With 27 percent arable land and no permanent crops, the West Bank and Gaza suffer from periodic food insecurity. Using proceeds derived from the monetization of commodity donated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ACDI/VOCA funds drought relief and agricultural training activities for Palestinian farmers and pastoralists.
The Women’s Refugee Commission is engaged in a three-year research and advocacy project aimed at improving the effectiveness of economic programming targeting refugee, internally displaced and returning women and youth.
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. It is particularly important in post-conflict areas, with many children acting as heads-of-households and without the skills to provide for their families through employment or entrepreneurship.
Tanzania’s urban areas do not have formalized systems for the disposal of used plastic bottles and bags. Piles of plastic waste accumulate in waterways and along streets in neighborhoods across Dar es Salaam, creating breeding environments for malaria-carrying mosquitos, allowing unsafe chemical seepage into water sources and soils, and developing generally unsanitary conditions in dense urban areas. To address environmental impacts of plastic use and production in Dar es Salaam and provide youth with simple after-school income-generating activities and training in personal and environment health management, EcoVentures International (EVI) and the Environmental Enterprise Development Initiative (EEDI), a coalition of cross-sectoral local organizations originally organized by EVI, worked together on a basic value chain assessment of the plastics recycling industry.
Some of the most successful youth empowerment initiatives are those that are started by visionary youth who understand the issues and challenges that they and their peers face and have a visionary perspective on how to improve their situation. Such is the case in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, where the youth-initiated and youth-run Kibera Community Youth Program (KCYP) has been offering jobless, vulnerable youth positive activities, such as sport and drama, to provide an alternative to more destructive activities prevalent in the community, such as drugs, gangs, and prostitution. They also have health education programs to inform youth about HIV/AIDS and associated risk factors and protective measures.
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.
