (agriculture, quarries, begging and vending in the streets, domestic work, etc.) for children above the minimum age for work);

2. Strengthening and harmonizing the legislative and institutional framework in combating child labour (including by 2.1.2.1 Reviewing all legislations related to child labour for identification of gaps with specific mention of agriculture and, 2.1.2.7 Expansion of labour inspectors mission to intervene effectively in the prohibition of domestic child labour and agriculture labour, and 2.1.2.8. Criminalization of individuals and establishments employing children under the age of 15 in hazardous works or works inappropriate to their age such as spraying pesticides to combat agricultural pests, and 2.11. Reconsideration of ratification of ILO Conventions relevant to child labour, in particular: Convention No. 184 16 on Safety and Health in Agriculture (2001); 

3. Strengthening monitoring, protection and prevention of child labour through building the technical capacity of concerned entities (including 3.1.1.5. rural leaders);

4.  Consolidating prevention and protection in combating child labour (including 4.1.1.4 by waiving all school fees and 4.1.2.5 by designing educative programmes compliant to conditions of children in rural areas and children with disability);

5. Strengthening technical education, vocational training and apprenticeship in combating child labour; and

6. Strengthening awareness and social mobilization to combat child labour (including 6.1.1.10 by starting a door to door campaign for households through the rural social workers and NGOs, and 6. 1.1.11 by activating the role of agricultural extension in raising community awareness on children’s education and sparing children the risks of working in agriculture and spraying pesticides).

Uganda’s Demographic Dividend (DD) Roadmap, developed by the National Population Council. outlines the interventions needed to harness the dividend and achieve Vision 2040 targets.

Goal of the Roadmap is to guide MDAs and Local Governments to prioritize and integrate DD interventions into respective development plans. Specific objectives are: 1. To transform the population age structure to reduce dependency ratio; 2. To promote a healthy and productive labor force. ; 3. To promote a well-educated, skilled, productive, entrepreneurial and innovative workforce; 4. To strengthen investments in high job multiplier industries; and 5. To strengthen service delivery across all sectors.

On Education (Result area 3), focus is on TVET, across sectors (including agriculture) and entrepreneurial skills in general. On employment (result area 4), first key strategic intervention is about investing in value chain analysis and addition in agriculture in order to increase competitiveness in the regional and international markets; second is about improving agricultural productivity (with focus on mechanization, irrigation and modern agriculture, but no specific attention to sustainable agriculture); third is about strengthening local content driven exports to create better employment, fourth on promoting access to financial resources for businesses; fifth on promoting local tourism and maximizing international tourism; and sixt on promoting innovation, mentorship and support to entrepreneurs and link people to the job market.

Children and youg women and men are a target group, with actions on childhood development and keeping children in school or preventing teenage pregnancies, but no specific child labour attention.

Funding and financial support was provided by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). A National Demographic Dividend Steering Committee was established, comprised of the National Planning Authority, Ministry of Local Government, Uganda Bureau of Statistics, Makerere University (Department of Population Studies), UNFPA and the National Population Council.

The Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE) with support from the African Development Bank (AfDB) and Nordic Development Fund (NDF) is piloting the Empowering Novel Agri-Business-Led Employment for Youth in Uganda’s Agriculture (ENABLE Youth). ENABLE Youth is a programme concept developed by AfDB and implemented across Africa to focus on young entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector and promote the start-up and growth of youth-led agro-enterprises in member countries.

In Uganda, it is implemented within the 5 districts of Kasese, Butaleja, Kween, Oyam and Nebbi that are host to the irrigation scheme sites covered as part of the Farm Income Enhancement and Forestry Conservation Programme: Project-2 (FIEFOC -2).

The Atlas, developed by CEPAL and FAO, examines the main aspects and salient features of migration from countries in Central America using maps, infographics and text.
It considers the main migration destinations, the transit stage and the places from where return migration is initiated: Mexico and the United States.

“Building Inclusive Agricultural Technologies for Young People” is a report by Mastercard Foundation Youth Think Tank that analyses the ways in which agricultural technologies and innovations are supported and how they reach rural young women and men.

The research collected data through focus groups discussions and semi-structured interviews from seven countries, namely Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The research involved 215 respondents in total, including both rural and urban young men and women (aged 15-24), as well as older respondents (aged 25-35) with the purpose of understanding challenges and coping strategies in terms of agricultural technologies among youth working in agri-food systems (both those who have designed or adapted technologies-the innovators- and those who have begun using them-the adopters).

The research identified the following areas for improvement  1. Agricultural technologies should be tailored to optimize opportunities for young people — particularly rural young people — to maximize their on-farm activities and facilitate their entry into off-farm activities; 2. To ideate, young people need a resourced space where they can share ideas and access mentorship; 3. The dissemination of information through inappropriate channels, such as social media, is a barrier to the uptake of technologies at scale; 4. Young people have unaddressed gaps in the skills required to operate agricultural technologies; 5. Both adopters and innovators are constrained by inadequate accessible financial products to invest specifically in agricultural technologies — with respect to both ideation and uptake. Gender aspects are assessed for all areas.

The report concludes with a list of calls to action (p.38).

The project aims to contribute to dialogue, capacity development and the development of initiatives focused on rural youth; promoting their inclusion and influence in decision-making spaces at territorial, national and regional levels, in cooperation with public institutions in the agriculture, rural development and youth sector, as well as with civil society organizations and development cooperation. In so doing, the project implements the Estrategia Centroamericana de Desarrollo Territorial Rural (ECADERT).

The project is hosted by the Sistema de Integración Centroamericana (SICA), technically supported by Procasur and funded by IFAD (2,500,000 USD).

The UNDAP II outlines how the UN will support the national development agenda of Rwanda for the period 2018-2023. The plan will be delivered by the United Nations system, with all agencies working together under the umbrella of ‘One UN’. The UNDAP II is mapped on to the same three Strategic Priority Areas that constitute the Government’s National Strategy for Transformation (Economic Transformation, Social Transformation and Transformational Governance).The overarching principle of the UNDAP II is to leave no one behind, and it is underpinned by a human rights-based approach.

Under the section on Economic Transformation, there is a section on Decent work and employment (p. 31) : The UN continues to work with private and public institutions to contribute to creating decent work and employment, foster skills development, empower and promote entrepreneurship and financial inclusion for all.  A key area of focus entails the provision of technical assistance to enhance the engagement of the private sector and financial institutions to increase the accessibility of traditional and innovative models and sources of finance for women, thereby implementing gender equality considerations into their business. Assistance will be provided to increase potential livelihood opportunities and off-farm jobs to rural men and women farmers living in poverty. Under the section on Social Transformation, there is a section on Social protection (p.35): The UN system in Rwanda will reinforce the national social protection system to effectively deliver shock-responsive, child-, gender- and nutrition-sensitive safety nets for vulnerable families in target areas and ensure socio-economic inclusion and shelter for vulnerable groups. Specifically, the UN will promote expansion of the scope of the public works component of VUP. It will do this by focusing on assets that build resilience of local communities to climate-related shocks. The UN’s cooperation will focus on: the poorest households with children, particularly those aged under five; women-headed households in poverty; and households affected by natural disasters and refugees. Towards expanding coverage, the UN will provide technical and financial assistance to scale up child and gender-sensitive social protection options in urban and rural areas.

The UNDAP II has 6 Outcomes, namely: Outcome 1: By 2023 people in Rwanda benefit from more inclusive, competitive and sustainable economic growth that generates decent work and promotes quality livelihoods for all; Outcome 2: By 2023 Rwandan institutions and communities are more equitably, productively and sustainably managing natural resources and addressing climate change; Outcome 3: By 2023, people in Rwanda, particularly the most vulnerable, enjoy increased and equitable access to quality education, health, nutrition and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services; Outcome 4: By 2023, people in Rwanda, particularly the most vulnerable, have increased resilience to both natural and man-made shocks for a life free from all forms of violence and discrimination; Outcome 5: By 2023, people in Rwanda benefit from enhanced gender equality, justice, human rights, peace and security; Outcome 6: By 2023, people in Rwanda participate more actively in democratic and development processes and benefit from transparent and accountable public and private sector institutions that develop evidence-based policies and deliver quality services.

Under Outcome 1, see Output 1.1: Institutions and communities, especially small-scale farmers, rural youth and women in target areas have the requisite technical capacities and inputs for innovative and sustainable agriculture production and productivity. (FAO, UNWOMEN, WFP, IFAD); Output 1.2: Farmers, especially youth and women in target districts have acquired increased skills and knowledge for agribusiness and food processing for selected value chains. (FAO, WFP, UNWOMEN, UNCTAD, UNIDO, ITC, UNCDF); Output 1.4: Private and public institutions have the requisite technical and financial capacity to create decent employment, foster skills development, empower and promote entrepreneurship and financial inclusion for all, especially women and youth. (ILO, UNDP, IOM, UN Women, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNCDF, UN HABITAT, UNHCR ITC,UNFPA, UNCTAD).

See also Output  4.1: The national social protection system effectively delivers child, gender and nutrition-sensitive safety nets for vulnerable families in target areas and ensures socioeconomic inclusion and shelter for vulnerable groups. (UNICEF, IOM, WFP, FAO, UNHCR, UN HABITAT). Specific linkages are also mentioned between social protection and agriculture.

A summary of UNDAP II is available here.

The PNIASAN 2018-2022, under the responsability of the Ministère de l’Agriculture et du Développement Rural (MADR), is the national translation of the Common Agricultural Policy of the Community of West African States (ECOWAS). As the main agriculture investment instrument of the PSE, PNIASAN focuses on (i) sustainable growth in agro-silvo-pastoral and fisheries production and productivity, (ii) the development of agro-food and agro-industrial value chains, which are contractual, inclusive, competitive and oriented towards national, regional and international demand, (iii)improving the food security, nutritional status, resilience and social protection of vulnerable households, (iv) improving the business environment, governance, financing of the agrosilvopastoral and fisheries sector, food security and nutrition, and (v) strengthening human capital.

The total cost of PNIASAN is estimated at approximately 22,465 milliards FCFA. Most of its resources is intended to improve and secure the productive base (42.57%) and increase productivity and output (34.08%). The rest (14%) is dedicated to the development of agri-food and agri-industrial value chains, and improving food security, nutrition and resilience, as well as the strengthening of human capital. Agriculture absorbs 56,62% of the budget against 10,15% for livestock, 9.25% for fisheries and 7% for the environment. Nearly 10% of the resources go to rural infrastructure.

The direct beneficiaries of PNIASAN are all the populations working in the agro-sylvo-pastoral and fisheries sector, with focus on: (i) small producers living on their family farms; and (ii) their grassroots organizations and associations; in particular groups integrating women and young people.

Relevant results from a decent rural employment perspective are the following: Result 3.2. Promoting inclusive value chains, with high potential in terms of nutrition and job creation for young people and women; Result 4.3. Strentghening social protection for vulnerable household; Result 6.1. Strengthening skills of people working in the agro-sylvo-pastoral and fisheries sector, and food security and nutrition; Result 6.3. Promoting youth employment in the agro-sylvo-pastoral and fisheries sector; and Result 6.4. Empowering women working in farming, livestock and agro-processing of agriculture and fishieries products.

Under 6.3, the PNIASAN includes 3 projects, namely: 6.3.1. Project to promote youth entrepreneurship in agriculture, which includes 3 components (i) targeted training, (ii) set up, and (iii) coaching; 6.3.2. Project to develop incubation centres in agricultural value chains for young people; and 6.3.3. Project to set up a youth entrepreneurship fund in the agricultural sector.

While job creation is an expected impact of the PNIASAN, annual expected jobs are not quantified. Also, beyond social protection and job creation, other aspects of the decent work agenda are not addressed.

The project, funded by EuropeAid, is implemented by a consortium of ICCO, WASTE, APEJ, led by SNV. The project aims to train 8,620 young people, including 2,586 women and 1,293 returnees and create 6,472 jobs. To do so, the project aims to develop value chains in the horticultural, agri-food, waste management and utilitarian crafts in the regions of Malian regions of Koulikoro, Kayes, Gao and the district of Bamako.

SNV uses its Opportunities for Youth Employment (OYE) model to train young people on basic life skills and works with local partners, companies and technical training institutes to provide technical and vocational skills training. Finally, the project aims to facilitate the development of Urban Youth Entrepreneurship Hubs in Gao and Bamako.

Resources of the projects, including manuals for youth trainings, are available here (in FR).

This book is a product of the network of the International Center for Development and Decent Work (ICDD). The ICDD is a global multidisciplinary network of eight partner universities on four continents with its head office at the University of Kassel (Germany). It is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

The book aims at filling the knowledge gap on working conditions in agriculture. It is divided into three broad areas, namely: measurement of decent work deficit (Chapter 1-6), drivers of the decent work deficit (Chapter 7-11), and the strategies for overcoming the deficits (Chapter 12-15).

IMSAR is a DFID-funded programme which adopts a market development approach to increase the income of poor households by supporting market actors (including the poor) to adopt new practices (business models, products, services, rules, behaviours and norms) that improve the way markets work for the poor.

The market actors include: poor men and women, firms, government agencies, business associations, financial institutions, and NGOs that have a legitimate role in the markets.  IMSAR facilitates change through the provision of a flexible package of technical assistance (including market analysis and strategy development) and access short or medium-term grant finance.

The implementation of IMSAR is being managed by Palladium in partnership with Swisscontact.

Youth employment or specific decent work aspects are not explcitely addressed.

The phase II of the PADAER programme has the overall development goal to sustainably improve the food security and incomes of smallholder crop and
livestock farmers and to create permanent, well-paying jobs for rural
people, particularly women and young people.

PADAER-II will operate in the regions of Matam, Tambacounda, Kédougou and Kolda. It will target 43,700 households directly, comprising about 437,000 people, and 110 micro and small businesses. The programme beneficiaries are essentially poor smallholder crop and livestock farmers, of whom at least 40 per cent will be women and 50 per cent young people, both girls and boys. PADAER will operate in the following value chains: rice, maize, fonio, small ruminants and improved village poultry breeding.

The programme is structured in three components: 1. Improving the supply of agricultural products (mainly by increasing production and productivity); 2. Developing value chains and financing actors (including by facilitate the development of rural entrepreneurship and promoting capacity-building for POs to enable them to provide sustainable services); and 3. Coordination, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and knowledge management. While decent work aspects are not explicitly addressed, rural women and youth are specific target groups, both in terms of employment creation and participation in the POs.

Implementing Agency of the programme is the Ministère de l'Agriculture et de l'Equipement Rural (MAER). The project has a total cost of USD 72.44 million and benefits from an IFAD loan of USD 46.3 million and OPEC Fund for International Development cofinancing of 10 million.

See 2021 evaluation of PADAER here.

The new Law on Entrepreneurship Strengthening adopted with Act (Decreto) 20-2018 contemplates a new unit to be established in the Ministry of Economy (MINECO) on Entrepreneurship Strengthening. The main task of the unit will be to support the enabling environment to attract investments for entrepreneurship development in Guatemala, as well as the management of national and international funds in support of entrepreneurship.

The Act introduces a reform of the Commercial Code to create the new figure of the Entrepreneurship Society (Sociedad de Emprendimiento), which should simplify the procedures to register a business. In accordance with Article 19, the total annual income of an entrepreneurial society should not exceed five million quetzals and, unlike other entities, it will not require a minimum capital to be initiated. Also, registration procedures will be simplified and facilitated electronically.

In parallel, the Act establishes the Entrepreneurship Networks, which will be made up of the members that make up the Entrepreneurship Ecosystems and Training Centers for Entrepreneurship. While the Act does not include specific articles for rural areas, rural youth or agribusiness, it indicates that entrepreneurship support will prioritize the communities and regions with higher rates of poverty and extreme poverty, and that are affected by migratory fluxes, internal and external.

The regulation corresponding to the Act was adopted in March 2019 and is available here. Compared to the Act, the regulation introduces specific attention to rural areas in the specific objectives (see points f and k).

The Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP), officially United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, was adopted by the Human Rights Council in 2018.

This study was commissioned to Dalberg Advisors by the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). The study assesses the financial needs of young people in Senegal's groundnut basin.

The Agri-Business Skilling for Youth in a Refugee context (ABSYR) programme aims to increase the socio-economic well-being of youth through skilling in agriculture, agribusiness and life skills. The programme is carried out in a consortium with two other INGOs (ZOA and War Child Holland) and led by Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO). Apart from the overall management, ICCO is responsible for the formation of youth into successful cooperatives or producer organizations and building private sector linkages for value chain support and coaching.

The ABSYR targets 5,000 young people in the refugee’s camp and host community in Yumbe district, Northern Uganda.

The objective of the RISE project is to strengthen local authorities' coordination and development & contingency planning, as well as local authority-led service delivery to refugees and the host populations in Uganda. The project has three components, namely: (i)increase economic and employment opportunities of refugees and host communities through skills development and financial literacy ; (ii) strenghten resilience of communities and in particular the most vulnerable, as well as refugees and displaced people; and (iii) improve governance and conflict prevention, and reduction of forced displacement and irregular migration.

