FAO improves youth employment and entrepreneurship through agribusiness development in Egypt
Agriculture is currently facing many challenges such as decreased productivity and limited market access to sell produce. This is making it difficult for the sector to serve as a primary source of income for Egypt’s increasingly unemployed population.
© FAO / Ami Vitale
At the same time, insufficient access to information is among the factors most negatively affecting youth looking for jobs and seeking to launch entrepreneurial ventures.
In response, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has launched the “Agribusiness Development through Entrepreneurship for Youth Employment” project, in cooperation with several agricultural technical schools in Fayoum, Egypt. The project aims to build the capacity and social capital of educated youth to create new micro and small enterprises along the value chain, and focuses in particular on providing women with equal opportunities in agribusiness entrepreneurship: 60 percent of its participants are female.
“The project helped us broaden our technical skills while also developing our business communication, planning, and marketing skills. We also learned how to study and analyze strengths and weaknesses in order to turn them into opportunities,” said Nihal Abdalla Masoud, a student developing a poultry project.