"The series is sponsored by the Agence Francaise de Developpement and the World Bank."

Many people believe that Africa will struggle to create jobs for its rapidly-growing population, and that rural youth will eventually migrate to cities or other countries. This book uses survey data to create a nuanced understanding of the constraints and opportunities facing rural youth in Africa.

A study prepared by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER)

As the world’s youngest region, improving employment opportunities, especially for youth, is important in sub-Saharan Africa for several reasons, including the fact that most people work their way out of poverty. This paper reviews the state of employment outcomes today, trends in the past 10 years, and the opportunities and challenges for employment policy in sub-Saharan Africa in the post-COVID-19 period. It identifies what is known about the drivers of these outcomes, and the consequences for Africa’s youth.

Young people in sub-Saharan Africa are growing up in rapidly changing social and economic environments which produce high levels of un- and underemployment. Job creation through entrepreneurship is currently being promoted by international organizations, governments and NGOs as a key solution, despite there being a dearth of knowledge about youth entrepreneurship in an African context. This book makes an important contribution by exploring the nature of youth entrepreneurship in Ghana, Uganda and Zambia. It provides new insights into conceptual and methodological discussions of youth entrepreneurship as well as presenting original empirical data. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative research, conducted under the auspices of a collaborative, interdisciplinary and comparative research project, it highlights the opportunities and challenges young people face in setting up and running businesses. Divided into a number of clear sections, each with its own introduction and conclusion, the book considers the nature of youth entrepreneurship at the national level, in both urban and rural areas, in specific sectors - including mobile telephony, mining, handicrafts and tourism - and analyses how key factors, such as microfinance, social capital and entrepreneurship education, affect youth entrepreneurship. New light is shed on the multi-faceted nature of youth entrepreneurship and a convincing case is presented for a more nuanced understanding of the term entrepreneurship and the situation faced by many African youth today. This book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars interested in youth entrepreneurship, including in development studies, business studies, youth studies and geography, as well as to development practitioners and policy makers. The Open Access title has now been added to the Open Access page. http://www.tandfebooks.com/page/openaccess

The authors examine the challenges facing Africa's youth in their transition from school to working life, and propose a policy framework for meeting these challenges. Topics covered include the effect of education on employment and income, broadening employment opportunities, and enhancing youth capabilities. The book includes a CD-ROM of case studies of four countries and household data on 13 countries.

The economic and social prospects are daunting for the 89 million out-of-school youth who comprise nearly half of all youth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Within the next decade, when this cohort becomes the core of the labor market, an estimated 40 million more youth will drop out, and will face an uncertain future with limited work and life skills. Furthermore, out-of-school youth often are “policy orphans,†? positioned between sectors with little data, low implementation capacity, lack of interest in long-term sustainability of programs, insufficient funds, and little coordination across the different government agencies. This report provides a diagnostic analysis of the state of out-of-school youth in Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the 12- to 24-year-old cohort. This report also examines the decision path youth take as they progress through the education system and the factors that explain youth’s school and work choices. It finds that individual and household characteristics, social norms, and characteristics of the school system all matter in understanding why youth drop out and remain out of school. In particular, six key factors characterize out-of-school youth: (i) most out-of-school youth drop out before secondary school; (ii) early marriage for female youth and (iii) rural residence increase the likelihood of being out of school; (iv) parental education level and (v) the number of working adults are important household factors; and (vi) lack of school access and low educational quality are binding supply-side constraints. Policy discussions on out-of-school youth are framed by these six key factors along with three entry points for intervention: retention, remediation, and integration. This report also reviews policies and programs in place for out-of-school youth across the continent. Ultimately, this report aims to inform public discussion, policy formulation, and development practitioners’ actions working with youth in Sub-Saharan Africa.