المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

My name is Adwoa Atta-Krah and I am a youth development specialist. I manage literacy and entrepreneurship projects in Mali and the DRC.

While rural youth, in general, are underserved by the educational system and lack the basic skills needed to earn a living, the sub category of out of school youth, are even more vulnerable: In order to help these youth become engaged citizens who fully contribute to their communities, development programs should seek to provide them with the opportunity to i) become literate, ii) engage in an income generating activity following vocational training (entrepreneurship) and iii) access credit. In addition, programs should include a community service component in order to further provide youth with a sense of community and belonging. This type of integrated holistic approach empowers youth in a sustainable way.

The Mali Out of School Youth Project (2010-2015, see attachments) represents a potential “solution” to the out of school youth challenge, especially in rural Africa. It sought to help 10,000 out of school youth (ages 14-25) in rural areas become better educated, more economically productive, civic engaged and empowered to improve their lives and those of their families and communities. The project’s youth development model was holistic and integrated, consisting of basic education in mother tongue, mobile learning, vocational training in 14 income generating activities most of which were sylvo agro pastoral, provision of entrepreneurship starter kits, creation of savings and internal lending groups and post training monitoring and accompaniment. Activities were implemented through a corps of Malian volunteers who worked through existing youth associations to ensure community buy-in and sustainability.

The project exceeded its goal, with 10,951 youth completing vocational training. In order to reach the 10,000 targeted youth, the project worked with 3 different cohorts of youth, with the intake of the third cohort exceeding 7000 and therefore, operating at scale. Like many African countries, youth in rural Mali have few prospects. Although agriculture constitutes a major part of rural life, few appreciate the value it could bring to them. Many youth leave their villages in search of greener pastures in nearby towns, cities and countries. There is high unemployment, high illiteracy, marginalization and even radicalization in certain conflict-affected regions such as Timbuktu, which since the 2012 coup d’etat, has become fertile ground for the recruitment for extremist terrorist groups.

This integrated holistic model successfully gave youth a sense of belonging, a chance to be literate in their mother tongue, a chance to learn a vocation, launch a microenterprise, earn a living and contribute to their communities. An external US-government commissioned study concluded that the model positively reduced violent extremism. A important lesson learned is that if youth in rural areas are given a tangible opportunity to earn a living and fully contribute to the development of their communities, they will not only stay in their communities but also play a sustained active role in the development of their communities. The project was highly successful with a start up rate of microenterprises at 74%, 82% of whom were self-employed. The large majority of microenterprises were sylvo agro pastoral activities (agriculture: grain cultivation, market gardening, poultry raising, livestock fattening etc). 70% of youth microenterprises were still in operation up to 24 months after the end of the intervention (cohorts 1 and 2) with between 83% and 85% of youth reporting an increase in profits. 9534 youth participated in savings and internal lending groups. Across indicators, women outperformed men. 177 community service projects completed. Youth associations from 228 villages benefited from training on administrative and organizational management, conflict resolution and promoting a culture or peace.

Below are three lessons learned/recommendations in response to common challenges: i) low motivation levels and high attrition rates of literacy activities, ii) rural to urban migration of youth in search of employment and other opportunities and iii) implementing at scale.

Although literacy is key to developing the capacity of youth, programs should focus on the acquisition of literacy skills for entrepreneurship purposes. Rural youth tend to be less interested in literacy for literacy sake, and more interested in functional literacy or literacy for entrepreneurship.

Proximity trainings should be scaled up: To maximize the amount of time youth spend in villages, vocational training should be brought to them, rather than having youth commute to neighboring towns and cities for trainings.

To the extent possible, programs should incorporate phased implementation. They should have built-in flexibility to allow for modifications to ensure that interventions and activities remain relevant to the needs of beneficiaries (youth). The timing or roll-out of inputs should be able to be modified based on feedback received from the field.