The creation of decent jobs is an indicator at outcome level: % of refugees and host population who have a decent and sustainable job (disaggregated between refugees and host communities). Under Outcome 2 on Increasing economic self-reliance of refugees and host populations, dedicated outputs focus on Increased financial inclusion of refugees and host populations (R.2.1.), Enhanced carrying capacity of allocated land for refugees (R.2.2.), Improved local processing of agricultural products and market access including by using Farmer Field Schools and farmer groups and link them to the market (R.2.3.), and Value chains and market linkages strengthened, involving both refugee and host communities in order to increase their livelihood opportunities (R. 2.6.).

Section 3.4 "Cross-cutting issues" of the Action fiche indicates that "the project will use a rights-based approach and promote the entitlement to non-discriminatory access to public services, the rights of women, children and disabled persons in line with the corresponding United Nations Conventions. All result indicators and technical reports will be gender-disaggregated".

The project is implemented by GIZ and funded by the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa for a total amount  EUR 20,000,000.                                            

This GIZ project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), aims to improve the employment situation of young people in rural areas of Burkina Faso, Kenya and Malawi, by supporting the following three areas with an integrated approach to employment promotion:

i) Labour supply: Young people improve their employment prospects by obtaining access to modern, market-oriented agricultural qualifications.

ii) Labour demand: Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and start-ups continue to develop their businesses and business models, thus creating employment prospects for themselves and others.

iii) Matching: A supportive business environment and needs-based placement services bring potential employers and employees together. The equal rights and promotion of women, especially young women, are important for the long-term future of rural areas.

The project targets 25,000 young women and men.

Le Plan National de Développement de l’Elevage (PNDE) 2018-2025, under the Ministry of Livestock, has the vision to make livestock one of the levers of the national economy.

The Plan is organized around 5 axes (and 17 corresponding sub-programmes), as follows: 1. Support and security of pastoral and traditional breeding 2. Improving the productivity and competitiveness of promising sectors; 3. Improvement of veterinary governance; 4. Development of applied research, training and advisory support; 5. Strengthening of the institutional framework and the capacities of actors. Axes 1 and 2 include a specific objective on promotion of income-generating and employment-specific activities for women and young people.

Under Axis 1, Sub-program 2: Support to pastoral populations and small breeders, includes capacity building of pastoralist organizations and the promotion of income-generating and employment-generating activities. Also in general value addition and value chain activities are evidently relevant for employment creation.

The Plan does not make explicit reference to DRE objectives, OSH, child labour, yet is indirectly relevant to this subject.

The four priorities defined by the Government in the CPF for FAO’s interventions in Kenya are:  1. Enabling policy environment, 2. Inclusive value chains strengthened, 3. Resilience of food and livelihood systems increased, 4. Governance of natural resources improved.
While decent work is not a crosscutting priority or an overall objective, the CPF prioritizes (youth and women) employment generation and migration aspects.

Under Priority 1, Output on Policy and strategy formulation and implementation, the CPF (p.4) indicates that FAO will support the development of enabling policy frameworks to foster the integration of poverty reduction, migration, youth employment and social protection considerations into sustainable agriculture development planning. Specific activities in the CPF include: 1.1.4 Support capacity strengthening for planning and effective implementation of climate change adaptation, migration and social protection policies.
Under Priority 2, Output on Value Chains, the CPF indicates that FAO will support the expansion of selected value chains for decent employment creation particularly for women and youth. Output 2 is on Entrepreneurship capacities of agri-value chain actors (including women and youth) strengthened. For this Output, the CPF narrative indicates that the role of migration in youth employment creation and value chain development will be considered, including the potential of remittances and the inclusion of migrants in the targeted initiatives (p.6).
Priority 3, Output on Agri-nutrition programmes enhanced, FAO will support the government and stakeholders in strengthening the capacities of nutrition-sensitive agricultural programming and promote coherence between nutrition sensitive agriculture and shock responsive social protection. Specific activities in the CPF include: 3.1.5 Promote complementary social protection interventions through extension of support to vulnerable households strategies, and 3.3.5 Support productive social protection initiatives.
Under Priority 4, Output on Sustainable management and use of forest and rangeland landscapes and associated bio-enterprises, the CPF indicates that Conservation and restoration initiatives will be linked to livelihoods through market-based bio-enterprises that also promote decent employment opportunities, particularly for youth.

The AgFood Youth Opportunity Lab programme, sponsored by the MasterCard Foundation, aims to help 15,000 young people access employment and entrepreneurship opportunities in Africa’s fast-growing horticulture, aquaculture, poultry, cassava, and oilseed sectors.
The programme focuses on young men and women between the ages 18 and 24 in major food-shed regions surrounding Lagos, Nigeria and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The Ag Youth Lab will assist economically disadvantaged, hard-to-reach, and out-of-school youth transition into employment and entrepreneurship opportunities in the agrifood system.
The programme has a special focus on gender equity, aiming for an equal representation of young men and women across its actions and addressing policy, training, mentoring, and other constraints that affect the ability of young women to start enterprises or obtain employment.
The Michigan State University will lead implementation of the Ag Youth Lab in close collaboration with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).
Using the “youth-to-youth” and “train-the-trainers” approach, IITA, through its youth component model—IITA Youth Agripreneurs (IYA), will work with Venture Garden Group and Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology in Nigeria, and Sokoine University Graduate Entrepreneurs Cooperative (SUGECO) in Tanzania. 

The objective of the project is to provide support to refugee and host communities in Uganda by: (i) Creating emergency employment opportunities and develop sustainable livelihoods for both the refugees and their host communities; and (ii) Preventing and responding to Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) through access to justice mechanisms, legal aid provisions and provision of shelters for victims.                                                                 

The project is implemented by UNDP and funded by the government of Japan for USD 2.241.000, the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) for USD 997,602 and UNDP for USD 550,000 . The project’s total financial requirement is USD 21 million over four years (2017 -2020).

The project aims to create or consolidate around 10000 permanent agricultural jobs and around 5000 non-agricultural jobs, through the development of irrigated areas (around 1500 ha), and value addition.

The general objective of PARERBA is to help curb rural emigration and facilitate the return of migrants to their land by increasing economic opportunities, security and development. Specifically, the project aims to support: (i) the development of hydro-agricultural installations; (ii) the promotion of an integrated management approach for productive water resources and sustainable land management practices; (iii) the improvement of production, productivity and competitiveness of farming family businesses in the rice and horticulture value chains; (iv) the development of youth employment and rural entrepreneurship around trades related to the development of these agricultural value chains. Other aspects of decent work, like OSH or access to social protection, are not addressed.

The project is implemented in Diourbel, Kaolack, Kaffrine, Fatick et Thiès. Both women and youth (both young women and men) are explicitly targeted, with differentiated indicators in the project work plan (according to the Action Fiche available online).

The project is implemented by the Belgian Development Agency (ENABEL), in collaboration with UNCDF, and financially supported by the European Union through the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (18 Million EUR).

This strategy, under the responsability of the Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), was designed to attract, as well as, support and retain youth employed at all levels of the agriculture value chain (p. 12). It is also intended to operationalize the Agriculture Sector Strategic Plan (ASSP) aimed at drawing from existing programmes and initiatives to address the issues that deter the youth from embracing agriculture.
The strategy has the following thematic and intervention areas: A5.1 Strengthening the enabling environment for the youth employment; A5.2 Supporting youth-oriented agricultural extension; A5.3 Improving youth education and learning; A5.4 Supporting youth entrepreneurship; and A5.5 Adaptation to and mitigation of agribusiness risks and uncertainties. It is expected to cost UGX 52.9 billion shillings over five years.
Specific attention is given to young women and youth aged 14-17, and to qualitative employment aspects, such as OSH and working conditions, as well as youth participation and organization.

The CPF sets out strategic pillars of expertise to guide FAO partnership with and support to the Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GoIRA).

Agreed priorities are: 1. Better governance through improved capacity for policy planning, land reform, decentralization, management of common natural resources; 2. Fostering Expansion of Irrigation and Field Water Management; and 3. 3.Intensive Agriculture for Commercialization, Value Chains Development, and Job Creation (specific attention to women); and 4. Supporting Vulnerable Farmers for Improved Food & Nutrition Security, Resilience and Emergency Response to Natural and Man-made Disasters and Climate Change.

However, a dedicated employment strategy is not made explicit and decent work aspects are not addressed. Youth are not mentioned.

The “United for Youth Employment in Cambodia” is a joint ILO, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF and UNV programme, financially supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), which aims at increasing decent and productive employment opportunities for young women and men in Cambodia. The programme targets both urban and rural youth (aged 15-30), including young women and men and adolescents (10-19), as well as young migrants and domestic workers.

The programme is articulated in three phases: 2017-2019, 2019-2024, and 2024-2029. It is in line with the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2016-2018 and supports the Cambodia national government in implementing, among others, the National youth development policy, the National employment policy and the National Youth Policy Action Plan, which serves as a framework to ensure the implementation of the youth policy.

The Programme has three main outcomes:

- Outcome 1 “Young women and men access quality formal and non-formal education including volunteerism to develop relevant technical and vocational skills”, which includes the provision of training activities aimed at developing basic educational skills, career counselling, vocational counselling, and employment counselling. Particularly relevant are Output 1.2 “Strengthened system for certification of TVET institutions, based on industry and ASEAN standards” and Output 1.4 “Quality market and industry-driven skills programmes for priority sectors developed and available to youth”.

- Outcome 2 “Young women and men, both in-school and out-of-school, are equipped with adequate entrepreneurial and business skills to create and develop sustainable enterprises”, with Output 2.1 focusing on rural youth: “Research produced and disseminated on the macroeconomic effect of investment in education and training packages for rural entrepreneurship”. Among the activities under Outcome 2, the program seeks to provide assistance to the national government in reviewing the business and regulatory environment so as to facilitate the launch of enterprises at the rural level; it also aims at promoting enterprise development training and awareness by introducing initiatives such as the “Know About Business” (KAB) program in school curriculums and “Community Based Enterprise Development” (C-BED) in rural areas.

- Outcome 3 “Young women and men benefit from a better condition and fair treatment at work” entails trainings programmes with both employers and youth, and capacity building activities with ministries, workers unions and National Employment Agency; moreover, it addresses young people’s legal protection, focusing, among others, on young migrants. Output 3.5 targets adolescents, providing: “School-and-community based life skills and peer education programmes scaled up to reach more adolescents with messages promoting safe and protective youth labour practices and rights”.

The PEJERIZ project, implemented by Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), aims to expand sustainable entrepreneurial and employment opportunities for rural youths by actively engaging them in the improvement of rice value chains. In particular, the PEJERIZ project supports the building and strengthening of entrepreneurial capacities; creating market linkages; and promoting value-adding activities for rural youth in the rice value chains of Mali and Senegal.

The first training sessions were held in Senegal and Mali in October 2018, with the final sessions scheduled for delivery before the end of 2018. AfricaRice will then select 80 of the 200 young trainees with the most promising business ideas, who will subsequently receive financial support and further training to bring their plans to fruition. The Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA), meanwhile, has already begun supporting 10 new Centres for Mechanised Services (CEMAs) in the two countries, with plans to create another one in Mali by 2019. The CEMAs have so far recruited and trained 45 RiceAdvice Service Agents, and awareness-raising activities have been carried out in rice-growing regions.

It is expected that the capacity building efforts undertaken in the project will develop a pool of young professionals with the competence and skills to engage in sustainable business along the rice value chain.

Implementing partner are the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture and the Africa Rice Center.

The programme, coordinated by the Programa de Migraciones implemented by the Latin American Foundation AVINA, aims to promote the social and labour inclusion for the returned migrants of Guatemala.

The programme has two paths for inclusion: i) Promote formal decent employment; and ii) Promote entrepreneurship. The first phase has the objective of promoting the labour insertion of 200 deported migrants and the developing 10 entrepreneurship projects.

The programme promotes interinstitutional and intersectoral coordination. So far, strategic actors participating are: the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, the Ministerio de Trabajo, the Ministerio de Educación, the Dirección General de Migración, among others.

The Made in Rwanda Policy (MIR) is a roadmap aimed at increasing economic competitiveness by enhancing Rwanda’s domestic market through value chain development. MIR prescribes the objectives and strategies for the industrial sector outlined in the vision 2020, National Strategy for Transformation and long term vision 2050 aiming at putting efforts to expand the economic base in a private sector-led Economy.

Although agriculture is not the sole focus of MIR, agro-processing is identified as one of the key priority labour intensive sectors where MIR is expected to create several manufacturing jobs together with light manufacturing in textile and garment and resource-based industries (mining and quarrying), furniture. More specifically, meat and dairy, milling products, sugar, soy beans and Irish potato are listed as potential value chains to be targeted.

MIR has five main pillars: 1. Sector Specific Strategies; 2. Reducing the Cost of Production; 3. Improving Quality; 4. Promoting Backward Linkages; and 5. Mind-Set Change.

Other decent work areas such as child labour, migration, and occupational safety and health are not focuses of MIR.

The ILO report "World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2017" takes stock of the current global labour market situation, assessing the most recent employment developments and forecasting unemployment levels in developed, emerging and developing countries.
It also focuses on trends in job quality, paying particular attention to working poverty and vulnerable employment.

The report finds that overall unemployment remains elevated and youth and gender disparities persist in the labour market. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), while the unemployment rate remains stable, the number of unemployed is expected to increase from 28 million in 2016 to 29 million in 2017 due to the region’s strong labour force growth. However, the main labour market challenge in this context remains the poor-quality employment  –  rather than unemployment. According to the report, across most of SSA, the lack of productive opportunities for youth and adults alike means that 247 million people were in vulnerable employment in 2016. The outlook is particularly challenging for women, who are more likely to be in vulnerable employment, largely as contributing family workers (p. 18). Climate change also presents a significant challenge to poverty reduction efforts for SSA countries. Many of the region’s working poor and vulnerable employed work in the agricultural sector, with the majority being smallholder farmers, and women are overly represented in the sector (p. 19). For this reason, according to the report, greening the agricultural sector and diversifying the economy present significant decent work opportunities for the region on its path to achieving the SDGs.
In Northern Africa, the unemployment rate is expected to decline marginally but youth unemployment remains a big concern being more than three times higher than adult unemployment, with a gap of almost 20 percentage points (p. 17).
In Latin America and the Carribean the unemployment rate for the region is expected to rise by 0.3 percentage points in 2017, to 8.4 per cent. This significant increase in the region’s unemployment rate is largely due by the recession in Brazil (p. 21).
Finally, in Asia the challenge remains less about the quantity of jobs and/or unemployment and more about the quality of employment and, more specifically, vulnerable employment and working poverty (p. 24). Reductions in working poverty in Eastern Asia and in Asia and the Pacific as a whole have largely been driven by improvements within China. This has been associated with improvements in agricultural productivity and thus reductions in rural poverty. While ongoing structural transformation and transitions to higher value added sectors can help to improve the quality of jobs, further investment in education and skills development for the most vulnerable groups remains a crucial issue (p. 26).

The general objective of the Action Plan is to promote equity and social inclusion for the rural youth, through access to resources, assets and opportunities that allow them develop capacities and expand their participation in decisional and social instances for the full exercise of their rights.

The specific objectives are the following: 1. Promote policy dialogue and strengthening institutions linked to rural youth that allow their public empowerment for transformation based on the requirements of the rural youth population; 2. Promote the participation of the young population and their organizations (both formal and informal) to exercise a greater degree of impact on decision making, through capacity development and the creation of spaces for equitable participation from the territorial level to the national and regional level; 3. Create an offer of products and services that allow young people to develop diversified productive businesses that guarantee a decent income in search of their economic autonomy, as well as opportunities for social, cultural and environmental development.

The Action Plan was presented to and endorsed by the Consejo de Ministros del Consejo Agropecuario Centroamericano (CAC) at its regular meeting held on February 2017 in Costa Rica, with the instruction to the regional Commission for the execution of Estrategia Centroamericana de Desarrollo Rural Territorial 2010-2030 (ECADERT) and the CAC Executive Secretariat to coordinate its immediate execution together with the youth authorities of the respective countries.

The development of the plan benefited from support from IFAD, FAO, IICA, and the Canadian and Spanish cooperation.

This research paper by the World Bank assesses the main constraints and effective interventions in terms of labour markets, youth and gender in Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper identifies six major constraints for women and youth in the labour market: skills, capital, networks, time and family formation, occupational choice, and safety.

The paper analyzes in particular the additional challenges faced by young women, for whom cultural norms, constraints on mobility, and the responsibility for domestic work and child care constitute a barrier to employment, pushing them to work less hours or choosing less-productive and low-return occupations.

The paper concludes with a review of programmes that are considered to be effective in tackling and overcoming these constraints.

The main objective of the CSP is to accelerate the country’s economic transformation process, thereby boosting inclusive private sector-led growth and creating higher value added formal wage employment. To achieve this objective, the Bank focuses on improving Rwanda’s enabling business environment through continued investments in the country’s infrastructure on one hand, while strengthening Rwanda’s skills base on the other hand, to meet the demands of business that engage in transformative value-adding economic activities. At the same time, the Bank aims to increase its direct support including improving access to finance to private enterprise to engage in high value added economic activities.

In the Economic context, the document acknowledges that agriculture remains an important contributor to GDP and employment and thus a major vehicle for achieving transformative and inclusive growth. It also recognizes that the agriculture sector is characterized by low productivity, inadequate access to agricultural finance, and a heavy dependence on rainfall, which implies a significant exposure to the impacts of climate change (p. 6-7).

