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Cover of the document, Photo:  © GIZ

Why this study?

Sub-Saharan Africa youngest part of the world, with 70 percent 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 one of the most pressing and challenging topics for our partner governments, but also presents an enormous opportunity for economic development in capitalizing 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 targeting different aspects of employment promotion, providing a range of important lessons learned.

The main objective of the report is thus to outline different approaches to rural youth employment promotion within GIZ programs and distill their main success factors. Building on those success factors the study developed an Integrated Approach to Employment Promotion adapted to rural youth employment which can be flexibly implemented at meso- and micro-level, both in a project or a country portfolio context.

Additional information

Please get in touch with the global project Rural Employment with Focus on Youth (GVBLR@giz.de) or Frank Bertelmann (frank.bertelmann@giz.de)