In this report, the Middle East Youth Initiative cautions that a new jobs crisis may damage future prospects for the region's young people. For Middle Eastern economies, the global downturn coincides with a historically high share of 15- to 29-year-olds in the total population. This report shows that, even during the “boom” years of 2002 to 2008, young people in the Middle East did not benefit from high-quality education and struggled to find decent jobs.
Save the Children and Fondation Zakoura Microcredit (FZMC) are implementing the “Linking Youth with Knowledge and Opportunities in Microfinance,” or LYKOM (which means “for you” in Arabic), project with seed funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and cofinanced with private funding from Save the Children and FZMC. The program includes financial and business literacy training; savings promotion; and access to credit for youth businesses.
Lessons learned include:
Key stakeholders from 50 countries came together in Washington, DC, September 15-16, 2008, for Making Cents International’s 2nd Global Youth Enterprise Conference. During two days of meetings, the new and growing international community working on youth enterprise, employment and livelihoods development shared their experiences on what holds potential, what is really working and how to measure success.
YouthInvest will build on the experience MEDA has gained in youth and microfinance since 2002.
YouthInvest will build on the experience MEDA has gained in youth and microfinance since 2002.
This case study focuses on BRAC’s experience and learning over the past 15 years delivering financial services to primarily adolescent girls in Bangladesh. Through its Employment and Livelihood for Adolescents program (ELA), BRAC offers savings and credit facilities, livelihood training and issue discussion services to youth aged between 14-25 years.
In October 2007, USAID’s Displaced Children and Orphans Fund, in close collaboration with the Microenterprise Development office, initiated the STRIVE (Supporting Transformation by Reducing Insecurity and Vulnerability with Economic Strengthening) Program. A five-year, $16 million effort, STRIVE uses market-led economic strengthening initiatives to benefit vulnerable children. In doing so, the program aims to fill current knowledge gaps on effective approaches to reducing the vulnerability of children and youth.
The SEEP PLP for Youth and Workforce Development was initiated to identify, encourage, and disseminate replicable strategies for using market-driven program design to improve youth employment success and for measuring the effectiveness of these strategies.
The Umsobomvu Youth Fund is a government agency tasked with supporting the growth and development of youth in South Africa, including improved livelihoods through employment and self-employment. Microfinance is just one of seven activities/strategies identified by UYF
to carry out its mission.
UYF has commissioned Vulindlela Development Finance Consultants to assist with the development of its delivery model for microfinance. As a first step, UYF has asked Vulindlela to prepare a paper on best practices, drawing on lessons from leading organizations in Africa.