Pillar I is on Investing in energy and water infrastructure in rural and urban areas to enable inclusive and green growth. This will strengthen the enabling environment for increased private investment in businesses engaging in value added economic activities. The generation of more productive formal wage employment to reduce underemployment and supporting economic transformation is a priority. Also, Pillar I seeks to provide all-inclusive cross-sectoral development support. In particular, support to water and sanitation sector to catalyse local economic development, notably rural infrastructure such as irrigation services for smallholder farmers and local communities in proximity to increase agricultural productivity and general rural employment (p. 15). Gender equality is mainstreamed and measures to ensure sustainability of the energy and water and sanitation operation will be incorporated into project design (p. 16).

Pillar II is on Developing skills to promote high value added economic activities and economic transformation. The Bank’s operations under this pillar support Rwanda to achieve the SDGs, particularly Goal 8 “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all” and Goal 9 “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation” (p. 17). The support under Pillar II is aligned with relevant national policies and programmes which prioritize the development of employable skills and promote high value added production and industrialization. Also, the Bank supports the development of a skilled workforce for industry sub-sectors such as manufacturing, energy, construction, mining and other job intensive sectors like ICT, tourism, agribusiness/agro-industry and the related value chains. The Bank’s assistance under this pillar prioritizes youth and women to promote gender-balanced inclusive growth (p. 17). The key outcomes expected to be achieved under Pillar 2 by the completion of the CSP in 2021 include: 10% growth in industry value added per worker, 15,500 MSMEs created as start-ups in high value added economic activities – at least 30% and 20% owned by women and youth, respectively and 35,000 off-farm jobs in high value adding enterprises created, at least 50% going to youth and women (p. 18).

The overall objective of the African Union (AU) roadmap is to guide and facilitate the implementation of the AU theme of the year 2017 “Harnessing the Demographic Dividend through Investments in Youth” by Member states, Regional Economic Commissions (RECs) and partners. It sets out the immediate actions for focused and expanded investments in Africa’s young men and women. It was developed at the request of African Union Heads of State and Government, and highlights key actions that must be taken so that the continent can harness the demographic dividend.

The roadmap is structured around four thematic pillars, namely:

- Pillar 1: Employment and Entrepreneurship. The roadmap suggests that governments should create conducive political, business, financial and economic environment by developing and effectively implementing policies that promote flexible labour markets, facilitate the development of labour-intensive sectors that can compete globally, and liberalize trade. See in particular priority action 7: Invest in sectors with high job-multiplier effects, including Information and Communications Technology (ICT), manufacturing, agriculture and agro industries in order to generate employment and spur inclusive growth.

- Pillar 2: Education and Skills Development. The focus of this pillar is - among others - on expanding vocational training opportunities for skills acquisition for young people to enhance their employability (including self - employment), productivity and competitiveness.

- Pillar 3: Health and Wellbeing (with focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights, family planning and HIV/AIDS services).

- Pillar 4: Rights, Governance and Youth Empowerment. Under this pillar, the roadmap pushes for investments that must be made to open the political space, uphold rights, ensure participatory governance and empower Africa’s youth by proscribing all laws posing barriers to the full exercise and enjoyment of the fundamental rights of young people to fully participate in the democratic governance processes and strengthening independent youth formations, networks and organisation including establishment of independent youth commissions at national and sub-regional levels to champion youth activities.

The Uganda National Youth Action Plan was developed to operationalize the National Youth Policy.
The priority areas are presented in terms of specific objectives to be supported by various stakeholders and are identified as follows:
1. Sustainable livelihoods, employment promotion and enterprise development; 2. Skills training and entrepreneurship development; 3. Youth involvement, participation and governance; 4. Information, Communication and Technology (ICT); 5. Youth and health; 6. Recreation, sports and leisure; 7. Youth and agriculture; 8. Youth peace and security; 9. Environmental conservation; 10. Gender and culture; and 11. Management, coordination and partnerships.

Under the first priority area, Objective 1 aims to strengthen the capacity of youth for gainful employment (including by providing support for enterprise development); while Objective 2 aims to promote decent gainful employment and investment opportunities for the youth (including through advocacy campaigns and policy dialogue, surveys on labour markets to know skills needs, new legislation that requires new businesses to employ quotas for local youth, and tax incentives for businesses that provide good quality internships). Objective 3 aims to implement programmes that strengthen entrepreneurship skills of youth with the view of making them job creators through the development of viable and sustainable enterprises; and finally Objective 4 promote the provision of financial support for youth enterprise programmes.

Under priority area 7, on Youth and Agriculture, major activities in the Logical framework (5.0) are: I. Mobilise and sensitise youth to engage in Agriculture as a viable source of income; II. Support youth to access and utilize agriculture appropriate tools and inputs for improved agricultural production; III. Support provision of agricultural extensional services to young farmers; IV. Provide financial support for youth agricultural projects.

This FAO technical cooperation project focuses on developing human capacities within the ministries of Agriculture, Fisheries and Livestock as well as the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services at national and sub-national levels, to strengthen coherence between agriculture and social protection in Zambia.  

More specifically, this is expected to support the implementation of the National Agricultural Policy and the National Social Protection Policy.

The ultimate target beneficiaries are poor small family farmers, whose food security status and incomes are expected to benefit from more coordinated agricultural and social protection policies and programmes.
The project will be implemented by FAO in close collaboration with Government Ministries and ILO, WFP and UNICEF.

The programme, funded by BMZ, aims at promoting better prospects for young people aged 15 to 35, and for returning migrants. Focus is on equipping beneficiaries to access employment and entrepreneurship opportunities in the sectors of renewable energies, agriculture, crafts, and services. Other aspects of decent work are not addressed.

The project has a total budget of 31,6 M EUR, and is under the Ministère du Pétrole et des Énergies(MPE). Implementing partners are the Agence de Développement et d’Encadrement des Petites et Moyennes Entreprises (ADEPME), the Agence Nationale pour la Promotion de l'Emploi des Jeunes (ANPEJ), the Agences Régionales de Développement (ARD).

See Sept 2019 update here.

The FAO CPF for Eritrea has three priority areas: 1) Sustainable natural resources management; 2) Improved agriculture sector production, productivity and market access for enhanced food security and nutrition; and 3) Preparedness and response to natural threats and improved resilience. While the three priority areas are all generally relevant for increasing farmers’ productivity and incomes, the CPF also includes an explicit employment output under Priority area 2 - “Increased work opportunities for young and female agricultural producers” (2.5).

Output 2.5 has two indicator targets: i) At least 2,350 vulnerable female-headed households with improved work opportunities in the agricultural sector as a result of FAO’s support by 2021; and ii) At least 100,000 young producers (disaggregated by age and sex) with increased work opportunities in the agricultural sector, linked to the markets by 2021.

Also gender is mainstreamed across all areas and results.

The study, developed by FAO, the Instituto de Desarrollo Agropecuario (INDAP) and Centro Latinoamericano para el Desarrollo Rural (RIMISP) assesses the employment situation of rural youth in Chile, including their role in family farming, and provides related policy recommendations.

This study aims to generate country-level evidence on the living and working conditions of small-scale fishers in Costa Rica.
The study finds that most of the fishing sector workers in Costa Rica work in the informal economy, which makes them more vulnerable and not eligible for available benefits granted by the State. The shortage of fishing products and the few alternative options to the fishing activity on the coastal areas result into low opportunities for empowerment both economically and socially. Additionally, the study flags the lack of visibility of women's work in the fishing sector, which puts them in a condition of greater vulnerability.
Yet, in spite of the challenges, the study also highlights that the testimonies of men and women artisanal fishers demonstrate the attachment of fishers to their way of life and their perception of fishing as a dignified and respectable activity, where they can put into practice values and knowledge acquired through many years of experience.
The last chapter on Conclusions includes a detailed list of recommendations.

The Programme for the Reduction of Territorial and Social Disparities (PRDTS) is implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture with the aim of reducing territorial isolation of rural communities in terms of infrastructure and access to basic social services.

Spread over the period 2017-2023, this programme covers the 12 regions of the Kingdom for an overall public investment of 50 billion dirhams. The Fund for Rural Development and Mountain Areas (FDRZM) will contribute 23.3 billion dirhams. The regional councils contribute 20 billion dirhams, while the INDH and ONEE contribute 4 and 2.56 billion dirhams respectively.

The programme aims to meet the needs of the rural population and improve their quality of life in several areas, from education (construction of schools and students residences), to health (construction of health centres and maternity facilities, acquisition of ambulances and mobile medical units). Potable water supply and electrification.

Since its elaboration and implementation, the programme has benefited from budgetary support within the framework of cooperation with Arab partners, as well as an initial support from the European Union, which is being deployed for the period 2019-2023.

In terms of results to date: 27 541 jobs seem to have been created and the proportion of households engaged in agriculture has increased (see more info here.

Decent work aspects are not explicit in the information available online.

The FAO CPF for Mauritania (in French Cadre de Programmation par Pays (CPP) has three priority areas: 1. Inclusive and sustainable agricultural, livestock and fisheries production, which create jobs and value addition; 2. An institutional environment that is conducive to achieving food security and nutrition, and 3. Sustainable management of natural resources in the face of climate change for a sustainable and resilient economy.
Youth employment results and correspondent activities are explicit in the document, notably under the first priority area.
Output 1.3 is on the Development of mechanisms and services for job creation and micro-businesses for the youth.
Also, under Output 3.4 on communities' resilience capacities, Activity 3.4.2. indicates that 100 managers and technicians of government technical services and Socioprofessional Organization will be trained in the social protection approach.
Other decent work aspects are not explicitly addressed.

The ILO SEA Fisheries Project will develop the specific mandate, composition and function of a regional coordinating body for the fishing sector and incubate its establishment. This entity will be broad-based and include various government departments (working in the areas of fishing, labour migration, and trafficking in persons), civil society organizations, workers' groups, industry associations, buyer groups, international organizations and research institutions.

The Project has the following objectives:
1) Regional body established and existing national bodies in Indonesia and Thailand supported to improve coordination in combating trafficking in persons in the fisheries sector;
2) Coordinated strategies and action plans adopted to enhance the complementarity and efficiency of the various initiatives ongoing to combat trafficking in persons in the fisheries sector;
3) Independent research and analysis is undertaken to underpin the development of strategies and action plans, fill knowledge gaps, and measure progress; and communication of good practices and experiences enhanced.

The project receives financial support from the United States Department of State.

Funded by the EU, the ILO Ship to Shore Rights project (2017-2019) works with the Thai government, employers' and workers' organizations and buyers towards the prevention and reduction of unacceptable forms of work in Thailand's fishing and seafood industries. The project has four main objectives: i. Strengthen the legal, policy and regulatory framework; ii. Improve the labour inspectorate’s ability to move against forced labour and other rights abuses; iii. Improve compliance with ILO core labour standards and establish a complaints mechanism across the supply chain; iv. Increase access to support services for workers.

The 2018 report "Baseline Research Findings on Fishers and Seafood Workers in Thailand" presents the results of a research conducted from March to April 2017 in 11 provinces across five different zones of Thailand, which surveyed  434 workers (69 per cent men and 31 per cent women; 66 per cent aged between 18 and 34 years old) from both the fishing and seafood processing (including aquaculture) industries.

The report contains several considerations related to decent work in this sector and concludes with recommendations. In particular, research findings show that one third of the workers reported being paid less than the legal minimum wage; 53 per cent reported their monthly earnings to be lowered for things that the employer should cover (accommodation, required clothing, safety gloves and food) or as a form of punishment. Women were reportedly earning less than men, with 73 per cent of men receiving the minimum wage or more, while only 48 per cent of women received it.

Moreover, the research findings show evidence of forced labour indicators, such as deception in recruiting or contracting, wage withholding and identity document retention among workers. In particular, the survey found higher levels of wage withholding, abusive working conditions and deception among migrants coming from Cambodia and Myanmar, with higher levels concentrating in fishing work more than in seafood processing work (only 29 per cent of workers in fishing labour against 56 per cent of workers in seafood processing reported no indicator of forced labour).

The Plan de Développement Economique et Social (PDES 2017-2021) is the second operationalisation plan of the Stratégie de Développement Durable et de Croissance Inclusive (SDDCI) Niger 2035 of the government of Niger.Its overall objective is to contribute to the construction of a peaceful, well-governed country with an emerging and sustainable economy. More specifically, it aims to strengthen the resilience of the social and economic system.  The strategic results are made up of five (5) strategic axes and eleven (11) specific outcomes. The expected final impact of the implementation of the PDES is the improvement of the level of well-being of the population.  Its five axes are (i) cultural renaissance; (ii) social development and demographic transition; (iii) improved economic growth; (iv) improved governance, peace and security; and (v) sustainable management of the environment. Within these objectives, education of children, adolescents and youth and creation of decent jobs are addressed in its 2nd and 3rd axes respectively (mentioned above). Decent rural employment is mentioned in terms of "modernising and revitalising agro-pastoral systems and the rural economy to create decent jobs and reduce poverty", and "facilitating the development of a dynamic private sector capable of creating decent jobs". The empowerment of rural women is part of a specific axis (iii). Social protection is mentioned as an area to be strengthened and supported under axis 2, which specifies the protection of people with disabilities, migrants and children at risk. In addition, axis 5 focuses on strengthening green economy activities.

The National Financial Inclusion Strategy was developed by the Bank of Uganda and the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, with financial support provided by Ukaid. The Strategy, which  builds on the Government’s 2011 Financial Inclusion Programme supported by the GIZ, puts emphasis on five pillars: i) Reduce financial exclusion and barriers to access financial services; ii) Develop the credit infrastructure; iii) Build the digital infrastructure; iv) Deepen and broaden formal savings, investment and insurance usage; and v) Protect and empower individuals with enhanced financial capability. In the executive summary, the strategy emphasizes the important links between financial inclusion and self-employment, greater local economic activity, and  inequality reduction.

The strategy focuses on three priority areas: women; youth  above 15 years old; and the rural populations (p. 25). Among the activities to address the gaps they face, the strategy suggests the following measures (among others): the introduction of a legal/regulatory exemption amendment that allows youth 15-17 to open savings accounts in their own right; the enhancement of IT Infrastructure and Access Channels (handsets,branches, POS)  in rural areas; the establishment of agriculture-specific lines of credit and improvement of the oversight of existing credit facilities such as the Agricultural Credit Facility and  warehouse receipt systems and storage facilities; the promotion of the utilisation and uptake of the agriculture insurance facility; the establishment of a centralised registry for movable collateral to allow it to be used as security for loans; and strentghening the capacity and systems of SACCOs and MFIs to help women, rural communities and others access and use affordable financial services.

USAID’s Feed the Future Tanzania Advancing Youth (AY) project is implemented by a consortium led by DAI, also including SNV, Pathfinder International, and Khanga Rue Media. It is operating in Iringa, Mbeya, and Zanzibar.

AY aims to empower Tanzanian youth between the ages of 15 and 29 with the skills, knowledge, and resources they need to enter into meaningful and sustainable employment or entrepreneurship in agriculture and other rural-based value chains that have sustainable income-generating potential.

AY works with the private sector to identify the skills and labour needed by agribusinesses to accelerate growth in the sector, and based on this demand, AY develops tailor-made interventions to empower young people with relevant new skills and opportunities. Responding to the most pressing needs of the private sector, government, and youth workforce, the project will connect youth with employment and entrepreneurship opportunities that coincide with their interests, aspirations, and capabilities. This matching process is paired with mentorship and grant opportunities to stimulate viable youth-driven investments.

By 2022, AY aims to have trained 33,000 youth in business, leadership, or other work-related skills, leading to a sustainable increase in income for 80% of the young people reached. AY's interventions are projected to support 5,000 young Tanzanians to enter into employment, and to help establish 2,800 rural micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

The Strategy, under the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries ((MoALF), aims at providing opportunities for the youth to benefit from the different agribusiness enterprises along the various agricultural commodity value chains.  It was developed with support from a consortium of partners including FAO, USAID, GIZ, the NGO 4H and YPARD Kenya.

The document (p.x) acknowledges that " the sector is yet to fully exploit the potential of the youth and it remains largely unattractive. The situation is exacerbated by perception of agriculture as a career of last resort, one of drudgery and low monetary benefits.  Information on access to markets, factors of production including land and financing remain extremely limited hindering adequate engagement of the youth in agriculture."

The document is organized into four chapters: 1) Background information, justification and rationale; 2) Situational analysis of youth in agriculture and underlying challenges, and opportunities; 3) Strategic issues, objectives and key activities; 4) Targeting, resource mobilization, coordination and partnership, communication, capacity building and M&E.

The following eleven strategic objectives are identified: 1. To transform the mindset and perceptions of the youth towards agribusiness; 2. To equip youth with appropriate agribusiness skills, knowledge and information; 3. To enhance access to affordable and youth friendly financial services for agripreneurship; 4. To enhance access and sustainable use of land for the youth in agribusiness; 5. To engage youth in research, development and utilization of innovative agricultural technologies; 6. To enhance access to factors of production, utilization of modern technologies and utilization of Good Agricultural Practices to increase efficiency; 7. To increase utilization of agricultural products through value addition; 8. To improve access to affordable suitable output markets for the youth; 9. Support implementation, reviews and development of policies that create an enabling environment for youth in agri-preneurship (including through youth engagement in policy development) ; 10. To promote youth-inclusive climate smart agricultural technologies and create green jobs for environmental sustainability; 11. To promote an integrated approach to address cross-cutting challenges including gender disparities, cultural barriers, alcohol and substance abuse, HIV & AIDS, weak governance and value systems amongst others (including interventions on creating suitable safety nets to cushion highly vulnerable youth against radicalization, addictions and violence).

