المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

INCLUDE, the knowledge platform on inclusive development policies, brings together African, Dutch and other international stakeholders to translate academic findings into inclusive policy practice. For one of the conferences on productive employment, a theme central to INCLUDE's work, a synthesis report was drafted which reviews the state-of-the-art knowledge on youth employment in Africa. This synthesis report tells you 'What works and why' and elaborates on the continuing importance of agriculture as source of employment.

Read the summary and highlights of the synthesis report via this link: Highlights of the synthesis report ‘Boosting youth employment in Africa: what works and why?’

Read the full synthesis report: Synthesis report ‘Boosting youth employment in Africa: What works and why?’

Furthermore, you can find a report of the conference on boosting youth employment in Africa via this link.

Thank you very much,

Frank van Kesteren

Henry, from Zambia

Youth are a key opportunity that can drive growth in the agriculture sector in African. Yet many of them are reluctant to engage in agriculture. Part of the challenge is that they view agriculture only as 'farming', which they see to be laborious and backward. Educational curricular also help shape this perception. Many of the youth see themselves as 'employees' and not entrepreneurs and employers.  The conference needs to address the whole issue of curricular to help shape youth perceptions towards being employers. Further, research plays a key role to discover and monitor these perceptions. As such it’s important to invest in socio-economic research on youth and agriculture and support their engagement in different value chains.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION BELOW

Mon expérience en tant que jeune entrepreneur impliqué dans le secteur agricole peut être décrite comme cela:

J’ai commencé à entreprendre en 2013, un projet d’aviculture, avec des camarades de classe, à la fin de l’école secondaire. Le constat que nous n’allions pas trouver d’emploi après l’école et le désir d’entreprendre une activité génératrice de revenues sont les raisons principales qui nous ont poussé à réaliser un projet. L’idée d’orienter notre projet dans le secteur primaire est venue de mes camarades qui étaient déjà intéressés par l’agriculture et l’élevage. Malheureusement ce projet d’aviculture s’est soldé par un échec parce que nous n’avions pas préparé un plan d’affaire. Ce premier échec ne nous a pas découragés.

Nous avons eu accès à une formation sur l’utilisation du Web 2.0 et des medias sociaux pour le développement, dispensé par le Centre Technique de Coopération Agricole et rurale (CTA).

En 2014, nous avons entrepris un nouveau projet d’élevage de chèvres qui dure jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Nous avons commencé avec 5 chèvres au début jusqu’à avoir plus de 20 chèvres que nous vendons aux cabaretiers. Grace à ce projet nous sommes entrés dans le réseau Jeunes Professionnels pour le développement agricole au Burundi (YPARD). J’ai pu créer un blog et une page Facebook pour la visibilité de nos activités.

L’usage des TIC m’a permis d’intégrer dans des réseaux de jeunes actifs dans le secteur agricole et participer dans des conférences en tant que reporter sur les réseaux sociaux, notamment la Semaine Scientifique Agricole à Kigali, le Forum sur le manioc en Afrique centrale à Yaoundé, et la Formation sur l’éducation vétérinaire à Dakar.

Questions : 1. Quelles sont les mesures prises pour limiter l’exode rural des jeunes et encourager la création d’emploi dans les milieux ruraux ?

Questions : 2. Comment peut-t-on encourager l’innovation numérique en tenant en considération le défi du faible taux d’électrification en milieu rural ?

Questions : 3. L’âge moyen du cultivateur africain est élevé, est-il possible de moderniser l’agriculture avec cet indication ?

My experience as a young businessman involved in the agricultural sector can be described as follows:

I started a business in 2013, a poultry farming project, with class friends at the end of secondary school. The recognition that we would not find work after finishing school and the desire to have a business activity that provided revenue were the two main reasons that pushed us to carry out the project. The idea of focusing our project on the primary sector came from one of my colleagues who was already interested in agriculture and rearing cattle. Unfortunately, this poultry farming project ended in failure, because we had not prepared a business plan. This first failure did not discourage us.

We had had access to training in the use of web 2.0 and social media for development, offered by the Centre Technique de Coopération Agricole et rural [Technical and rural centre for agricultural cooperation] (CTA).

In 2014, we started a new business rearing goats which is still running today. We started with 5 goats until now we have more than 20, which we sell to inn-keepers. Thanks to this project we joined the network of Jeanes Professionnels pour le développement agricole au Burundi (YPARD) [Young professionals for agricultural development in Burundi]. I was able to create a blog and a Facebook page to make our activities visible.

The use of ICT [information and communication technologies] has allowed me to join the network of young people active in the agricultural sector and to participate in conferences as well as reporting in social media, in particular the Semaine Scientifique Agricole [Agricultural scientific week] in Kigale; the Forum on cassava in Central Africa, in Yaoundé; and the Training on veterinary education, in Dakar.

Questions: 1: What are the measures taken to limit the rural exodus of young people and to encourage the creation of employment in rural areas?

Questions: 2: How can digital innovation be encouraged taking into consideration the challenge of the low rates of electrification in rural areas?

Questions: 3: The average age of the African farmer is high, is it possible to modernize agriculture given this circumstance?

