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This publication explores agricultural investment funds as a vehicle for financing agricultural businesses and projects. It looks at the capital needs of the different agricultural actors along the agricultural value chain and taking into consideration investment funds involving all kinds of investors (private, public as well as joint initiatives) and investment objectives. The publication draws heavily from the FAO 2010 publication “Agricultural Investment Funds for Developing Countries”, which was developed from an FAO-ConCAP research study that identified a broad range of investment funds that target agriculture in developing and transitioning countries. The identified funds were classified according to various criteria such [...]

The UN and the Somali Government launched the Programme on Youth Employment in 2015, with the objective of creating employment opportunities for youth between 16 and 35 years through vocational education, enterprise training, and the rehabilitation of infrastructure in high potential sectors of the economy. Alongside this initiative, FAO is working with the Ministry of Fisheries at Federal and State levels to implement the 5.3 million Euro project No piracy: Alternatives for youth living in coastal communities of Puntland, Galmudug and Mogadishu, also known as Coastal Communities Against Piracy (CCAP) Project. As the name suggests, the EU-funded project, launched in [...]

The new FAO project Rural youth migration, social protection and sustainable value chains in Kenya, funded by the Italian Development Cooperation, aims to boost employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for Kenyan rural youth along selected value chains. The final objective is to provide alternatives to migration, while also strengthening links with existing social protection programmes.

Exploring the links between migration, agricultural and rural transformation processes is an area where FAO has a comparative advantage thanks to its strong technical expertise and close relationship with governments and relevant stakeholders. The project "Reducing distress migration through local value chain development", funded by the Italian Development Cooperation, aims to address the root causes of distress rural out-migration of youth, by creating employment and entrepreneurship opportunities along food value chains and strengthening linkages with existing social protection programmes.

This publication provides an overview of the methodology and best practices developed during the implementation of the Rural Youth Mobility Project (RYM) in Tunisia and Ethiopia, while decsribing the results acheived at country level. The Project was launched in 2015 to address the drivers of rural out-migration of youth - such as poverty, food insecurity and unemployment - while at the same time harnessing the development potential of migratory movements. With funding from the Italian Development Cooperation, RYM strives to shed lights on the drivers and patterns of rural migration and enhance governments’ capacity to better address migration issues in the context [...]

Each year, rural areas lose a promising share of their workforce, as youth leave their homes and migrate to cities or move abroad in search of a better future. The distress induced by poverty, food insecurity and a lack of employment opportunities push many youth around the world to search for jobs elsewhere.  By addressing the links between distress migration and rural development, FAO is making a difference in Tunisia and Ethiopia. With funding from the Italian Development Cooperation, the Rural Youth Mobility Project (RYM) was launched in 2015 to provide unemployed youth in migration-prone areas the two countries with the [...]

Almost 88 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion youth live in developing countries. Globally, young people account for approximately 24 percent of the working poor. Although the world’s youth population is expected to grow, employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for young women and men remain limited – particularly for those living in economically stagnant rural areas of developing countries. Hence, creating more productive and beneficial jobs for the rural youth is particularly urgent.  To address this challenge, FAO launched the Integrated Country Approach (ICA) for decent rural employment. The overall objective of ICA is to help country create more and better employment [...]

Each year, rural areas lose a promising share of their workforce, as youth leave their homes and migrate to cities or move abroad in search of a better future. FAO, together with the Tunisian Government and the Italian Development Cooperation, supports young Tunisian entrepreneurs in rural areas through the provision of trainings, technical support and equipment.  

After years of steady decline, child labour in agriculture has started to rise again in recent years driven in part by an increase in conflicts and climate-induced disasters. This worrisome trend, not only threatens the wellbeing of millions of children, but also undermines efforts to end global hunger and poverty. FAO Rural Livelihoods Officer Bernd Seiffert elaborates on ways to improve the safety and health of young workers and end child hazardous labour.

Over the next ten years, the African rural space will be the theatre of profound changes as the activities envisaged for agricultural transformation are drastically scaled up. Increased food demand and changing consumption habits driven by demographic factors, such as population growth and urbanization, are already leading to a rapid increase of net food imports, opening a huge opportunity for the agribusiness sector of many African countries. Against this backdrop and in line with its mission to spur sustainable economic development and social progress, the African Development Bank (AfDB) in 2016 launched Feed Africa, a strategy that is intended to [...]