The overall number of direct beneficiaries targeted by the strategy are 384,450 youth equivalent to 30% of the total number of unemployed and a total of 1,153,350 indirect beneficiaries. Beneficiaries include 3 categories: i. out-of-school (Educated, Underemployed or  Unemployed Youth; Existing or New Agri-preuners; NEET; Innovators and Researchers; and New Entrants); ii. in-school youth, and iii. Special Groups (persons with disabilities, HIV and AIDs , Addicts , Vulnerable groups  rescued). The estimated cost of implementation of this strategy will be Ksh 12 Billion during the five years period.

Following the launch of the strategy and to support its implementation, the Ministry led the development of the Youth Economic Empowerment Through Agripreneurship (YEETA programme), which however remains unfunded.

The strategy, under the overall responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture (MAGA), aims to promote the social inclusion of rural youth in Guatemala, and their access to extension services, productive resources and opportunities for capacity development and participation. It is organized around 5 axes, namely:

Axis 1. Institutional strentghening of the extension unit in the Ministry (Dirección de Coordinación Regional y Extensión Rural (DICORER) to support the rural youth;
Axis 2. Support to youth as producers and entrepreneurs for them to lead agricultural and rural development;
Axis 3. Increase of coverage and innovation for enhanced extension tools, in particular those used by the field schools (Centro de Aprendizaje para el Desarrollo Rural (CADER);
Axis 4. Communication for development and the rural youth;
Axis 5. Inter-institutional and multistakeholder collaboration.

The Youth Innovation Project of Guyana, is the flagship project for the Department of Youth, and it is funded by the Government of Guyana 2017 budget. It is a collaborative multi - ministry, multi - stakeholder project that includes governmental, regional, international, and corporate agencies.
The project encourage the application for proposals from each Guyanese youth, from the ten regions of Guyana, who is aware of issues, challenges or difficulties in their community and wishes to propose a solution in the areas of STEAMS (science, technology, engineering, agriculture, anthropology, archeology, the arts, architecture, mathematics, spirituality), while fostering a green economy.
The YIPoG goals are:
- To decrease unemployment amongst young Guyanese;
- To engage youth in the development of a Green State through the application STEAMS;
- To foster the development of creative thinking through STEAMS;
- To develop a network between partners that work in the field of creative thinking and youth development.
The project is aimed at youth aged 16-35 years o and members of a club or organization that is registered with the Ministry of Education. Participants may be individuals or teams of no more than 10 persons with a named team leader and an identified expert in the project.

The study, developed by the Centro de Estudios Monetarios Latinoamericanos (CEMLA), presents the results of a survey conducted in the last days of December 2016 and the first week of January 2017, at La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City, with 2005 Guatemalan migrants who visited their country of origin for the December celebrations. The survey covers various aspects of the profile of these migrants such as their gender, age, education, sector of activity in which they work abroad, levels income, whether or not they send remittances and, if applicable, the amount of their transfers, as well as indicators of financial inclusion.

Distictions between urban and rural areas or information on eventual use of remittences for agricultural purposes is not included.

This Framework, under the responsability of the Ministry of the Presidency, guides the development of the Guyana´s Green State Development Strategy (GSDS), which will have the objective of reorienting and diversifying Guyana’s economy, reducing reliance on traditional sectors and opening up new sustainable income and investment opportunities in higher value adding and higher growth sectors. The Framework proposes specific strategic areas within each theme on which the GSDS should focus and suggests as well the identification of financial mechanisms to support the implementation of the strategy covering a period of 15 years.

The Framework identifies seven central themes with considerable potential to contribute to the transition to a Green State, namely:
i. Green and Inclusive Structural Transformation: Diversifying the economic base, accessing new markets and creating decent jobs for all (including areas on Green, inclusive, high value-adding industrial development and Enabling business environement);
ii. Sustainable Management of Natural Resources and Expansion of Environmental Services: stewardship of natural patrimony (including areas on Protect, Restore and Promote Sustainable Use of Forests, Biodiversity, Land Quality, and Fresh Water Resources and Protection, Restoration and Sustainable Use of Coastal and Marine Resources)
iii. Energy – Transition to Renewable Energy and Greater Energy Independence;
iv. Resilient Infrastructure and Spatial Development;
v. Human Development and Well-being (including area 4.5.2 on Empowering Youth and Indigenous People and 4.5.3 on Access to Quality Education, Human Development and Green Skills);
vi. Governance and Institutional Pillars;
vii. International Cooperation, Trade and Investment.

Area 4.1.2 "Green, Inclusive, High Value-adding Industrial Development" emphasizes that core areas of focus will be manufacturing that expands on existing lower-value agricultural, forestry and mineral processing sectors; eco-tourism; and sustainable fisheries, aquiculture and fish processing – all of which leverage the country's clear natural resource advantages. These sectors are considered to offer opportunities to increase growth and foreign exchange earnings, provide high-value job opportunities, and promote the conservation of the natural environment and multi-faceted culture of the country (p. 12).
Area 4.1.3 "Enabling Business Environment" (p. 13) includes, inter alia, measures to improve business investment and growth, broaden access to the technical and financial resources required (especially for MSMEs), and engender decent employment conditions for inclusive participation in the benefits of growth. More specifically, in order to ensure decent employment conditions, this strategic area will consider the promotion of institutionalised workplace cooperation and dialogue, and the laws and regulations related to workplace standards, discrimination, and employee compensation and benefits.

Area 4.2.1 on Protect, Restore and Promote Sustainable Use of Forests, Biodiversity, Land Quality, and Fresh Water Resources, prioritize 5 core startegic areas, namely: i) Land use planning and natural resource management systems; ii) Sustainable agriculture (including related to the adequacy of current agriculture and timber related regulations, including the degree of social and ethical inclusion; iii) Sustainable forest management - logging and non-timber forest product practices ;iv) Fresh water management; and v) Traditional knowledge and practices (p. 18).

As regards social protection, even if not directly linked to agriculture or rural areas specifically, the Framework supports the introduction of unemployment insurance, public works-related employment guarantee schemes, and job search assistance and skills training for workers or small enterprises subject to loss of income (area 4.5.1 Ensure Healthy and Socially Secured People, p. 31). Area 4.5.2 Empowering Youth and Indigenous People (p. 34) foresees the establishment of the Private Sector Initiative for Youth to provide them with work attachments and/or apprenticeships to facilitate their entry and/or integration into the Green economy’s market as well as establishment of the Youth Green Entrepreneurship Programme.

The ASDSP is intended as a broad sector wide programme to implement the Agriculture Sector Development Strategy (ASDS) and the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) Kenya Compact. Its purpose is "to increase equitable income, employment and improved food security of male and female target groups as a result of improved production and productivity in the rural smallholder farm and off-farm sectors".

The ASDSP focuses on commercialization, agribusiness and market development activities of the agriculture sector. This is based on the assumption that deepened and equitable commercialization of Kenya’s agricultural sector, especially at the smallholder level, will contribute to increased farm productivity and incomes.

The Agricultural Sector Development Support Programme phase II (ASDSP II) was formulated in 2016 to consolidate the gains of ASDSP I and is intended to contribute to realization of the ideals of the Agricultural Policy. It aims at transforming crop, livestock and fishery production into commercially oriented enterprises that ensure sustainable food and nutrition security by developing environmentally resilient and socially inclusive value chains.
ASDSP II is financed by both levels of the Government of Kenya (GoK), the Government of Sweden and other Development Partners at a cost of KES 5.692 billion over a period of 5 years starting from July 2017. GoK will further invest over KES 1.9bn in human resource and office accommodation in the Programme which will be implemented by the 47 counties and at the national government level. As a matter of principle, ASDSP II will operate through collaborations and partnerships to achieve 4 key result areas namely increased productivity of priority value chains; strengthened entrepreneurial skills of priority value chain actors; improved access to markets by value chain actors and strengthened structures and capacities for consultation, collaboration, cooperation and coordination in the Agricultural Sector.

Output 1.2 focus on Supporting Value chain Innovations, including the establishment of grants supporting value chain innovation with high prospects for women and youth empowerment (where an important measure of economic empowerment will be job creation either as an employer or an employee at any stage of the VC). Outcome 2 is on Enhanced entrepreneurship of priority Value Chain Actors.

The FAO CPF has four priority areas: 1) Improve production and productivity of crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry; 2) Sustainable management of the natural resource base and Increasing Resilience and Uptake of Climate Smart Agriculture; 3) Enhance food security and nutrition status; and 4) Improved market access and sanitary measures.

Priority area 1 focuses on: i) Facilitating capacity building for poor rural producers, including youth groups and households and improving access to inputs, including by strengthening coherence between agriculture and social protection; ii) Facilitating the design and implementation of financial and non-financial credit instruments and services that improve access to capital for efficient and inclusive production systems in particular for youth; and iii) Identification, assessment and dissemination of innovative practices for sustainable production of crops, livestock, fisheries, wildlife and forest.

Also, Priority area 4 includes actions towards supporting public sector institutions to improve their capacity to design and implement better policies and regulatory frameworks; building capacity of value chain actors for inclusive, efficient and sustainable agri-food and forest food chains in order to enhance competitiveness and exports; and building capacity of public and private sector organizations and institutions and develop business models that empower the rural poor, including youth and women. It includes as indicators target: i) By 2017, 5 forest farm producer organizations trained in Entrepreneurship; ii) By 2017, 5 CBOs focusing on decent green jobs trained in Market Analysis and Development; and iii) At least four youth inclusive business models developed by 2017.

This document is a product of the “Rural youth, Territories and Opportunities: A policy engagement strategy” Programme, coordinated by Rimisp –Latin American Center for Rural Development and Corporación PBA, funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

It develops a diagnosis of the current situation of rural young people in Colombia with the objective of highlighting the issues this group, contextualizing the regulatory framework and policy in this area, identifying the main key actors in the field, and concluding with policy recommendations and a research agenda. The first section of the document does a sociodemographic characterization of rural youth, showing evidence regarding their levels of vulnerability and poverty, educational conditions, labor insertion, health, social participation and their situation in the armed conflict.

Evidence is presented on the disadvantage of rural youth in relation to their urban peers. Nearly 40 per cent of rural youths are in poverty, 1.6 times the incidence of young people in urban areas, and those in extreme poverty are three times the proportion of urban areas with a higher incidence for women. As for educational levels, there are also important gaps between urban and rural youth, especially at the secondary and post-secondary levels. All this converges in a precarious insertion of the rural young people to the labor market, where there are wide gaps of levels of participation between men and young women of this sector and differences in average salary with disadvantage for women.

While the institutionalization around rural young people is beginning to be strengthened (motivated, in part, by the commitments established in the Agreement for the Termination of the Conflict), there are a number of proposals for plans, programs and bills to benefit rural youth who are not yet approved and therefore not yet implemented.

This FAO study describes the experience of converting the cotton cultivation into organic production by family farmers in Brasil. This initiative was firstly piloted in Margarida Maria Alves I, in the Northern State of Paraiba.
The study shows the positive impact of cotton cultivation managed according to sustainable agro-ecological practices. Service-delivery has been tailored to the characteristic of the family farming sector and based on participatory research and extension. The strategy also promoted access to Fairtrade markets. This has created a vertically integrated system whereby farmers operate and control different functions of the value-chain from production to processing in their communities.
The study also highlights the impact that this production system has had on employment and income generation and hence on the improvement of families' life quality, showing that the cultivation of organic cotton - especially when integrated into a value chain that links together environment-friendly producers and consumers - represents a suitable option to yields increasing even excludign the use of chemical inputs and pesticides.

The development objective of the Regional Agricultural Competitiveness Project for the Organization of Easter Caribbean States (OECS) countries is to enhance access to markets and sales for competitively selected farmers and fishers, as well as their allied aggregators and agro-processors. The project is implemented in Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
It has four components.
1) "Support for Preparation of Business Plans", which aims to: (a) promote an understanding of the Project’s scope and objectives through outreach to potential stakeholders and beneficiaries (such as individual and organized Farmers and fishers (FFs), Aggregators and Agro-processors (AAs), buyers, and lenders); (b) identify potential business opportunities for prioritized value chains and their translation into viable and profitable business proposals; and (c) prepare full business plans for selected proposals.
2) "Implementation of Business Plans", which aims to provide matching grants to co-finance the implementation of technically feasible, financially viable, economically profitable, socially responsible, and environmentally sustainable business plans, which, when implemented, will contribute to a consistent and timely supply of sufficient quantities of quality produce to buyers while providing a reliable income to allied FFs.
3) "General Agricultural Services and Enabling Environment", which aims to strengthen general agricultural public services directly linked to the subprojects described in Component 2 and needed to enhance the probability of success.
4) "Project Management, Monitoring, and Evaluation".

The Project has a total cost of USD 9.66 million, and benefits from WB loans of USD 4.3 million for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; and USD 1.8 million for Grenada, respectively.  

The project, implemented by the World Bank and funded by the UK Department for International Development, aims at addressing irregular migration in Ethiopia by improving labour migration governance and making it more accessible to potential migrants.
The outcome of the project is that migrants and would-be migrants in Ehtiopia are better protected by labour migration governance and informed about both their rights and the possibilities in countries of destination. Even though the project has not a focus on rural areas, the rural population in Ethiopia is expected to benefit from the overall improvement of the labour migration framework in the country.

On the one hand, the project is aimed at reinforcing the capacities of government ministries to provide quality service and pre-departure orientation to would-be migrants (including entrepreneurial and financial planning and management), and to successfully implement the labour migration framework of the country. On the other hand, it is aimed at encouraging and supporting the involvement of the civil society, non-governmental organizations, migrant associations, Ethiopian foreign missions, employers’ federations and private employment agencies in migrants’ protection and assistance.

More specifically, the project will:

Support the Ethiopian government to develop a national action plan for overseas employment proclamation (also based on the assessment of the capacity and practices of overseas private employment agencies);
Support government ministries in the drafting and implementation of labour migration governance (including the negotiation of bilateral labour agreements), and the provision of pre-departure trainings to would-be migrants (including financial literacy, entrepreneurship and life skills training);
Develop and disseminate information about international labour standards, ILO conventions concerning migrant workers, information about countries of destination and the regular labour migration framework in Ethiopia;
Support Ethiopian foreign missions and non-governmental organizations to provide shelter and other basic services for migrants;
Build the capacity of migrant workers’ associations to defend migrant workers’ rights.

The Establishment Census, produced by the National Institute of Statistic of Rwanda (NISR) is a source of information on all economic activities by size, formal and informal status of establishments in Rwanda. It provides information that are used to  classify establishments according to their size (micro, small, medium, and large) but also formal and informal establishments. 

The total number of establishments in 2017 Establishment Census amounts to 190,288, dominated by wholesale and retail trade (50.5 percent) and accommodation and food services (27.3 percent). The total number of in-establishment workers reaches 616,737 persons (38 % females). Almost 93 % of businesses are informal and the few formal ones are concentrated in urban areas.

The National Strategy for Transformation (NST1) 2017-2024 is the implementation instrument for Vision 2020 and for the first four years of Vision 2050. NST1 consists of three pillars: 1) Economic Transformation; 2) Social Transformation Pillar; and 3) Transformation Governance Pillar, which respectively entail priority areas. In addition, seven cross-cutting areas including Gender and Family Promotion are considered.

The Economic Transformation pillar includes: Priority Area 1. Create 1,500,000 (214,000 annually) decent and productive jobs; Priority Area 6. Modernize and increase the productivity of agriculture and livestock, and Priority Area 7. Sustainable management of natural resources and environment to transition Rwanda towards a green economy.

In Priority Area 1, Agro-processing, Meat, Dairy, and Horticulture are identified as priority sub-sectors among others. In addition, supporting and empowering youth and women to create business through entrepreneurship and access to finance, and mainstream employment planning into all key sectors of the economy are among the key strategic interventions, as well as scaling up the number of TVET graduates with skills relevant to the labor market.

In Priority Area 6, commercialization of crop and animal resource value chain, increasing the irrigated land, putting in place mechanisms to increase access to finance for farmers, and enhanced farmers’ access to improved seeds are among the strategic interventions prioritized, with an emphasis on public-private partnership models throughout.

The Social Transformation pillar includes: Priority Area 1. Promoting resilience and enhancing graduation from poverty and extreme poverty (with key priority on social protection for all, including one Cow per Poor family (Girinka) Programme and other social programs run at the village level and supporting poor households to acquire small livestock); and Priority Area 4. Enhancing the demographic dividend through improved access to quality education (not specifically linked to rural/agri-sectors).

The Transformation Governance Pillar includes Priority Area 6: Increase citizens’ participation, engagement and partnerships in Development (not specifically linked to rural/agri-sectors or social dialogue).

Other aspects of decent work, such as child labour, OSH, or workers’ rights and working conditions are not addressed.

