Creating a “new rural reality” for young entrepreneurs to succeed

By Monica Romano

The young women and men who gathered at IFAD on Saturday for the Youth Session not only have clear ideas, but do not seem discouraged by the challenges and constraints they are fully aware of and that have even been already experiencing themselves. Coming as representatives and leaders of farmer organizations or invited as participants in IFAD-supported programmes, they showed enthusiasm and commitment to making FAFO somewhat different, maybe more special, compared to the past. Simply by having their voice being heard for the first time in such an important dialogue and partnership platform. Perhaps also knowing that the youth do not have that many opportunities to speak with the world of the adults, present their views and proposals, and even make recommendations, especially in the international arena and in front of policy makers. What impressed me although it did not come as a surprise was the strong awareness and sense of responsibility the young participants demonstrated in all their interventions and contributions, in several ways. Sometimes, I perceived they were feeling to be like “elected”, in the positive sense. I mean, they understood that they were representing the youth community as a whole, and therefore that they had to take advantage of this unique opportunity, avoiding to make mistakes and making sure they did not miss anything they would regret afterwards…

While putting on the table a number of challenges the rural youth face – limited decision-making, experiences and leadership skills, self-confidence but also trust from the older generations; and also those that may be common to their parents, such as limited access to land, credit, training and market – the young participants were also proud of highlighting their many, specific strengths: creativity, flexibility and energy, just to mention a few. One of the biggest challenges they debated upon was the lack of interest on the part of young generations in engaging in agriculture: “there is no pride in being farmers” - stated someone – and “one may even not be able to find a wife if he is a farmer”, echoed another participant. It was made clear that there is need to raise the profile of agriculture, starting early on, from the school. This may be challenging, if we consider that young generations have been seeing their parents struggling in agriculture. Therefore, in order for channelling the message of farming and farmers as good, young people also need to see business opportunities in agriculture, need to become entrepreneurs engaging in a “profession”. This was the world used by the IFAD President, who joint the unusual gathering to listen to the youth’s recommendations.

This final stage of the day was really when the youth proved once again to understand what they want and wish for as well as their ability to articulate their demands not without coming up with concrete proposals. It was unanimously recognized the need for FOs to become ‘youth-sensitive’, not only in terms of representation but also in effective decision-making of young members. Young people also called for youth-focused agricultural development projects and programmes and for participating in project design, implementation, and M&E. In this regard, IFAD-supported projects should systematically include rural young women and men as a target group, with specific support being provided and monitored. Young farmers also expressed the need to enhance their skills and showed they are aware of alternative approaches to the conventional “in-door/face-to-face training”: liaising with students in agricultural institutions or getting exposed to on-the-job experience by working with a successful farmer entrepreneur. Being trained and guided was felt as key also in addressing the issue of young people’s limited access to credit, which should be combined with advice for the business activity to be feasible and sustainable. While recognizing the deep value of indigenous and traditional knowledge, young people indicated that they aim at transforming agriculture through innovation: using media and ICTs and exploring for new opportunities (such as niche markets and agro-turism). All this and much more were the young women and men discussing and recommending to IFAD, farmers’ organizations and their Governments – to create a new rural reality in which to grow as successful entrepreneurs.

Managing for impact: learning from successes and failures

The East and Southern Africa (ESA) annual workshop focusing on managing for impact kicked off on 14 November in Arusha, Tanzania. The event brings together 200 participants from 17 countries. 

This is a special event on many fronts. To start with, the participants warmly welcomed colleagues from South Sudan. Secondly, they bid farewell to Ides de Willebois, who is moving on to lead the West and Central Africa division.  And last but not least, this is a unique event because for the first time, participants have embraced moving away their from traditional way of doing workshops and have embraced knowledge sharing methods.

Ides de Willebois in his opening remarks reiterated the fact this is a learning and sharing event. “Without learning and sharing we cannot improve and we cannot have impact”. He also went on to say that “we need to have a better understanding of what we do, so that we can do it better.”

In concluding his remarks, de Willebois mentioned that he is planning to start an exchange visit between East and Southern Africa and West and Central Africa. “I hope that West and Central Africa colleagues will join next year’s annual event, so that they can learn from your experience”. 

Breaking the mould

Whenever you decide to innovate or break away from business as usual, there is some apprehension. You feel gratified when breaking the mould ends up being successful and resonates with the expectations. And this is exactly what happened at the ESA event.

It was so refreshing to see 200+ participants embrace knowledge sharing methods such as openspace, spectogramme and world cafe type discussions. Thanks to these participatory methods, they started to mingle, bond and in no time they got to know each other.  