Guy Fleury Giramahoro

Young Profesionnals for Agricultural Development-Burundi /

Youth Agribusiness Incubator-Burundi

On What is expected from this sconference:

We know youth are reluctant to farming, mostly becuase of poor returns and difficult working conditions. This happens when we are not able to infuse a business element in farming- agriprneurship, value chains, market led production etc. One may look for answers to the following questions:

1. Agriprneurship oportunities  and kind of support icluding handholding available to take agriculture as businees not just production but also processing, value addition, branding, marketing etc.

2. Success stories of young agriprneurs- who could establish themselves overcoming the hurdles on their way- role models

3. Coaching/ youth mentoring and follow-ups. Often a short duration training is imparted and they are left to their own. They dont get opportuniteis to practice what they were preached.

Videos of successful young farmers could be used to spread positive image of agriculture among youth.

Youth Needs to be trained, engaged, employed and reatined in agriculture. Hope this conference shows the way how it can be done.

http://www.fao.org/cfs/home/blog/blog-articles/article/en/c/1042775/

The Rwanda Conference should able to address the following youth issues

1. Access to finance---FAO, AU and UN to ensure country's has Budget allocation ( Youth Enterprise development fund) for youth in agriculture and Agribusiness

2. Land ownership- Access and own land for Agricultral activities to mainstream in Government development blueprints

3. Ensure good trade facilitation policies of government that will encourage export of products and services

Hello Justin Chisenga,

Follow up to the question to Further ask ''How many of 200 registered members are on Agriculture

For bearly just two years in operations, we have registered 200 enterprises ( MSMEs) in Agribusiness, Tourism and ICT.

63% of these are on Agriculture (Poultry farming, Cashew farming, food process, livestock farming etc)

May I also inform you, that Gambia Youth Chamber of Commerce will be organising the second edition of National Youth Agribusiness and tourism Expo in the Gambia in October, 2018 , targeting over 200 Gambian Youth enterprises , and 75% of these participants will be those in Agriculture/ Agribusiness and 25% on Tourism and other sICT services.

We are open for partnership anytime.

Question asked by Justin Chisenga:

Chonyui Duna (Cameroon): based on your experience in agriculture, what would you want the Rwanda Youth Conference to do that would help you and other youth to achieve your/their greatest wish?

Answer:

I want that the Rwanda Youth Conference, should give me support be it financially and or materially that will help me expand my farm (create more space, build up new infrastructure and increase my productivity). This farm will serve as a training/ reference centre for youths who are willing to engage in the field of agriculture. All this will go a long way to reduce unemployment, hunger and poverty in Bamenda (my region) and Cameroon at large.

Thanks

I guess it would be useful,  if I share here my blogs on stories of youth role models, role of Agricultural Extension and advisory services in prmoting agripreneurship among rural youth.

https://ypard.net/testimonials/extension-and-advisory-services-eas-shou…

https://blog.gfar.net/2017/05/24/mentoring-rural-youth-to-make-agricult…

https://ypard.net/2017-june-27/young-stylish-and-addicted-growing-herbs

https://ypard.net/2016-july-15/15-july-it%E2%80%99s-world-youth-skills-…

https://ypard.net/2017-july-14/world-youth-skills-day-time-collective-a…

https://blog.gfar.net/2016/05/03/agripreneurs-the-emerging-role-models/

https://ypard.net/news/day-out-nikki%E2%80%99s-farm%E2%80%94-youth-agri…

https://ypard.net/2017-09-11/make-agriculture-%E2%80%98cool%E2%80%99-yo…

Hi all,

This looks one good idea to collect success stories of youth. I have been writing about youth especially on World Youth Skills day-15th july as also on World Youth Day -12th August. I have written a number of blogs for YPARD, GFAR, GFRAS &  AESA, wherein, youth success stories have been shared. Its my pleasure to share my latest blog went online@YPARD today. In this blog, I have shared a success story of a youth whom we trained on vermi-compost making and he has turned an entrepreneur now, selling branded vermimanure. He trains other youths now skilling them on making vemicompost. On  World Youth Skills day this year, we organized a small programme at his vermi-compost unit to train 25 boys from his village. Enjoy reading the blog on this experience.

Youth and social media: A leverage for agripreneurship

https://ypard.net/2018-07-31/youth-and-social-media-leverage-agripreneu…

Looking forward to hear intersting stories from across the world,

Thanks & regards,

Mahesh

Mahesh Chander, Head, Division of Extension Education,ICAR- Indian Veterianry Resarch  Institute, Izatnagar (UP) INDIA

To the question raised by Dr. Justin Chisenga

Do you have youth role models in agriculture in your countries?

Yes there are but very few in number and their success of degree constrained for different homogeneous and heterogeneous factors that determine the accelerative of achievement to optimum level.

Who are they?

They are public extension or scaling out of technology users [like crop varieties-food crop and cash crop (vegetables and fruit), poultry technologies user-(layer, broilers and dual purpose birds)] in the agro-pastoral communities and mid and highland agro-ecological zones of the country.

What have they done to serve as role models to other youths who want to engage in agriculture?

There is an experience sharing type of technological scaling out system that are implemented as a model system in Ethiopian Institutes of Agricultural Research which is known as organizing farm level field day with different stakeholders participation; with this day they will share all the SWOT of technologies implemented with for food security, income generation, and livelihood. Yet; the system needs other triangulated innovative modalities to encompass many different youth.

If yes, would you say they are doing well in their work?

I could say that with few degree of reservation as there are best ways of making them so productive and efficient with different innovative modalities of agricultural technologies use.