This GIZ project operates in the counties of Bungoma, Kakamega and Siaya in western Kenya. It supports the Ministry of Agriculture  in particular for building up and developing the counties’ capacities for providing agricultural extension services, and trialling other service models involving the private sector and non-governmental organisations. In addition, the Ministry receives advice on adapting national strategies to the requirements of decentralisation and its implementation. The project also supports the formation and development of young people’s umbrella associations.

During a regional youth conference, around 800 young people from western Kenya talked to national and municipal representatives about rural transformation and passed a youth declaration. Representative agribusiness associations provide the young people with a platform to pool their interests and represent and assert them more effectively to the counties by participating in forums.

Agricultural extension systems provide more than 45,000 farmers with information on good agricultural practice. Thanks to financing arrangements with research and training institutions, learning content has been improved and communication between research and advisory services has become more effective. More than 20,000 individuals have completed agricultural courses and drawn up plans for turnover. Innovative information services are improving the practices of over 25,000 farmers, for example by using IT to help diagnose plant diseases.

See Video: Youth in Agribusiness Conference, Western Region, Kenya

Guatemala’s school-feeding law takes the previous national budgetary allocation for school meals from 1.11 Quetzals (USD 0.15) per child per school day up to 3.00 Quetzals (USD 0.41) by the start of 2018 – to be followed by a further increase to 4.00 Quetzals (USD 0.54) in 2020. The increase is expected to help guarantee more nutritious meals and more adequate portions and combinations for schoolchildren aged 6 to 12, and take into account their specific calorie, protein, and micronutrient requirements.

The law also promotes direct public purchases of food items from local family farming, which is expected to also have positive effects on the livelihoods of farming communities in Guatemala. In particular, the law establishes that, of the total financial resources allocated to each educational center, at least 50 percent should be allocated for purchases of products that come from family farming, provided there is the necessary supply in the local market. After five years, this percentage should increase up to 70 percent. 

The Ministry of Education is the governing body of the School Feeding Programme and may work in coordination with other Ministries and entities on issues of specific competence. In particular, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture have specific attributions established by the Law.

 The regulation for the law was adopted in Oct 2018 and is available here.

This paper developed by World Development assesses the effect of the Fairtrade certification on workers' hourly wages and their level of job satisfaction with primary survey data from 325 randomly sampled workers from eight different export-oriented pineapple companies in Ghana. The paper applies a linear, linear mixed model, and instrumental variable approach to take into account the multilevel characteristics of data and possible selection bias.
Main findings show that both hourly wages and job satisfaction are indeed higher on Fairtrade-certified plantations. Factors of increased job satisfaction are likely driven by higher wages, permanent employment contracts, training opportunities, company services such as medical care and paid leave as well as established labor unions on Fairtrade-certified plantations.

Guatemala's CPF addresses three priority areas, namely: A. Food and Nutrition Security, B.Territorial Rural Development. and C. Adaptation and mitigation to climate change to improve resilience, and comprehensive management of renewable natural resources.

While the CPF does not include a comprehensive strategy for the promotion of decent work in rural sectors, it does address multiple specific issues falling under the decent work agenda, namely: Output  2.3: MINECO, MINTRAB and MAGA encourage entrepreneurship, mainly of young women and men, promoting productive and economic development within the framework of the Productive Economic Development axis of the Agenda Rural 2016-2020.

The CPF puts strong emphasis on the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of indigenous groups. See in particular: Indicator 1.3.5. By 2019, a national strategy is promoted to make visible and quantify the economic contribution of women in rural and rural economies;  1.5.4. By 2020, FAO has identified, validated and disseminated good practices in terms of time-saving technology for women; and 2.1.8 By 2020, methodologies are developed for the promotion of inclusive markets and productive systems of rural women for the revitalization of local economies.

The goal of the 7NDP, under the overall responsability of the Ministry of National Development Planning of Zambia, is to create a diversified and resilient economy for sustained growth and socioeconomic transformation. Specific emphasis is placed on the need to increased employment opportunities in both urban and rural areas to reach this goal (p.53).

The Plan, like the three national development plans (NDPs) that preceded it, is aimed at attaining the long-term objectives as outlined in the Vision 2030. To accelerate economic growth and job creation, the Plan - among others - aims to modernize the agricultural sector in order to improve productivity and prioritize value addition through agro-industries as the bedrock of transitioning to an industrialised economy (p. 8).
The Plan lists ten "critical"development outcomes (see full list at page 60) to achieve economic diversification, and for each of them indicates the strategies to adopt.

Under development outcome 1, "A diversified and export-oriented agriculture sector", the Plan illustrates the following strategies: i. improve production and productivity; ii. improve access to finance for production and exports iii. 3: enhance agriculture value chains; iv. promote diversification within the agriculture sector; v. enhance investment in agricultural infrastructure; and vi. promote small-scale agriculture (including by developing farmers’ organisations and rural infrastructure).

Under development outcome 9 "Enhanced decent job opportunities in the economy", the Plan focuses on teh following strategies: i. promote industrialisation and job creation (by prioritising the creation of jobs in the key growth sectors of agriculture, tourism, construction and manufacturing); ii. facilitate micro, small and medium enterprise development (including by extending the social security cover, and occupational safety and health protection to the informal sector); iii. promote cooperatives development; iv. increase employment opportunities in rural areas (including by promoting rural infrastructure development, agro value chain development and labour intensive industries operating in rural areas, as well as rural employment guarantee schemes); v. improve labour productivity (not specifically targeting agriculture); and vi. promote entrepreneurship skills training and development (including targets for the agricultural sector).

In addition to the "critical" development outcomes", under section 8. Poverty and vulnerability reduction, the Plan identifies a specific development outcome on "Welfare and livelihoods of the poor and vulnerable", including strategies to i. strengthen coordination of social protection systems, ii. improve coverage and targeting of social protection programmes (including farmer input support programme enhancement); and implement pension reforms. Under section 9. Reducing developmental inequalities, a development outcome aims to "Reduce Inequalities", with Strategy 1 on Promoting integrated rural development, 2 on promoting urban and peri-urban economies (including by impelmenting the decent work agenda), 3 on reducing gender inequality (including in terms of access to land and extension services); and 4 on enhancing income opportunities for poor and marginalised groups (with focus on the informal sector).
Finally, under section 10 on Enhancing human development, a specific development outcome is dedicated to Improved education and skills development, including TVET, even if not specifically linked to agriculture and rural areas.

The atlas aims to offer a better understanding of complex rural migration patterns in sub-Saharan Africa. It is the result of a partnership between the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO), with technical support from the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation (GovInn) in South Africa.

The atlas notes that the vast majority of Africans (75 percent) are migrating within Africa, whilst the overwhelming majority of North Africans (about 90 percent) migrate to Europe. Hence, sub-Sharan Africa "is in motion", but mainly within the limits of the continent. Western and Eastern Africa are the most dynamic regions with about 5.7 and 3.6 million intra-regional migrants in 2015.  Evidence also suggests that, in most sub-Saharan Africa countries, internal migration is the dominant migration pattern. For example, half of Kenya's and Senegal's migrants move within national borders, and in Nigeria and Uganda, in-country migration is as high as 80 percent.

The booklet collects key selected indicators to measure the progress made by the Governement of Rwanda in promoting gender accountability within the Agriculture Sector.

The used information is sourced from national surveys and administrative data from line Ministries and Agencies. It considers data of different periods of time to build an initial baseline on selected indicators. The information provided is not disaggregated by age, therefore the booklet does not provide information on young women.

The profile was developed by the Gender Monitoring Office with technical support of UN Women and financial support of the Embassy of Sweden in Rwanda. Affiliated to the Office of the Prime Minister, the Gender Monitoring Office is established by the law No 51/2007 0f 20/09/2007 which determines its responsibilities, organization and functioning.

This FAO project, funded by the Italian Development Cooperation, aims to harness the developmental potential of migration and food system dynamics and reduce distress economic rural out-migration in Kenya through developing value chains that link migration-prone areas to emerging local market opportunities.

The project will analyse internal migration and value chain dynamics for selected commodities with high employment and entrepreneurship potential, as well as potential to meet the food and nutrition needs of the population. Applying FAO’s sustainable food value chain (SFVC) approach, the intervention will combine: (i) capacitating poor households and cash transfer beneficiaries in rural areas to invest in viable livelihood opportunities; and (ii) scale up innovative mechanisms to link diaspora investors to young entrepreneurs, youth producers’ organizations and local communities, in order to support local value chain development.

The objective of the Climate Smart Agriculture Project for Kenya is to increase agricultural productivity and build resilience to climate change risks in the targeted smallholder farming and pastoral communities in Kenya, and in the event of an Eligible Crisis or Emergency, to provide immediate and effective response. There are five components to the project, namely: 1. upscaling climate smart agricultural practices; 2. strengthening climate-smart agricultural research and seed systems; 3. supporting agro-weather, market, climate, and advisory services; 4. project coordination and management, and 5. contingency emergency response.

The project targets the dairy, poultry, fish and local vegetable value chains.

Employment and decent work is not explicit priorities of the project, even though some of its components are indirectly relevant to it, such as: Subcomponent 1.3: Supporting Investments in Pastoral Production Systems (where jobs will be created in infrastructure works) or indirectly all components aiming at greening agricultural production.

According to Annex 7 of the prodoc (available here), Gender Mainstreaming and Inclusion of Youth and Vulnerable Groups will be a priority of the programme.

The project has atotal cost of  279.7 million USD, and benefits from a loan of the WB International Development Association (IDA) of 250 million USD. Responsible Agency is the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries.

The Uganda Green Growth Development Strategy aims to ensure that the goals of the Uganda Vision 2040 and the NDPII 2015/16-2019/20 are attained in a sustainable manner.

Specifically, the UGGDS seeks to: i. Accelerate economic growth and raise per capita income through targeted investments in priority sectors with the highest green growth multiplier effects; ii. Achieve inclusive economic growth along with poverty reduction, improved human welfare and employment creation; iii. Ensure that the social and economic transition is achieved through a low carbon development pathway that safeguards the integrity of the environment and natural resources. The UGGDS has five focus areas, namely: i. Sustainable agriculture production and value chains; ii. Natural capital management and development which focuses on tourism development, sustainable forestry, wetlands and optimal water resources management; iii. Planned urbanization and development of green cities; iv. Sustainable transport ; and v. Energy for green growth with increased emphasis on renewable energy. Under the focus area 1. Sustainable agriculture production and value chains, the strategic interventions planned are: i. Support increased access to irrigation facilities starting with 10 percent of smallholder farming areas in 2020 and cumulatively increasing to at least 60 percent of smallholder farmers by 2030; ii. Integrated soil fertility management entailing the development and implementation of appropriate soil fertility techniques through soil mapping and land use planning and conservation agriculture (based on the judicious use of inorganic fertilizers, organic manure, agro-forestry, soil and water conservation, energy conservation) for all the farming systems in the country; iii. Undertake actions to upgrade the value chain for strategic enterprises with a focus on product quality and quantity, market diversification, excellence in agro-processing and effective use of knowledge acquired from within the value chain (p.46).

Decent green jobs are among the expected development outcomes of the UGGDS by 2030 (p.9): total 3,366,016 jobs, of which 155, 158 in agriculture and 1,516,419 in natural capital management. However, youth targeting, gender equality and decent work standards are not explicitely addressed in the results framework.

“Young women’s employment and empowerment in the rural economy” is a country brief by IFAD and ILO mapping the situation of young women’s employment in rural areas of Morocco. The report also includes a section reviewing the main national policies and programmes in place and provides a series of policy recommendations.

The study reports large gender imbalances in the labour market, especially in rural areas. Women represent 18 % of the self-employed labour force and only 3 % of employers in larger farms and small and medium-sized enterprises. At the same time, women in rural areas represent two-thirds of contributing family workers, which means very low income and few opportunities for development and growth. The study mentions a number of challenges that rural young women face: high dependency on unpaid family work, gender-based division of roles, limited access to education, limited information about market needs and opportunities, limited access to technical and vocational training; limited access to technical and entrepreneurial information and support, limited access to financial services, cultural norms, patriarchal norms and customary systems of managing communities.

The report particularly indicates cultural norms as playing a significant role in women’s lack of decent jobs opportunities. For example, inheritance laws are shaped by traditional gender roles and male shares of inheritance are double those of female family members, a pattern rooted in the assumptions that men must provide for female members of the family, while women’s inheritance, in principle, carries no such assumptions of responsibility. Such underlying assumptions perpetuate dynamics of dependency. For example, in practice they create a barrier to women’s capacity to mobilize finance for personal and professional projects, since women seldom have the means to provide collateral for loans. Lastly, the report finds that young women in Morocco face a double burden because of their home-related responsibilities as well as income-generating activities, which is often a barrier to employment.

This FAO project, funded under the FAO Multi-Partner Support Mechanism (FMM), aims to promote investments in agriculture and rural development in migration-prone areas, in order to address rural out-migration and harness the potential of migration for rural development.
The project analyses migration dynamics, the capacity of the rural space to create decent jobs opportunities for youth and absorb new labour market entrants, and the impact of remittances and diaspora funds on farm and non-farm activities and rural employment dynamics in migration-prone areas in rural Senegal.

The expected project outputs are two: 1. Improved evidence base to harness the potential of migration for rural development and 2. Strengthened institutional capacities and policy dialogue to foster productive investments to create decent farm and non-farm jobs for rural youth in migration-prone areas in Senegal.

The FAO CPF for Tanzania is structured around 4 priority areas, namely: A) Evidence-based agriculture policy, planning, investment and sector coordination; B) Increasing agricultural production and productivity for food and nutrition security; C) Improving market access for increased incomes; and D) Strengthening resilience.

Under Priority Area B, the CPF puts emphasis on supporting the implementation of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) initiative and promoting the use of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), focusing on value chain development of selected sub-sectors (including livestock, crops, forestry and aquaculture) and giving due attention to decent rural employment criteria for rural youth and women farmers.

Output B.3 is on “Actors in priority value chains have improved capacity to apply decent work standards”, and the corresponding indicator target is “By 2018 capacities of actors in the rice and horticulture sector to implement decent work standards for women and youths employed are strengthened with FAO support". Output B4 looks into mainstreaming crosscutting issues, including youth and gender into the agriculture support services.

Finally, Output D. 2. Is on "Resilience of forest dependent and other vulnerable communities (including refugees) strengthened", with corresponding indicator target "By 2018, social protection programmes in forestry are developed with FAO’s support".

Hinga Weze (HW) is a 5-year USAID-funded project that aims to sustainably increase smallholder farmers’ income, improve the nutritional status of women and children, and increase the resilience of Rwanda’s agricultural and food systems to a changing climate.

By 2022, the project aims to benefit over 700,000 smallholder farmers in ten target districts: Bugesera, Gatsibo, Kayonza, and Ngoma (Eastern Province); Karongi, Ngororero, Nyabihu, Nyamasheke, and Rutsiro (Western Province); and Nyamagabe (Southern Province) and across five value chains: high-iron beans, orange flesh sweet potato (OFSP), Irish potato, maize, and horticulture.

In Year 1, HW made an effort to integrate a Youth Engagement Strategy and Implementation Plan to establish a framework for focused coordination and partnership with other youth initiatives. In 2019 HW awarded Youth Inclusion Grants (10 - 40,000 USD) to agribusiness solutions designed by youth or creating opportunities for youth employment, including ICT-based youth organizations and youth-led innovative solutions. A separate award was also launched on ICT4Ag solutions.

Main partners of the project are Plan International, Souktel, the Rwanda Development Organisation and Imbaraga Farmer’s Federation.

The main objectives of the FAO strategy are to: 1) establish regional priorities to support gender equality in alignment with the FAO Gender Equality Policy and Strategic Framework; 2) outline delivery mechanisms, roles and responsibilities; and 3) improve the visibility of the gender work in the FAO regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) and encourage knowledge generation and the sharing of results.

For the time period 2017–2019, RAP has identified four focus areas:

1. Developing improved understanding of gender dynamics in changing agri-food systems.

2. Increasing the benefits that women and men receive from FAO and partner programmes in key productive systems, including rice farming, fisheries and aquaculture.

3. Advancing gender equality in food and nutrition security programming.

4. Improving protection from and resilience to disasters and climate change risks for women and men.

5. Improving intervention effectiveness: mainstreaming gender in projects, planning and M&E.

Even though employment generation is not a dedicated objective of the strategy, the promotion of gender equality across FAO programmes on agri-food systems in the region is expected to positively impact on the employment situation of rural women.

Under focus area 2, the Strategy requests that the Regional Rice Initiative considers the recommendations contained in the Rice Strategy and other ways to support women’s participation, including country studies to document women’s contribution to rice systems, and the promotion of rice and aquaculture-based labour-saving technologies and practices that are suitable for women (p. 11). Moreover, the Action Plan includes a specific activity on carrying out a study on the linkages between nutrition interventions, women’s work burden and social protection measures in Lao PDR.

Under focus area 4, one of the activities looks into promoting women economic empowerment in the restoration of livelihoods through value-adding initiatives, marketing and entrepreneurship.

The Philippine Youth Development Plan (PYDP) 2017-2022 serves as a framework for unified action among the youth and youth-serving groups, agencies and institutions to promote holistic youth participation in the society. The PYDP contributes to the strengthening of collective vision for the Filipino Youth as articulated by the National Youth Commission: Enabled, involved and patriotic youth realizing their aspirations anchored on integrity and compassion.