In the process, they heard many stories, including one about how ESA implementation workshops evolved from a being top-down loan administration events to more learning events owned and organized by the projects.

The majestic mount Kilimanjaro and the Kalali women dairy cooperative

As a child, when school was  over, I would be counting the days so that I could join my grandmother in Mount Damavand. Damavand is Persia’s tallest mountain in the Alborz mountain range. Grandma had these wonderful stories about mount Everest, the far way mount Fuji and then a majestic mountain in Africa - mount Kilimanjaro. 

I was intrigued by mount Kilimanjaro, because as a I child I found it difficult to fathom that Africa had mountains. So, on Monday when we had to sign-up for the field trips, I could not believe that finally I would be able to see this far far away mountain.

Unfortunately the majestic mount Kilimanjaro decided to remain pretty veiled and the clouds did not cooperate. But nonetheless, seeing it was an emotional moment and brought back many fond childhood memories.

We then moved on to visit the Kalali women dairy cooperative. This cooperative is part of the Agricultural Sector Development Programme where IFAD is investing loan funds in supplementing financing to the nationwide development programme, to counteract the depletion of the initial funds committed by development partners as part of a basket fund arrangement.

The cooperative is located in Machame division, Hai district in Kilimanjaro region. Inspired by a local daily community business, this cooperative was established with 132 members in 1988. The cooperative’s goal is to:

• increase income of poor rural households, particularly women in the area through a number of different income generating activities
• improve lives of orphans and provide assistance to poor families who were unable to provide education and sound nutrition for their children

“To get going the cooperative members contributed 1000 shillings each and payed a membership fee of 50 shillings,” explained Nancy Manasseh Kidin, the cooperative’s chairperson.

Considering their scarce income, these monies were paid in 4 installments. The cooperative started with 8 dairy cows. In 1995 they had 41 dairy cows.

Considering the vital role women play in rural societies, the cooperative decided that women headed-households were the ones to receive the cows.  They agreed that the person who receives the cow for a period of seven months would:

• give one litre of milk a day to the orphanage
• give the calves to other women headed-household and members of the cooperative 

As a result in a short time, 24 women who had signed up to this deal managed to provide dairy cows to 117 cooperative members.

Today the cooperative has a total of 260 members.

Diversifying activities

These industrious women used their income to diversify their business. In the 90s they bought themselves a milling machine.

“We provided milling service in the local market and expanded our business by buying a container to store the maize”, said Kidin.

“We also used the profits from the milling business to buy seeds.”

In 1993, they went one step further and bought themselves an electric machine and donated their diesel operated milling machine to another women group.

With the profit from their milling business they bought feed for the cows.

A terrible blow

They had a flourishing business, produced milk in abundance and sold this to a company in Arusha, thinking that a company is a reliable partner.

“We failed to ask for the money upfront and the company failed to pay us 12,000,000 schillings”, said Kidin.

This was a terrible blow for them. The community lost confidence in cooperatives and felt let down.

This mishap taught the cooperative an important lesson: never accept an “IOU”, always finish a transaction, sell, get your money and go on.

Despite this set back, they managed to back on their feet, thanks to the generous contribution of Italians.

A new door opens: dairy processing 

The Italians provided them processing instruments and that is how they started making butter and cheese.

Today they produce:

• 400-800 litres of milk a day
• 10-20kg of cheese per day
• 50-95 packs of butter per week
• 400-600 packs of yogurt per week

They keep track of their daily production and make some impressive graphs without using Excel. They also have a sophisticated booking keeping practice.

They package their products and have a registered trademark. “We sell the dairy products at Moshi, to grocery stores, to hotels and send our cheese and butter all the way to Zanzibar”, explains a proud Kidin.

The cooperative has the necessary certification to package its product, however, they are faced with the challenge of not having adequate technical support. This means they are unable to take their business to the next step and benefit from industry’s best practice.

One thing that we observed was the BEST BEFORE DATE on their products. Without exception their products seem to have a shelf life of one year!!!!

Kidin shared with us that the cooperative aspires to be able to:

• procure large 50 litre metal containers to store the milk instead of using plastic containers
• avail themselves of technical expertise and training so that their products are of high quality meet regional standards, have bar codes and can compete with Kenyan products
• have access to veterinary service
• have access to East African Community Market and get packaging machinery 
• have all the women of the community become members of the cooperative
• become a renown cooperative both inside and outside Tanzania

In conducting their business, the cooperative has learnt the importance of:

• providing thorough and in depth training to the machine operators, so that they do not only know how to operate the machine, but also maintain it properly
• understanding the market demand and their potential competitors
• doing a good market search before buying equipment and better understanding what is needed and how a piece of equipment can help them 

Expanding the business and facing new challenges

With a relatively good income from their dairy business, the cooperative bought a sunflower oil pressing machine and started a savings credit cooperative (SACCOS).

