GIZ Report: What Works in Rural Youth Employment?

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is the world’s youngest continent, with 70 per cent of its rapidly increasing population below the age of 30. Every year, 25 million young people in Africa enter the labour market, more than half of them (14 million) in rural areas. By the year 2030, 320 million new jobs will need to be created, which makes Rural Youth Employment (RYE) one of the most pressing and challenging topics for our partner governments, but also presents an enormous opportunity for economic development in capitalising on this “youth dividend”.

Despite its growing relevance, employment promotion in rural areas with a focus on youth is still a relatively new topic in German development cooperation. Very few projects explicitly address the issue in a comprehensive manner. Yet many rural and economic development projects are already addressing different aspects of the issue, providing a range of lessons learned. The main objective of the report is thus to outline different approaches to rural youth employment promotion
(RYEP) within GIZ programmes and distil their main success factors and lessons learned.