The following nine centers have been identified:
• Health • Social inclusion & equity • Active citizenship
• Education • Peace-building & security • Environment
• Economic empowerment • Governance • Global mobility
The PYDP expounds on these nine centers, and strategies have been developed for respective centers.

Although agriculture is not the main focus of this policy, agricultural and other green industries are recognized as sectors that hold significant potential in addressing youth unemployment and underemployment. Other decent rural employment issues, such as child labour, is also listed as one of the employment related problems.

This report synthesizes the analysis and findings of a set of seven country (Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe) impact evaluation studies that explore the impact of cash transfer programmes on household economic decision-making, productive activities and labour allocation in sub-Saharan Africa. The research has been carried out under the auspices of the “From Protection to Production” (PtoP) project, a collaborative effort of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Results show that these programmes have significant positive impacts on the livelihoods of beneficiary households.  In most of the countries, transfers led to increased use of agricultural inputs and increases or changes in agricultural production. Most of the cash transfer programmes led to increased livestock accumulation. In almost all countries, cash transfers allowed beneficiary households to avoid negative risk coping strategies and to better manage risk, partly by allowing beneficiaries to “re-enter” existing social networks and thus strengthen their informal social protection systems.
More in depth, in Zambia, the Child Grant programme had large and positive impacts across an array of income generating activities. The impact of the programmes in Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi and Zimbabwe were more selective in nature, while the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty programme in Ghana had fewer direct impacts on productive activities, and more on various dimensions of risk management.
In terms of impacts on labour supply - disaggregated by gender and age - the evaluation revealed that adult males were more likely to work on farm, particularly in land preparation and planting, while adult females were less likely to do so. Elderly individuals, both male and female, were also more likely to carry out certain on-farm activities. The gender of the head of the household was also important; the lower likelihood of female participation in on-farm activities was concentrated in male-headed households. With respect to engagement of children in work activities, participation in family farming decreased overall in Kenya and Lesotho, for younger children in Ethiopia and for girls in Zimbabwe. 

The Terres des Hommes Child Labour Report 2017 - titled The Neglected Link. Effects of Climate Change and Environmental Degradation on Child Labour - argues that without a comprehensive and contextualised understanding of child labour, without a close view to newly emerging dynamics and phenomena, policies and programmes aimed at the abolition of its worst forms risk falling short of achieving their objectives.
The study links child labour to environmental conditions, both as root causes of child labour or exacerbating factors of existing root causes and as a background to children’s working “environment”. While many families, especially in rural areas, depend on the environment to earn a living, prevention and protection mechanisms in relation to child labour do not always consider the effect of environmental degradation on parents’ decision to send their children to work or to migrate in search of work.
Furthermore, the exploitative nature of some activities such as resource extraction or certain agricultural practices is strongly mirrored in the hazardous conditions under which children are forced to work in these sectors.
On the other hand, findings suggest that engagement in certain types of work like recycling, if managed properly, can also have positive outcomes for both the children involved and the environment.
The study presents case studies on Burkina Faso, India, Nepal, Nicaragua and Peru, and concludes with Recommendations in Chapter 7.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Italian Development Cooperation and the HP Foundation launched the second phase of UNIDO’s youth employment project “Mashrou3i” (“My project” in Arabic), with the objective to create more than 6,000 jobs for young people in Tunisia over the next five years.
In its first phase, the Mashrou3i project has helped create more than 1,250 jobs, including by helping more than 160 start-up businesses mainly in the governorates of Kairouan, Kasserine, Kef and Sidi Bouzid (including agribusiness enterprises). During the second phase of this public-private partnership, the project will be expanded to fourteen vulnerable governorates of Tunisia and US$14 million will be invested to provide direct support to aspiring and existing entrepreneurs through training courses, business coaching and technical assistance in Beja, Gafsa, Gabès, Jendouba, Kairouan, Kasserine, Kébili, Kef, Medenine, Sidi Bouzid, Siliana, Tataouine, Tozeur and Zaghouan. It will also help enhance the knowledge and capacity of local business support and higher educational institutions.

Mashrou3i will leverage the HP Foundation’s Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurs (HP LIFE) programme, which provides free, online IT and business skills training for people all over the world.

Click here for success stories of the project in English. 

Click here for success stories in French. 

See also USAID final performance evaluation of first phase of Mashrou3i project here.

See programme Facebook page. 

Huguka Dukore Akazi Kanoze (HDAK) is a USAID-funded project, implemented by the Education Development Center (EDC), aiming to provide 40,000 youth with work readiness skills and employment opportunities through the following activities: i. Assessing and sharing data on employment opportunities; ii. Building capacity of local organizations to deliver employment skills preparation and job intermediation services; iii. Training youth in relevant job skills for work and self-employment; iv. Growing the Akazi Kanoze network of local youth-serving organizations and employment resources. The project promotes gender equality, social inclusion for youth with disabilities, and holistic health programming.

At the institutional level, the proejct supports the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) and the Ministry of Youth (MINIYOUTH) to develop a more coordinated workforce development delivery system by strengthening networks between public and private workforce actors, leveraging investments with development partners, and improving the capacity of local implementing partners to provide high-quality youth employment services.

In its second year of implementation (2018), HDAK work readiness programmes for vulnerable youth expanded from 3,428 in 8 initial districts to 15,850 youth enrolled across 23 of Rwanda’s 30 districts. In 2018, HDAK trained 22 local organizations to assess and share local labor market data and deliver market-relevant employment preparation and job intermediation services as prerequisites to connecting vulnerable youth to stable work and self-employment. Finally, 8,220 youth received training on reproductive health and family planning as part of the Work Ready Now! training.

According to the 2018 Annual Report (available here), the project is linking rural youth to livelihood options across agriculture value chains and is involving youth in savings and lending groups that provide initial capital for small business start-ups. More pecisely: 3,321 youth were linked to agriculture value chains and 1,404 youth received agriculture start-up kits.

This report, produced by the MasterCard Foundation in collaboration with Low-Income Financial Transformation (L-IFT), documents how rural young people pursue "mixed livelihoods" to generate income, combining temporary and seasonal work in the informal and formal sectors by working for themselves and others, in household agricultural production, and on social and reproductive activities, such as cleaning, cooking, and looking after children.
This research shows that few of Africa's young people currently find wage employment in the formal sector; the vast majority undertake a mix of informal sector employment, self-employment and agriculture-related activities. The report refers to this combination of livelihood activities as "mixed livelihoods".
Additionally, the report argues that international development programs favour skills training for formal sector careers over training that can be applied to multiple jobs in the informal sector.
The result is that their efforts fall short of reaching the millions of "unreached" youth on the continent who engage in mixed livelihoods.

Five are the top lessons that can be drwan from this research:
- Young people in both countries undertake a mix of informal sector employment, self-employment, and agriculture-related activities to sustain their livelihoods.
- Agricultural production is central to rural young people’s livelihoods but agricultural incomes are meagre. The most successful young people diversify their income and risk by growing multiple crops, raising different kinds of livestock, and pursuing a wide variety of additional activities.
- Both formal and informal wage employment is rare and sporadic, or elusive.
- Entrepreneurship and self-employment remains an important economic activity in both countries.
- Mixed livelihoods allow for risk mitigation and maximize young people’s economic opportunities within vulnerable geographic areas.

The research was conducted using a diaries approach, whereby young people met regularly with youth researchers over a yearlong period, enabling a more robust longitudinal understanding of livelihoods, cash flows, and the nature of rural work. 240 young people from rural Ghana and Uganda, aged 18-24, took part in the research, illustrating the varied activities that young people undertake to generate income and create livelihoods.

This OECD report examines how the various dimensions of migration affect key policy sectors, such as the labour market, agriculture, education, and investment and financial services. It also analyses how policies in these sectors influence a range of migration outcomes, such as the decision to migrate, the use of remittances and the success of return migration. The empirical analysis is based on fieldwork in the Philippines, which involved collecting quantitative data from 2,000 households and 37 communities across four provinces, and conducting 40 qualitative stakeholder interviews.

As regards the interrelation between migration and labour market in general, the report shows a variety of possible consequences. If migrants were unemployed before leaving, a significant drop in the labour supply can in theory reduce competition in the labour market, which in turn increases wage levels and decreases unemployment. If the workers come from a skilled sector for which there is little supply in the labour market, their skills can be lost, while if the labour market can easily substitute for workers who emigrate there may be little impact. Also, if an emigrant leaves a household comprised of a married couple with young children, this can reduce the time available for formal employment or increase the workload of the remaining adults (pp. 92-93).

According to report, a closer look at the agricultural sector shows that there are two main views on how migration affects it:
1. emigration decreases labour availability within the household and potentially in the wider community households considering the loss of a young man’s agricultural contribution greater than gains from remittances. The departure of the most productive workers may even lead to labour shortages and food insecurity in certain communities.
2. Migration can be a source of investment and innovation for the sector through remittances and social and financial capital brought home by return migrants. These can be invested in productive assets such as machinery, barns, fencing, feeding mechanisms, irrigation systems and tractors, helping households moving  from labour-intensive to capital-intensive activities or into specialisation. Remittances also permit agricultural households to resist and insure against hardships (pp. 114-115).

Regarding how the migration is taken into account by national policy makers, the report concludes that its potential is not fully exploited. One explanation is that, despite its advancement in understanding the link between migration and development, which is reflected in the Philippine Development Plan, not all policy makers in the Philippines take migration sufficiently into account in their respective policy areas, the Philippines needs to adopt a more coherent policy agenda and better integrate migration into their sectoral strategies.

This report is the result of a project carried out by the Scalabrini Migration Center (SMC) and the OECD Development Centre, in collaboration with the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) and with support from the European Union. 

This loan aims to improve landscape management and access to economic opportunities for targeted rural communities in North West and Center West regions of Tunisia. The project seeks to promote the integrated landscape development approach to spur economic activity (livelihoods, employment), improve agricultural productivity, foster biodiversity and contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as improve water availability and quality.
While addressing the impacts of climate change and preserving the landscape’s natural resources, which are essential for protecting local livelihoods that are heavily dependent on agriculture, forests and rangelands, integrated management of the region’s forests and rangelands alone has the potential of raising the value of their output from the current USD 16 million to USD 75 million, and creating around 25,000 jobs.

Direct beneficiaries of the project will be the rural communities in the targeted regions, which will benefit from a range of capacity building initiatives and investments aimed at improving their livelihoods. Direct beneficiaries include local communities that will co-manage forest and rangeland resources in targeted landscapes and benefit economically from the increase value added of products as a result of project interventions. These communities represent a population of about 250,000 rural households (about 1.5 million people). Women constitute 51 percent of these direct beneficiaries, and youth (age category 15-35) are about 25 percent (i.e., about 400,000 people). In addition, direct beneficiaries are expected to be producers, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), producer organizations and their workers in the agricultural sectors in targeted regions. The proposed project will also target Farmers, MSMEs and Producer Organizations (POs) in the main silvo-pastoral ecosystems and associated crops which dominate landscapes in these regions, such as: (i) the Cork oak forest ecosystem in the North-West, mainly in the Jendouba governorate (and partially in the Beja and Bizerte governorates); (iii) the Aleppo pine forest ecosystem, mainly in the two governorates of Kasserine and Siliana; and (iv) the Alfa grass steppe ecosystem, in the Sidi Bouzid governorate and the Kasserine governorate. In addition, the project will target olive tree agricultural system in the North West and Center regions.
Implementing agency is the Direction Générale des Forêts and the project benefits from a USD 100 million loan.

See project factsheet here. 

The FAO CPF for Chad is structured around 3 priority areas, namely: i. Agri-food value chain development for food and nutrition security; ii. Formulation and implementation of sectoral policies and strategies for food security and nutrition; and iii. Valorisation and improved management of natural resources to strengthen resilience.

Under Priority Area 1, FAO’s support will focus on several employment-relevant priorities, including supporting the organization and overall structuring of value chains (Output 1.1); establishing small modern transformation units (Output 1.3); supporting producers in accessing markets (Output 1.4); strengthening rural entrepreneurship among youth and women (Output 1.5) and supporting production intensification and diversification (Output 1.6). The target for Output 1.5 is to establish or upgrade 1000 rural micro-enterprises to generate decent rural employment by 2021 (50% youth/50% women).   

This UN Joint Programme aims to contribute to the development of the life skills of young women and men so that they are able, motivated and have opportunities to participate in the process of security and pacification, the strengthening of trust between the state and the people and the economic reconstruction of the country.

The project has a total cost of USD 72,551,778, to be shared between the Central African Government and technical and financial partners, including the UN agencies involved. It covers the eight districts of Bangui and 28 sub-prefectures distributed over the national territory. Coordination is provided by UNDP and UNFPA, but many other UN are involved, namely UNICEF, FAO, WHO, UNAIDS, OIT, UNWOMEN, WFP, UNHCR, and UNOPS.

The activities focus on: (i) education for citizenship, social cohesion and non-violent conflict resolution; (ii) vocational training in following sectors: agriculture, breeding, environmental management, brick making, garbage collection and recycling, fish farming, carpentry, electricity, cold chain, plumbing, auto mechanics, masonry, sewing, hairdressing, shoemaking, leather goods, saponification, etc. ; (iii) training in management and financial aspects related to the start-up of income-generating activities; (iv)  communication on STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) prevention, HIV / AIDS, and Gender-based Violence.

Specific components of the programme supported by FAO focus on agri-entrepreneurship, like the sub-project Jeunes/EZINGO.

The Policy, under the overall responsibility of the Ministry of Labour (MINTRAB) has the general objective of increasing the opportunities for women and men to access decent and productive jobs, with special focus on rural people, women, youth, and indigenous communities.  

The PNED recognizes that women and youth, especially in rural areas and indigenous communities, face the highest challenges in achieving decent work (p. 10). Also in Section 3.5 on links with other policies, the PNED explicitly mentions the links with the Politica nacional de desarrollo rural integral (PNDRI). In terms of targets (section 5.3), the PNED lists not only unemployment, but also underemployment, informality and extreme working poverty (which are particularly relevant in rural areas).

The PNED is structured in 4 axes, namely: 1. Employment generation (with Result 1.1 explicitly mentioning employment prioritization in sectoral policies); 2. Human capital development; 3. Enabling environment for enterprise development (with Result 3.2 dedicated to the enabling environment for enterprise development in rural areas, both in agriculture and other rural sectors; and 4. Transition to formality (with Results 4.2 and 4.3 on increasing access to social security and 4.4 on inclusive social dialogue).

Priority action 1 under Axis 1 is about the development of a National Action Plan for decent employment generation, with specific mention on agricultural-related clusters; while Priority action 11 under Axis 3 is about a rural development plan: a revolution in the agriculture and livestock sectors (with focus on collaboration with producers’ organizations and access to technology).  

The National Commission for Decent Work that will oversee the implementation of the Policy is presided over by the MINTRAB and includes Ministry of Economy (MINECO), Education (MINEDUC), and Social Affairs (MIDES).

The State of the Youth Report 2017 assesses progress and bottlenecks in many youth development areas, including employment.

The methodlogy is based on a desk review of the ministerial policy statements presented by the different ministries to Parliament, the government budget documents including the National Development Plan II, National Budget Framework Paper FY 2016/17 and 2017/18, Parliamentary committee reports on the Ministerial Policy Statements; as well as Youth Voices generated from Youth Parliaments and National Reflection Platform.

The report was developed by the Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Youth Affairs (UPFYA) together with Democratic Governance Facility (DGF) and Centre for Policy Analysis.

Several youth demands and corresponding government responses are assessed with regard to topics relevant to decent rural employment, such as mechanisms to encourage youth involvement in the agricultural sector, youth access to finance, markets, land and infrastructure, education and youth participation in decision making.

This Declaration of the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus (GIYC) includes recommendation related to the following areas:

1. The implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, including related to the identification of indigenous youth as owners of rights with respect to consultation and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and the need to, as a part of the consultation process, and in accordance with the structure of the indigenous peoples concerned, establishing separate and independent mechanisms that ensure the participation of indigenous youth in decision-making that affects indigenous peoples; as well as urging Member States to ensure decent equal employment opportunities that guarantee labor rights free of discrimination and with social protection for indigenous youth living in urban areas.
2. the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, including related to the need for Member States and Indigenous Peoples to invest in youth initiatives related to economic empowerment based on indigenous agriculture, providing training for the development of sustainable entrepreneurship.
3. the work of the FAO, including about the establishment of a Global Indigenous Youth Consultative Forum to Eliminate Hunger within the FAO (Youth Forum).

This report is the result of a collaboration between FAO and UN Women, and has benefitted from EU financial contribution. It focuses on the findings of two assessments carried out by FAO in Tana River and Turkana Counties, Kenya on community land rights of women and youth.

The findings of the overall study show that even though various legal and policy frameworks have been put in place to address women’s access to and control of land and natural resources, there are still implementation challenges in the two counties and therefore need for better exploring opportunities and advocating for women’s and youth’s community land access rights.