The SACCOS has 375 members and started with a capital of 3.2million schillings.

The older women of the community put their savings in the SACCOS and the more business oriented women use the SACCOS to get a loan. The loans have an interest rate of 3%.

Kidin shares with us that the SACCOS are faced with two challenges:

• underpayment
• corruption

This has led to a loss of 22 million schillings.  This loss made the community understand the importance of choosing right people as SACCOS board members. They now know that a board member:

• needs to be a trusted member of the community
• one who understands the ins and outs of the business and entire process
• one who has knowledge of financial management so that they can play a supervisory role, detect collusion and immediately take corrective actions

Investing in health and eduction of young people

The community is committed to provide education for the children and young people - especially to orphaned children and those from less advantaged families.

They use their profits to send children from disadvantaged families to school and are also assisted by Italians who are sponsoring a number of children and putting them through school.

Their vision is that every child has to go to school.

Their sustained programme of investing in education of their children is one of their great successes. Thanks to this initiative many young people have successfully finished school, obtained their degree and now serve as accountants, agriculture specialists, engineers and health workers.

Many have heard of WFP’s school feeding programme. Well, the Kalali women dairy cooperative runs a similar programme - they support school feeding by providing one glass of milk per class. 

The cooperative challenges

Kidin shared with us the cooperative challenges: 

• continuous power cuts which lasts days
• lack of access to adequate and state of the art machinery for packaging and conservation so that they are able to compete in the  market
• lack of access to technical expertise to take the business to its next level
• lack of local talents and expertise
• lack of access to appropriate equipment for conservation
• high taxation and cumbersome regulations
• competition with Kenyan products

The cooperatives aspirations

Kidin and the cooperative members aspire to:

• have all women in the area become members of the cooperative
• give dividends to all the members and not just provide contributions in kind
• create more employment opportunities
• send all children to school
• expand the sunflower pressing business
• innovate and continuously provide new services to the community
• provide capacity building
• build technical and leadership skills and groom local talents
• set up a milk bar so that community members understand that there are other options to drinking alcohol
• do more follow-ups and have a better feel what you can realistically achieve 
• develop robust business plans

We cannot but wish this group of hardworking and resilient women the best of luck. They are a great example of how when a community takes development in their hands, despite set back, they are able to move on and bring about change. I am sure the Kalali women dairy cooperative will go from success to success and manage to fulfill all their aspirations and be a model for many more women.

Ça c’est l’Afrique: The backstory #gyin

Young entrepreneurs from around the world have gathered in Cotonou, Benin to share knowledge and learn from each other’s experiences for a four-day event titled “Youth Entrepreneurs – Agents of Change.


Yesterday Canal 3, a private TV in Benin approached us and asked to interview Mohamed Beavougi, the director of West and Central Africa. We agreed to meet at the TV station at 7pm and to go on air live at 7:30pm.

We got there on time, met the journalist, got settled in the studio, did a test run and were all set to go. And three minutes before going on air, something does not work and a piece of equipment breaks!

The technician starts running around, goes out, comes back with some cables. It is now 7:29.... and the technician is still running around. What was most incredible is that no one panicked. It is now 7:32 and the journalist is casually chit chatting with Mohamed and says: “We have a technical problem, I am afraid we cannot go on air until we resolve the problem.”

I leave the studio and go to the adjacent room, where I find the technician literary inside the equipment. The room is dark, and I see the technicians using their cellphones as flash lights. I stood there in awe, looking at how these gentlemen solved the problem and fixed the broken equipment.

Twenty-three minutes later, we managed to go on air live. When the technician came back in the studio, he looked at us and said: “Ça c’est l’Afrique”.

I challenge all the high-tech and well-equipped TV studios around the world to solve the technical problems the way their African colleagues did!

And here is Mohamed’s interview.

P.S. Wonder what CNN's Michael Holmes has to say about this BackStory :)

#gyin: Global Youth Innovation Network a platform for young women entrepreneurs to shine and advance their business

From 10-13 October 2011, IFAD together with Phelps Stokes Fund and in collaboration with the Government of Benin, Songhai Centre, Palmares Fundação cultural, Fundación Activos Culturales Afro (ACUA) and the GIVE 1 Project is holding a four-day event for young entrepreneurs - agents of change.

