Abstract
Engaging rural youth in agribusiness has become an important strategy to create employment opportunities in Africa. To this end, governments and development partners have implemented various interventions that facilitate youth engagement in agribusiness for several years. However, there is a dearth of evidence on what worked and what did not work well, making it difficult to inform evidence-based policy making. In an effort to fill this knowledge gap, a comprehensive literature review of the outcomes of interventions related to youth engagement in agribusiness was conducted using a deductive coding approach. Results showed that the interventions implemented by governments and development partners across Africa have succeeded in producing favorable outcomes despite some limitations. Interventions that integrate capacity development, financial support for startups, and continuous mentorship on the technical and financial aspects of youth-run agribusiness projects proved successful in enhancing youth engagement in agribusiness. This suggests that the design and implementation of future interventions should be based on an integrated approach that considers diversity of youths’ aspirations and shared capabilities, interests, expectations, as well as challenges associated with access to resources and participation in collective action. The design of future interventions should also be built on strong partnerships among rural communities, academia, research, and private sector for increased impact on livelihood improvements.
Highlights
Africa has the youngest population in the world in terms of average age, as 60 to 70% of the population is below 30 years old [1,2]
Results showed that the interventions implemented by governments and development partners across Africa have succeeded in producing several favorable outcomes such as rebranding of agribusiness as a competitive career path for the youth, youth attitudinal change toward agribusiness, improved access to productive resources, increased business management skills, increased learning and use of ICT in agribusiness, increased market access, increased business networks, and increased mobilization toward agribusiness, youth startups in agribusiness, and gainful youth employment in the agricultural value chains
Results pointed to some limitations such as not giving as much emphasis to socio-cultural aspects as economic ones, not targeting the youth and designing capacity development efforts depending on shared capabilities, interests and expectations, hampering youth participation in collective action, and not integrating capacity development with financial support for startups
Summary
Africa has the youngest population in the world in terms of average age, as 60 to 70% of the population is below 30 years old [1,2]. The United Nations define youth as individuals in age group ranging from 15 to 24 years [3]. Rural youth are heterogenous in terms of gender, age, personality, religion, ethnicity, education and family position, and social networks, among others [6,7]. Most of the African youth live in rural areas and have limited opportunities for gainful employment [10]. They have untapped potential to transform the agricultural sector through innovation and entrepreneurship [8]
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