Facilitating next-generation African, Caribbean and Pacific agriculture through youth entrepreneurship, job creation and digitalisation
The workshop ‘Facilitating next-generation African, Caribbean and Pacific agriculture through youth entrepreneurship, job creation and digitalisation’ was organised by CTA. It identified seven critical success factors for rural entrepreneurship and job creation: 1) access by youth to investment and finance; 2) scalable approaches and models that can be taken up; 3) enabling policy environments for youth; 4) agriculture that is attractive to youth; 5) access by youth to markets; 6) business models that work; and 7) access to appropriate skills, capacities and knowledge.
Based on this workshop, two briefs were written. The first one (PDF) argues that youth-inclusive investments to modernise the agricultural sector will unleash its huge potential, offer attractive employment opportunities and create a level playing field for rural youth. It sets out different youth-inclusive approaches that will help agricultural value chain development programmes meet the needs of young people. Continued growth in demand for value added food and agricultural products a strong case to invest in the development of agri-food value chains. This requires focused attention on what young people want, and better provision of infrastructure and services and skills provision, through integrated development frameworks. Agricultural value chain development programmes need to apply a youth-employment lens and youth-sensitive approaches and purposefully set rural youth inclusion and decent employment as objectives.
The second brief (PDF) explores the challenges and opportunities facing young people trying to enter the agricultural and agribusiness sector. It focuses on actions that governments and other development actors can take to make the sector more attractive to young people, with an emphasis on those that can increase productivity, strengthen the value chain and increase the participation of young people in policy dialgue. Agricultural transformation is contingent on approaches that address youth and the youth ecosystem (the policy environment and support systems). This is predicated on the fact that rural youth face challenges that are either related to their age or are generated by the policies and systems in the environments in which they live.