Building the capacity of youth to be workforce-ready and equipped with entrepreneurial skills is a common method of addressing economic development needs in economies in which youth are the largest sector of the population and/or the sector of population that has the lowest employment rates. However, so often youth are guided into enterprises that have low market potential, are not meeting immediate community needs, that are socially or environmentally unsustainable, or that are replications of other businesses that are already run extensively throughout the community. By assessing opportunities for youth prior to their training, and incorporating an understanding of the need to assess the environmental implications of any business or industry development, and related real growth opportunities in regards to resource availability, these programs can truly achieve success and sustainability.
EcoVentures International (EVI) is working with Haiti’s IDEJEN Program (L'initiative pour le développement des jeunes en dehors du milieu scolaire), analyzing various sectors in Haiti’s economy for opportunities for sustainable youth business development or employment. The country-wide IDEJEN program, funded by USAID through the EQUIP III program and run by the Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) is aiming to provide employment and business development opportunities for some 10,000 out-of-
school youth over the next two years. To support this effort, EVI is providing research and capacity-building for local implementing partners on market-relevant and sustainable businesses opportunities that can be started quickly and with high growth and employment potential.
By analyzing different formal and informal value chain sectors, EVI is identifying high-potential sectors towards which youth trained in these programs might be directed. An additional piece to this is the development of tools that youth and staff at the IDEJEN centers can use to understand value-chain methodologies and to continually analyze market opportunities, enabling them to think through how to apply skills in which the youth are trained and ensuring that the training that youth receive will continue to be relevant to the youth and to the industries in which they eventually participate.
There are a number of projects currently underway in Haiti for the indirect development of environmental enterprise, and future work will connect players in some of the stronger-opportunity sectors to leverage their work and provide industry training and apprenticeships to youth to help feed the growth. Current sectors being investigated include mini-solar, bamboo construction, biomass fuel briquetting, and sustainable aquaculture.
Kate Davenport
kate@eco-ventures.org