The report identifies a number of recommendations revolving around awareness creation (community sensitization) by non-governmental organizations to enlighten the communities about their rights and the importance of adhering to principles such as participation and consultation. Suggested activities include those that promote adult literacy, build the capacity of the councils of elders on issues such as arbitration and mediation skills, form and strengthen women’s groups so as to empower them, and mainstream gender and integrity in land governance to root out corruption. Other recommended interventions include proper land use planning, the formation of group ranches for the sustainable management of resources, exposure visits to other communities to exchange ideas on how to move forward on the women’s land rights agenda, synergies with relevant offices in the county government, and working with religious leaders and organizations to advocate for women’s and youth’s rights.

The AfDB strategy is based on two pillars: Pillar 1 on supporting agricultural transformation; and Pillar 2 on strengthening production and competitiveness support infrastructure (energy and transport).

The main objective of Pillar 1 is to contribute to inclusive and green growth by supporting the transformation of Senegal’s agriculture sector, in particular, through the development of agricultural value chains, agribusiness and agricultural entrepreneurship. Pillar 1 aims at achieving the following outcomes: 1) Development of agricultural value chains and agribusiness; 2) Promotion of agricultural employment and entrepreneurship (with a focus on youth, on the development of necessary skills along the value chain and on access to finance); and 3) improvement of the living conditions of rural communities (including through agribusiness and value chain development for stable incomes, boosted purchasing power and services, narrowed urban-rural divide and migration, less gender disparities). The correspondent outputs envision quota for youth and women in terms of jobs and enterprises to be created. High priority is attached to alleviating the drudgery of women’s chores. According to the document, (para 3.2.4), under this pillar, the Bank will also provide impetus to a sustainable, endogenous growth process in rural areas where the majority of the population (60%) is concentrated and mainly engaged in agro-pastoral activities with an upward trend in migration towards the main towns and cities, in particular, Dakar, in search of employment. The rural areas must be made attractive as well as secondary towns with a decent living environment comparable to that of the large cities. Revitalized secondary towns could also be powerful drivers of progress providing agricultural producers with major outlets for their produce. The Bank, therefore, intends to support the Government in implementing reform and investment programmes that will facilitate access to basic services both in rural areas and in secondary towns to turn them into viable areas, with growing opportunities.“

The objective of Pillar 2 is also to contribute to inclusive and green growth, by closing the energy and transport gaps in order to support the development of agribusiness and improve the population’s living conditions. This includes outcomes that indirectly contribute to Decent Work Pillar I, namely: 1) improved access to electricity for enterprises (with special attention to agricultural MSMEs), as well as for households in order to strengthen inclusion of rural zones; 2) improved internet connection, as a factor of competitiveness for the production and processing of agricultural products and for agribusiness; and 3) regional integration to access regional markets also for processed agricultural products.

Under the non-lending operations, the strategy envisions studies on: i) implementation of Senegal’s Youth Employment Strategy; and iv) the development of public-private partnerships in vocational training and integration.

The NYES, coordinated by the Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs, Directorate of Youth Affairs, is a guide to the implementation of youth-targeted empowerment interventions in Kenya. Its goal is to provide a unified, coherent, and stable framework for the development and empowerment of youth at both national and local levels. The NYES seeks to achieve transformative youth empowerment in the following areas: (a) the policy and legal framework; (b) leadership and participation; (c) employment and skills development; (d) the identification and development of innovation, creativity, technology, and talent; (e) agriculture, environmental management, and sustainable development; (f) health, crime, and drug and substance abuse.

Particularly, under the Focus area "Agriculture, environmental management, and sustainable development", the government aims to make agriculture attractive and tap the creativity and energy of youth in agriculture for a food secure nation and sustainable development by promoting the use of green processes and technologies. Conducive environment shall also be provided for youth to be involved in agriculture.

The Youth in Organic Horticulture Production (YouHoP) programme, launched in November 2016, is implemented by the Gold Fields Ghana (GFG) Foundation with the support of the GIZ (together, GFG and GIZ are investing EURO 800,000).
The initiative aims to create employment and improve incomes for about 1,000 youth along the entire horticulture value chain.
The Programme builds around four main structures:
1. YouHop Farmer Business School, which will seek to build and strengthen the entrepreneurial capacity of YouHop participants and help them approach farming as a business. They will be taken through training modules in: Financial literacy and fund management; Market identification and entry; Entrepreneurial and business skills; Relationship building and negotiation; and the use of appropriate technology.
2. YouHop ICT System: This system will include a knowledge and networking platform that will help participants share complaints and solutions, monitor weather and price updates, and receive information on farming practices. It will also help manage production and distribution links, and serve as a data collection tool for baselines and impact studies.
3. YouHop Cooperative Credit Union: This will be a community-based sustainable financing system established to provide low interest credit facilities and business advisory services to programme participants.
4. Green Label Certification: Vegetables produced under the YouHop programme will seek certification from the Ghana Green Label Secretariat.

The programme is part of GFG commitment to community and national development and employment for sustainable development in Africa

ARDYIS is a framework of actions which aims to raise the capacity and opportunities of youth in agriculture through ICTs in ACP countries (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific).

Its key activities include the Youth in Agriculture Blog Competition (YoBloCo Awards) and the AgriHack Talent initiative. More specifically, it works to strengthen the capacities of youth on ICTs for development issues, particularly in the agricultural and rural sector, as well as to contribute to sensitising youth on questions related to agriculture and rural development in ACP countries.

ARDYIS's targets are young farmers, students on agricultural training courses, and  all youth living in urban and rural areas in ACP countries and interested in agricultural, rural development and ICTs.

The project is implemented by the CTA (Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation).

In October 2015, the AfDB – in association with the AUC, UNECA, and the Government of Senegal – organized a high-level Ministerial Conference (HLC) on “Feed Africa: An Action Plan for African Agricultural Transformation” in Dakar to map out, within the CAADP goals and Malabo commitments, how to unlock Africa’s agricultural potential and boost job creation with a view to diversifying African economies. This Strategy builds on the commitments made at this event as well as the existing activities and prior commitments, such as commitments made in the 2003 Maputo Declaration and 2014 Malabo Commitments through the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP).

While the Strategy does not include a dedicated component to promote employment and decent work in rural areas, it is expected to directly contribute to Decent Work Pillar I, through support to women and youth engagement in agribusiness, and smallholder agricultural livelihoods.

Among the principles that will guide the Strategy there is: Securing improved smallholder agricultural livelihoods based on enhancing the value of their assets (land, labor, time) while assuring higher returns and household food security. (p. 10). Also, to transform the priority value chains identified, the Strategy proposes to address 7 enablers: #6 is about Increased Inclusivity, Sustainability, and Nutrition. This includes key activities such as: Launch funding programs that will increase the availability of financing and participation of under-represented actors in agribusiness, with particular focus on women and rural populations; Support development of a young class of future ‘agripreneurs’, through training and financing; Strengthen farmer institutions, including cooperatives and unions. The role of the Bank in particular will be to: Establish a facility to promote women-owned MSMEs and Establish facilities to increase youth employment and enhance skills in agribusiness (e.g. ENABLE Youth programme).

The Strategy states that it will work in parallel with other key priorities, including the Jobs for Youth in Africa which falls within the ‘Improve quality of life for the people in Africa’ High 5 Priority. ‘Feed Africa’ will include agricultural finance models that will benefit youth, as well as other groups; it will rely on the ‘Jobs for Youth in Africa’ strategy to increase the representation of youth in agriculture and agribusiness and equip them with the necessary skills to be successful.

Among the risks identified is the "Potential job loss for the smallest farmers as a result of increases in productivity". The corresponded mitigation strategy indicates that: The strategy aims to increase total output to achieve self-sufficiency in a range of value chains - in these areas we do not expect a net decline in employment. In 2 value chains - wheat and soy production - there will be a reduced level of net employment in production, through the application of mechanization. The net increase in overall agro-processing and agro-allied industry will more than offset the reduction in production employment in these value chains.

The goal of the Jobs for Youth in Africa Strategy 2016- 2025 is to create 25 million jobs and train 50 million youth to be entrepreneurs. Overall, this strategy is anchored in the overall vision of Improving Quality of Life for All Africans (High 5 Priority).

The Strategy has three main objectives: i) addressing demand challenges, while making opportunities available to youth across socio-economic strata, rural-urban divides, and gender and age groups ; ii) addressing supply challenges, in human capital development and equipping youth with skills that match labor market needs; iii) addressing linkage challenges, to create better connections between employers and young Africans.

This holistic framework for creating employment and economic opportunity for youth will be supported by an investment facility. The facility will deploy a variety of financing instruments including concessional and market-oriented blended finance, to be funded by both the Bank and external partners. This includes bilateral donors, foundations, corporations, and investors.

The ILO DWCP for Cambodia identifies the following three priorities: 1: Improving industrial relations and rights at work (with a focus on women, migrant workers, domestic workers, child labourers, and indigenous people); 2: Promoting an enabling environment for decent employment growth and sustainable enterprises, with a focus on young people; and 3: Improving and expanding social protection and OSH.

While all 3 priorities are relevant to employment and decent work in rural areas, the DWCP explicitly targets the rural sector under Priorities 2 and 3. In particular Outcome 2.2 is on “Enhanced employability of men and women through improved and expanded gender-responsive skills development and employment services” and includes a specific strategy focused on disadvantaged youth, including those living in rural areas and/or working in the informal economy, low-skilled and early school leavers, youth belonging to minority ethnic groups, and youth with disabilities (p. 34). Outcome 2.3 “Effective progress made to enhance enterprise productivity, competitiveness, working conditions, and promotion of entrepreneurship” supports Cambodian constituents with a focus on key sectors in terms of job creation and income, including the garment, tourism, and agriculture sectors (p. 36).

Moreover, Under Priority 3 Outcome 3.1 is on “Increased social protection quality and coverage” and seeks to develop national-and provincial-level capacity to apply employment-intensive infrastructure activities to generate employment and cash-based income in rural areas and to promote sustainable local enterprises. This will reduce household income vulnerability, especially in times of natural disaster and economic crisis, while connecting communities in rural areas and extending basic services to the rural population (p. 40). Finally, Outcome 3.2 is on “Increased transitioning from the informal to the formal economy, particularly in rural areas, including women and indigenous people”.

This programme is the Afghanistan strategic framework for agricultural development, under the coordination of the Ministry of Agriculture Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL).

The programme has seven Strategic Priorities: (1) Irrigation; (2) Wheat and cereal production; (3) Horticulture value-chain; (4) Livestock Production; (5) Climate-sensitive Natural Resources Management; (6) Food and Nutrition Security and Resilience building; and (7) Institutional reform and capacity development.

According to the document (p. 7), focus of the MAIL is on SDG 1 (specifically on targets 5,6 and 7) and SDG 2, including “an aggressive programme of enabling women to grow and increase food production, both at household level and on a commercial scale, providing women and other vulnerable groups with food security under targets 3 and 4”. Employment is in the mission statement (p. 9) and reflected as a desired outcome across the document, yet a dedicated strategy is missing.

The horticulture sector is explicitly mentioned with regard to the potential inclusion of youth through value chain development (p. 13). Farmers organizations are promoted under section 7.5.

Decent work aspects are not addressed, apart from explicit women economic empowerment elements. This includes “using successful women farmers as role models and mentors for a cadre of younger women farmers” (p. 36).

The plan, under the responsibility of the Instituto Salvadoreño para el Desarrollo de la Mujer (ISDEMU), is the main governmental plan to promote women’s equality. It recognizes that the main challenges for archiving equality and non-discrimination for women in El Salvador are related with the strengthening of their economic empowerment, with full access to a comprehensive education and a culture that promotes equality; the guarantee of women's their sexual and reproductive rights; the right of a life without violence; and women’s participation in all social, political, economic and cultural aspects of life (p. 6)

The document acknowledges that inequalities between women and men in terms of labour participation, employment, unemployment and incomes persist due to structural reasons that segregate women’s participation in sectors of low productivity and most of them in the informal sector, with limited access to credit, lower salaries, self-employment and other forms of non-waged employment. The plan recognizes that this situation is more critical in rural areas and for the youth population (pp. 15-16).

The area on Economic Empowerment of the Plan aims to ensure women's access to economic resources, including land, credit, technical and professional training, and to mainstream the importance of women’s work into the national economy. The impact indicators under this area include: i) Monthly income by sex; ii) Percentage distribution by sex of agricultural producers and land owners; iii) Percentage distribution by sex of business owners; and iv) Employment rate by sex (p. 32).

Also, the area on Care and Social Protection focuses on promoting strategies aimed at recognizing the importance of women’s work through data generation and the formulation and implementation of social protection programmes and services for all (p. 33). Finally, the area on Education and culture of equality seeks to increase women’s participation in TVET and non-traditional higher education (p. 36).  

The UNDAP II has twelve Programme Outcomes that will be achieved through four principal strategies: 1. Promoting Policy Coherence, 2. Leveraging Partnerships, 3. Fostering Learning in Development and 4. Enabling Quality Service Provision.
The Plan is structured around four thematic results areas: i. Inclusive Growth; ii. Healthy Nation; iii. Democratic Governance, Human Rights and Gender Equality, and iv. Resilience.
Employment generation is addressed under the first thematic results area, which includes three Outcomes: i. The economy is increasingly transformed for greater pro-poor inclusiveness, competitiveness and increased
opportunities for decent and productive employment (including focus on supporting youth and women entrperises in the agriculture sector, and improving working conditions in the informal sector); ii. Enhanced equitable and inclusive access to quality basic education and lifelong learning; iii. Increased coverage of comprehensive and integrated social protection for all, especially the poor and vulnerable.
As concerns social protection (also addressed under the same thematic area), the UN will work with the Government to agree on and operationalise the National Social Protection Framework including the creation of a national social protection floor to secure a set of social security rights and transfers which will help extend basic support and protection to those in need (p. 21). Additionally, the institutions and communities will be empowered to enhance the flagship Productive Social Safety Net (PSSN) programme, as well as to design and implement sustainable, inclusive and effective social protection programmes across a range of concerns, such as - among others - livelihood security, as well as initiatives to eliminate harmful cultural practices and end child labour.
Under the thematic area on Resilience, a specific Outcome aims to guarantee a Comprehensive protection-sensitive and solution-oriented assistance and management of refugees and migratory flows (even though activities are not explicitely linked to rural and agriculture priorities).

The PNDES is the national reference document for interventions by the State and its partners over the 2016-2020 period. Its overall objective is “to structurally transform the Burkinabe economy, to achieve a strong, sustainable, resilient, inclusive growth, creative of decent employment for all and inducing improved social wellbeing”. Among the expected impacts is to reach an annual average growth rate of 7.7% and the creation of at least 50,000 decent jobs per year (p.49).

In chapter I on Diagnostic analysis of economic and social  situation, the PNDES highlights that (p. 23) “poverty is basically rural, with an incidence of 47.5% versus 13.6% in urban environment”. Section 1.2 also points to the challenge of productive system with little evolution marked by poor effects on creation of decent jobs (p.25). Agricultural activities are dominated by small-scale family subsistence farming. Rural entrepreneurship is very slightly developed, reducing possibilities of promotion, diversification and marketing of national products. Section 1.3.1 points to the strong demographic growth hampering development progress, and 1.3.5 to the offer of jobs dominated by informal economy.

The PNDES is articulated around three strategic Axes which are: (i) 1: Reform institutions and modernize the administration, (ii) 2: Develop human capital and, (iii) 3: Revitalize promising sectors for the economy and employment.

Axis 2 comprises five Strategic Objectives (SO). In particular, SO 2.2 is about “Increase the offer and improve quality of education and training, in adequacy with the needs for the transformation of the economy”, with specific targets relevant for agricultural development, such as: proportion of beneficiaries of TVET in agro-pastoral processing from 1.1% in 2015 to 15% in 2020, proportion of working-age population trained in agro-pastoral professions from 0.2% in 2015 to 7% in 2020 and literacy rate of the working-age population (18 years and above) from 29.5% in 2015 to 35% in 2020. Also, SO 2.4 aims at promoting decent employment and social protection for all, especially for young people and women. Two outcomes are expected under this SO: 2.4.1: Decent employment and social protection are guaranteed to all; and 2.4.2: Social and gender inequalities are reduced and women are promoted as dynamic actors for development. Expected targets include: i) the rate of professional insertion of young people and women via Public employment service (SPE) will be increased from 10% in 2015 to at least 20% in 2020; (ii) the contribution of formal private employment in the total employment is increased from 6.6% in 2014 to 15% in 2020; (iii) the unemployment rate will drop from 6.6% in 2014 to 3% in 2020; (iv) the under-employment rate in agricultural sector will drop from 64% in 2014 to 30% in 2020; (v) the percentage of prevalence of children from 5 to 17 years involved in economic activities decreases from 41% in 2014 to 25% in 2020 (not specified by sectors); (vi) the proportion of workers affiliated with the National Social Security Caisse (CNSS) and with the Autonomous Fund for Civil Servant Retirement (CARFO) raises at 100% in 2020; (vii) the number of industrial accidents for 1 million workers from 6,063.85 in 2014 to 3,031 in 2020; (viii) the number of individual conflicts per 10,000 wage earners go from 131.15 in 2015 to 70 in 2020 and (ix) the coverage rate for universal health insurance (RAMU) from 0% in 2015 to 25% in 2020.