This morning, I met Nabiha Farrag - one of the many participants of this event. Farrang is a young Egyptian entrepreneur who runs a handicraft workshop in Asyut, south of Cairo.

"I am coming to this event to share what I am doing with a wider audience. I see this as a business opportunity to show case my products and to advance my activity", says Farrag.

Farrag started her handicraft business inspired by her father's work. After working with him for 15 years, four years ago she spread her wings and set up her own workshop. Her biggest challenge was and continues to be access to credit.

"To set up my workshop, I got an initial loan of EGP3000 and after I showed that I was credit-worthy I managed to get an extra EGP5000."

Farrang's monthly income is just enough to make ends meet. To really take the workshop  but to really take the workshop to scale, she needs approximately EGP20,000 to buy additional equipment and quality raw material.


Farrag hopes that this event will give her a platform to share her experience, to make new contacts, to show case her products, to manage to mobilize resources so that she can further advance her business.

"I will have a stand during the event and sincerely hope that when people see the workshop's products, the orders will start pouring in. One of my aspirations and goals from this event is to be able to sell my products and make enough money to buy the additional equipment I need for the workshop", explains Farrang.

Farrang although married is practically a single mother. "I am coming to this event with lots of hope. It was a great sacrifice to leave behind my four year old son. I sincerely hope that I get a lot from this event", tell me Farrang.

And we all hope that on Friday when she leaves, she leaves rich in heart, in soul, in knowledge and as they say in French rich in "sous". We should not forget that  investing in women and young girls is the pathway to stability and growth. This is why it is important to empower women, because by doing so, we make sure that the entire community thrives.

#sfrome: Partnership with young farmers to promote collective action and entrepreneurship development (38)

By Monica Romano and Zoumana Bamba

The story of a young farmer without land kicked off the discussion and experience sharing around what are the needs, expectations and challenges of rural young people and what institutions like IFAD can do to enable them become the leaders of tomorrow and build a promising future for themselves, their families and the communities they live in.

Start with nothing, but dream big. This is the story of a young entrepreneur, Leonard. Supported by the Songhai Centre after 18 months of training, Leonard rented a piece of land from the Centre and has been busy setting up a vegetable garden. Only a year after, Leonard’s life has changed. He is able to sell the harvested cabbage, carrot to the market with a support from the Songhai Centre. This was the beginning of his success. He has put some of the profit back into the business to buy a variety of seeds, thus having a vegetable of products to sell. Leonard is a shining example of the importance of persistence and commitment, in spite of initial difficulties. Leonard has become a proud young man earning an honest living from Agriculture. Another story which illustrates that agriculture can be attractive to a young generation looking for opportunities and that one can make money from it.

George Fernandez, President of the International Movement of Catholic Agricultural Rural Youth (MIJARC), stressed that agriculture is key to eradicating rural poverty and hunger, and that there is need to invest in rural youth to boost the agricultural sector, while supporting policies that can facilitate their engagement in agriculture. Over the past year, MIJARC has been implemented an IFAD-supported grant to map young farmer organizations, in collaboration with FAO. The grant aims to find out the reality of rural young people by mapping their own farmer organizations or those in which young people are represented. It also act as a platform for the rural youth express their views and explain their condition though a survey addressed specifically to them and the hosting of regional consultations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Through these gatherings, young people are invited to share their experiences and indicate the support they need to become successful farmers and entrepreneurs.

Some of the main outcomes of the mapping exercise was presented by Charlotte Goemans (FAO), who showed that only a quarter of the surveyed farmer organizations was found to consist only of young members, whereas the majority of “mixed” organizations have nevertheless more than 50% young farmers as members. The figures increase slightly when data refer to Africa.

In reporting from the consultation that took place in Dakar at the end of August, Clemence Roger (MIJARC) meaningfully started by quoting from young people who participated in the event: “Rural youth are not aware of their rights” stated a Moroccan guy, echoed by another participant from Cote d’Ivoire, according to whom “ young people do not have enough experience in advocacy and lobbying”. The young people had a lot to say and made a number of recommendations indicating the way forward to successfully partner with them and effectively achieve objectives of rural development and rural poverty reduction. Education and capacity building programmes need to be defined together with the rural youth, and women need a special attention in order to ensure equal participation and mainstream gender considerations in selecting both themes and timing of the training. Young people also indicated that they should be involved in design and implementation of rural development policies, projects and programmes as well as to be adequately represented in farmer organizations.