Axis 3 addresses decent rural employment aspects. It comprises five SOs, with the first one focusing on agriculture: SO 3.1: develop agro-sylvo-pastoral, fauna and fishing sector, which is productive and resilient and more market-oriented. Outcome 3.1.1 expects that “primary sector contributes to food security, decent employment, supply of national agricultural processing”. Correspondent targets however focus more on job creation and productivity than decent work, including: primary sector productivity by 50% by 2020, rate of marketing of agricultural produce (including cash crops) from 25% on average between 2005 and 2010 to 37.5% in 2020, rate of increase in supply of agricultural processing industry by 50% in 2020, proportion of the land titles issued on requests from 4.9% in 2015 to 45% in 2020, average number of jobs created in primary sector from 39,000 in 2015 to 110,000 in 2020.

Section 3.2.6 mentions the role of the Burkinabe abroad as partners for the implementation of the PNDES.

Adolescents (younger than 18) are specifically addressed only with regard to family planning (p.61).

The Zambia United Nations Sustainable Development Partnership Framework outlines the collective aspirations of the United Nations in Zambia and the Government of the Republic of Zambia towards supporting the achievement of transformational results in response to the development country's priorities.
The Framework has a focus on decent employment with emphasis on women and youth, including in the agricultural sector.
The country analysis recognizes high unemployment levels and the pervasiveness of informal employment as core obstacles to poverty alleviation and decent work for most people in Zambia, especially for women and young people. Child labour is also identified as one of the main challenges. Moreover, agricultural diversification is considered as a powerful tool to improve food security and increase employment.

Decent work related aspects are addressed under Pillar 2 “Environmentally Sustainable and Inclusive Economic Development”, which aims to promote an inclusive economic growth, built on decent jobs, provision of rural economic opportunities, sustainable livelihoods and raising real incomes for all. It has a focus on boosting agriculture through diversification and climate-smart agricultural investments in order to ensure availability of a wide range of agricultural income-earning opportunities (p. 23).

More specifically, outcome 2.1 - “By 2021, productive sectors expand income-earning opportunities that are decent and sustainable, especially for youths and women in the poorest areas” - focuses on supporting: i) inclusive labour and pro-poor economic policies and programmes; ii) access to finance through modern innovative technology, such as digital financial services; and iii) access to productive assets, environmentally friendly industries, natural resources and climate-smart investments. The Outcome also includes relevant employment indicators: i) Percentage of working population contributing to social security scheme, ii) Formal sector employment as % of employed population, iii) Proportion of working poor in the labour force (p. 26).

While, outcome 2.2 intends to empower rights-holders, especially women, youth and other vulnerable groups, to demand and participate in economic opportunities that promote sustainable livelihoods. It includes relevant employment indicators, even though not specific for rural areas: i) youth (15-35 years) unemployment rate, ii) underemployment rate of employed population, iii) proportion of women, youths and disabled with access to finance for productive economic opportunities, and iv) share of women employed in the non-agricultural sector as a percentage of total employment in the non-agricultural sector (p. 26).

The Strategic Plan of the Alliance for the Prosperity of the Northern Triangle was proposed by the administration of US President Barack Obama to support the Governments of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in reducing emigration and promoting a structural change to give economic opportunities and transform people’s lives, especially in territories facing higher levels of poverty, emigration and vulnerability.

The Plan, triggered by the exodus of tens of thousands of Central American children, teenagers and young mothers trying to reach the United States, acknowledges that in recent years, the economic growth in these countries has not been inclusive: 57% of the population are poor and 30% of youth between 14 and 25 years old do not work or study. These challenges have become the main reasons of migration.

The Plan has four strategic lines: i) Develop human capital; ii) Improve citizen security and access to justice; iii) Boost the productive sector; and iv) Enhance the institutions. Under the first strategic line, the Plan aims to expand social protection systems, especially for children, youth and women (p. 7), putting particular emphasis on promoting conditional cash transfer programmes for youth between 14 and 18 years old. Also, it seeks to promote TVET, training centres, employment services and youth entrepreneurship (p. 8) and improve social protection for returned migrants while promoting their linkages with the labour market (p. 9).

Under the third strategic line on boosting the productive sector, the Plan focuses on promoting policies and actions to enhance strategic sectors (including tourism, textiles, agro industries, manufactures, and services of high value) to promote the insertion of MSMEs into value chains and generate quality employment (p. 16).

The plan leaflet is also available in English here. 

In this framwork, several projects have been funded by USAID and currently operational (even though with drastic reduction of funding since 2018), such as in Guatemala the projects Creando Oportunidades Economica (CEO) or PUENTES.

The WEAVE Project, funded by the Australian Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), aims to increase women’s social and economic empowerment and social inclusion in agricultural value chains in rural Vietnam.

The project, which is implemented by Oxfam, Care and SNV, seeks to promote more equitable gender relations at the household level, more effective producer groups resulting in increased income for members at the community level and an improved enabling environment focusing on current government policies and socio-economic development plans.

The project is implemented in two of the poorest provinces in the Northern mountainous region of Vietnam, Lao Cai and Bac Kan. Interventions focus on the most important value chains in these regions, cinnamon and pork in Lao Cai and bananas in Bac Kan, and address gender-based barriers to women’s full participation in these value chains. The project links women producers and entrepreneurs with each other to increase opportunities for women’s collective action, and strengthens links between women and other value-chain actors to create opportunities for women’s economic participation.

The project, financed by Comic Relief and implemented by SNV in partnership with unions in Oramia and Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples regions of Ethiopia, has the objective of enhancing women’s and youth’s social and economic power in horticulture value chains. It aims to benefit 20,000 households and 500 youth by 2019.

In particular, the project assists: i) cooperative members, with a focus on women, to attain higher income from their horticulture activities; ii) unions and cooperatives to improve their performance in output marketing; iii) unions and cooperatives to improve the services to their members in a gender balanced way; iv) the youth to enhance their participation and income in horticulture value chains; and iv) communities, unions and cooperatives in promoting women participation and decision-making in horticulture value chains.

The survey, conducted by the IOM, provides data on international migration and its link with the remittances in Guatemala.

It acknowledges that in the last years the number of emigrants have grown. In 2016, the migration rate was 14.1%, higher than the rate in 2010 (10%). Also, 68% of the emigrants were working before migrating, most of them in the agriculture sector (28.1%). Moreover, 91% of the emigrants decided to migrate because of economic reasons (56% to look for a better job and 32.9% to increase their incomes). The survey shows that 94.3% of emigrants have between 18 and 40 years old, and 5.8% are children and adolescents that travelled illegally.

Finally, 48.8% of the families receiving remittances area located in urban areas, and 51.2% in rural areas.

The project, implemented by FAO, aims to improve VUP Public Works (VUP PW) through increasing coherence between social protection and agriculture, while also addressing nutrition and gender equality. The support contributes to the goal of increasing the number of people who sustainably graduate out of poverty.

The project focuses on three areas of intervention, namely: 1) Support the Local Administrative Entities Development Agency (LODA) in developing a livelihood profile of beneficiaries, to subsequently design agricultural additions of the ‘Minimum Package’ (MP) in accordance with the actual needs of the VUP PW beneficiaries, and to pilot implementation of design; 2) Train selected beneficiaries on nutrition sensitization and agribusiness skills, possibly also providing nutritious food for Home-Based Child Care facilities under the new design of expanded VUP PW; and 3) Develop and provide a training for the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC) case workers and technical staff and the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) extension workers (FFS facilitators and if possible farmer promoters), creating linkages among the two groups. Imbedded in this training is capacity building and sensitization on nutrition-sensitive and gender-sensitive social protection.

This FAO project aims to support the Government’s goal of promoting productivity and youth employment. Job generation for young people through modernizing agriculture, increasing agri-business and strengthening of the youth associations has been determined by the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) as one of the main priorities to address in order to rebrand the agriculture sector and increase the number of youth needed to rejuvenate an aging sector. In this respect, MINAGRI supported the establishment of the Rwanda Youth in Agribusiness Forum (RYAF) in May 2016, together with the Ministry of Youth and ICT (MYICT).

Through this project, FAO provides technical assistance to: i) Facilitate the organization of youth amongst themselves, through RYAF, and their interactions with key stakeholders; agri-business companies and supporting institutions, financial institutions (e.g. Banque Populaire, Development Bank of Rwanda), and existing opportunities in programs of MINAGRI; and ii) Assist MINAGRI in enhancing capacities of youth through RYAF (including entrepreneurship skills in agri-business and in alignment with international labour standards), and support technical knowledge & experience sharing.

The SDR is the framework of reference for public interventions in favor of rural development.

Its objective is to contribute to food and nutrition security, economic growth, and poverty reduction by making agriculture (agro-sylvo-pastoral, fishery and wildlife) modern, competitive and sustainable. In line with this objective, five (5) strategical axes have been defined: i) Axis 1: Strengthening of food and nutrition security; (ii) Axis 2: Improvement of the competitiveness of the agro-sylvo-pastoral and fishery sectors ; III) Axis 3: Sustainable development and management of natural resources; iv) Axis 4: Improvement of access to potable water and safe environment of life; (v) Axis 5: Strengthening of governance and partnership.

Axis 2 deals only indirectly with rural employment creation. It aims at shifting the focus of agricultural productions from auto-consumption to markets by resolving the constraints downstream of the production (e.g. storage, processing, and marketing). The development of agricultural value chains and the promotion of agricultural entrepreneurship are prioritized. Other decent work aspects are not mentioned.

The need to engage youth further is mentioned among the challenges for the sector (p.7), but not reflected among the priorities or results. Only in section 4.2.1., which lists the forthcoming programmes to implement the SDR, there is a reference to Job creation programmes, especially in support of youth in rural areas. Similarly, while the gender approach is listed among the principles of the strategy, it is not translated into specific results or actions.

This baseline study focused on two horticulture value chains, namely flower, French beans and snow peas and attempted to assess workers’ employment conditions, with specific attention to gender equality dimensions.

Under the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI), the ICT4RAg Strategy is the Rwandan national strategy to enhance agriculture and rural development through the use of ICTs. 

The strategy has five main objectives: 1) Developing a common user interface and a repository for farmer and farm information; 2) Increase the number of skilled and knowledgeable farmers; 3) Spur job creation among youth in agricultural sector and peripheral services; 4) Improve and increase access to agricultural information, knowledge and markets; 5) Expand access to and the uptake of rural and agricultural financial services.
One of the strategy’s guiding principles is to create local jobs through an increased usage of ICTs in the agricultural sector.

Objective 3 is dedicated to rural youth employment. In particular, the strategy seeks to empower young entrepreneurs, both women and men, to earn an income from both farm and non-farm enterprises. To this end, the strategy includes a series of capacity building projects aimed at skills development in terms of use of ICTs in agriculture (e.g. trainings on the use of drones in the agricultural sector, creating home grown agricultural solutions through FabLab); moreover, the strategy aims at increasing youth’s skills through the creation of an Online Diploma in Agro-Technology, an e-learning program offered in both Kinyarwanda and English.

Moreover, objective 5 proposes to create networks of farmers so as to collect their data on an online platform and create credit models that banks can use to vet farmers for loans and determine the associated risks. The strategy indeed estimates that more data and information on small-scale farmers will incentivize banks and financial institutions to make their services available to them.

The FAO CPF for India has three priority areas: 1) Sustainable development of agriculture; 2) Food and nutrition security; and 3) Transboundary cooperation and enhancing India’s contribution to global public good. Gender and climate change are addressed as crosscutting issues.

While the CPF does not include specific employment and decent work results, it is indirectly relevant to these issues through its support to agricultural development and diversification, and also include specific actions on social protection.

Under Priority area 2, Output 1 is “Innovative pilot approaches that help reduce risk of seasonal food and nutritional insecurity”, and one of its objectively verifiable indicators is “FAO technical support to: a) strengthening social protection, and b) risk management (including crop insurance) mechanisms to enhance resilience building, especially in arid and disaster risk prone districts” (p. 24).

This FAO project, mainly funded by the Netherlands under the FAO Multi-Partner Support Mechanism (FMM), is implemented in Cambodia, Lebanon, Mali and Uganda. It has the objectives of: (1) strengthening the knowledge base on the specific challenges and documenting best practices; (2) implementing promising practices in selected countries, supporting and developing the capacities of country level stakeholders and supporting national policy dialogue for improved skills development, school-to-work transition and employment options for rural youth aged 15-17 in agriculture and the rural economy.

The activities (common to all countries) to achieve the first objective consist of: 1.1 Publishing case studies filling in identified knowledge gaps related to the 15-17 rural youth in (a) preparing, (b) accessing, and (c) securing decent rural employment; 1.2 Developing and adapting capacity development materials on the different challenges faced by 15-17, tailored to different value chains or contexts; and 1.3 Producing a series of briefs, guidance and knowledge products.

While the second objective will be achieved by putting in place the different activities according to the country. In the case of Cambodia, those activities include a) provide strategic technical assistance to the Ministry of of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) to support the implementation of the its"Policy and Strategic Framework on Childhood Development and Protection in the Agriculture Sector 2016 - 2020"; and (b) collaborate with the FAO Fisheries programmes to strengthen the management and M&E capacities of local Community Fisheries Institutions (CFIs), with regard to addressing the specific needs of youth aged 15-17.
In Lebanon, indicatives activities include: (a) Develop a training material on Occupational Safety and Health in agricultural settings, integrating climate-smart and environment-sensitive advice for agriculture technical schools teaching rural youth aged 15-17; (b) Deliver sessions at local level and training of trainers for the pilot use of the Arabic version of the visual guide "Protect children from Pesticides"and (c) Contributing to the on-going process to create a farmers’ registry.
In Mali, indicative activities include: (a) a consultation and/or a study on how to promote safe occupations for under-age youth, and assessment of the potential of bio pesticides value chain for youth employment in the cotton value chain to identify skills gap for youth aged 15-17; (b) a pilot experience of supporting young youth beneficiaries from the FAO-led youth employment programmes in accessing "caisses de resilience" (in-kind transfers for resilience bank) to kick start entrepreneurship activities and to join insurance schemes.
And finally, in Uganda, indicatives activities include: (a) a capacity development workshop, in collaboration with ITC-ILO to support the transformation of hazardous child labour into decent youth employment in rural areas; and (b) development of advocacy and communications materials to raise awareness on the needs and aspirations of the rural youth aged 15-17.

Gender equality concerns will be mainstreamed throughout the interventions covered by the programme. This will translate into gender-sensitive analysis, knowledge generation and capacity development, as well as ensuring that actions do contribute to the reduction of the gender inequalities in the rural labour market.

This IFAD project aims to raise rural incomes by intensifying dairy production and improving market access. It focuses on improving food security and nutrition, the empowerment of women and young people, and sustainable and climate-resilient dairy value chain development.

The project trains farmers on “climate-smart dairy production” to sustainably achieve higher volumes and quality milk to the dairy market. RDDP also aims to build the capacity of cooperatives in milk collection and marketing, input supply, animal-health, breeding and financial services, in order to increase earnings and incomes.

It aims to benefit 100,000 resource-poor rural households, of whom 80, 000 are involved in dairy farming and 20,000 in off-farm activities along the dairy value chain. The project benefits from an IFAD financing of USD 44.7 million (of which IFAD loan: USD 43.6 million and IFAD grant: USD 1.1 million). It is cofinanced by Heifer Project International (USD 4.0 million).

This study - from Fair & Sustainable (http://fairandsustainable.nl/) and AgriProFocus (https://agriprofocus.com/intro) - elaborates on how increased youth involvement in agricultural value chains can improve food security and diminish youth unemployment. The study assesses where in the farming systems and the agricultural value chain youth is present and tries to understand the perspectives of youth towards agriculture. In particular, the study identifies the conditions that influence the involvement of male and female youth in maize and potato value chains in Ethiopia and Kenya.
The study argues that in general low income, limited availability of land and finance, lack of education and training, negative perceptions, inadequate infrastructure and market access cause a very limited involvement of youth in the agricultural sector. In general, youth prefer white-collar jobs while agriculture is considered as employment for poor, uneducated and old people. In the potato and maize value chains youth is pushed away because of the multiplicity of actors, poor communication, bad infrastructures and inefficient linkages between production sites and markets. The study concludes that in order to increase youth involvement the main conditions that need to be considered and improved are perception and aspirations, finance, income, land ownership, infrastructure and education.

In order to create an indepth picture of value chains in both countries, the report used both scientific literature and qualitative data. Interviews were conducted with 11 experts, from both countries, who work with youth and/or agriculture and 6 youth (5 from Kenya and One from Ethiopia) to obtain information about their perceptions on the agricultural value chain.

As a delegated partner initiative of the European Union (EU), the project covers two components of the EU’s Institutional Strengthening Programme for Agricultural and Pastoral Resilience in Mauritania. The project territory is in Southern Mauritania and comprises the region along the banks of the Senegal River, as well as the regions Assaba and Guidimaka.

The project operates in the following fields of activity:

1. Local business development: helping rural areas develop the apacity to quickly create employment.
2. Labour market interventions: supporting the integration of young people in the economy and employment.
3. Vocational training: developing the planning and implementation capacities for short-term training programmes of government and private actors.

Two fields of activity are implemented through delegated EU components:

1. Action research: implementing applied agricultural research programmes aimed at increasing resilience in crop cultivation and livestock farming.
2. Vocational education and training: promoting the vocational education and training of professionals to meet public and private sector labour demand in agroforestry and livestock farming.