A lively discussion took place after the various presentations across the session, with the facilitation of Philippe Remy, IFAD Country Programme Manager for Mali, and the moderation of Nora OurabahHaddad, Rural Employment and Institutions Officer at FAO. It was highlighted that innovation and creativity characterizing the youth should not forget about the importance of intergenerational transfer of knowledge from the more experienced farmers to today’s generation. The challenges of identifying farmer organizations that are really representing their members also apply to institutions of young people or those dealing with issues pertaining to them. It was also noted that the negative image of agriculture already starts to get built within the family, and then is consolidated at school and finally at the university. Finally, it was concluded that the approach to address youth-related issues needs to be holistic and that agriculture cannot be dealt with as a separate segment.

Investing in young farmers

Youth are often one of the most vulnerable segments of IFAD’s target group, both in terms of access to assets and services and in terms of opportunities and capacities to engage in decision-making processes that determine their livelihood prospects.

Farmer organizations are a key channel for young rural people to develop activities, get access to services and natural resources, and make their needs and concerns heard in decision-making processes.

The Farmers’ Forum was created in 2005 by IFAD, the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP), La Via Campesina and the Network of Peasant and Agricultural Producers’ Organizations of West Africa (ROPPA). It was designed as process of consultation and dialogue between farmers’ and rural producers’ Organizations (FOs), IFAD and governments focused on rural development and poverty reduction. A global meeting of the Farmers’ Forum was held in February 2010 at IFAD Headquarters where the participants stressed the urgent need to address young farmers in the following way: “Our family agriculture needs to be remunerative and give dignity. Young women and men farmers’ access to production assets – land, credit, and training – has to be ensured”. 

In this regard, the participants recommended that IFAD mmainstreams youth in all IFAD policies and programmes, with a gender balance and an emphasis on developing capacity-building and enhancement programmes for rural youth to engage in sustainable food production and agriculture and rural employment.

They particularly recommended that IFAD:

• Map young farmer and rural youth organizations and their networks (national and regional).
• Hold a Farmers’ Forum event similar to the one held for women this year, and ensure more representation of young people in subsequent Farmers’ Forums.
• Designate within IFAD a focal point for youth.
• Hold a global workshop on youth involvement in Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development during this year (UN Year of Youth).
• Mainstream youth in all IFAD policies and programmes, with a gender balance and an emphasis on developing capacity-building and enhancement programmes for rural youth to engage in sustainable food production and agriculture and rural employment. 
• Launch pilot projects supporting rural youth.
• Organize youth exchanges for experience-sharing on best practices and learning”.  

To start responding to that request, a specific programme to map key actors, specific issues and success stories in the different regions of IFAD operations is under preparation  by MIJARC (International Movement of Catholic Agricultural and Rural Youth), in close collaboration with the Farmers’ Forum Steering committee members, and FAO and CTA.

The programme will develop collaborations with the various on going initiatives within IFAD to address youth issues (for example, the collaboration with the ILO to review strategies and programmes for promoting decent and productive employment of young people in rural areas and projects and grants in regional divisions supporting young people’s activities).

Regional workshops will be organised to define ways of promoting active participation of the young in FOs and in the definition of FOs’ agendas that respond to young peoples’ needs; to improve capacity of FOs to advocate for young rural women and men in gaining access to farming activities; identify tools and methods to support young men and women farmers’ interests in agricultural development programmes through their organizations.

The programme will lead to recommendations in terms of policies and projects to help FOs support young people, women and men, enter and invest sustainably in farming activities. They will be discussed during the next global meeting of the Farmers’ Forum in February 2012.

By Philippe Remy

A snapshot of young people lives in rural areas: What they do and what they need

Many of IFAD’s programmes target young people. Yet when we talk about involving “youth” in our programmes we often seem to forget that young women and men lead very different lives and have different needs.

What is youth exactly? Traditionally, it is the transition from childhood to adulthood. The United Nations defines youth as all individuals aged between 15 and 24. In reality, being young has changed over time and varies considerably from one region to another. There is a big rural urban and gender divide. Rural children in developing countries grow up quickly. Early marriage and childbearing marks the transition for young girls. In many countries, girls marry before age 15 and many 15 to 19 year olds cannot read or write. Boys help out on the farms or drop out of schools because there is no secondary education or they do not see the point of it.

When we travel to distant rural areas to visit the project sites, it is often striking to see hordes of young men and adolescent boys hanging out in front of shops or on main squares, playing cards or just idly watching the coming and going of traffic and people.

Girls and young women are kind of less visible or they are in constant movement. We see them walking to school or back home in their colourful uniforms, carrying their grocery shopping or fetching water, or going for visits with their girl friends. They seem not to stop, often having babies and younger children in tow.

When we look closer and listen to these young men and women, we discover a different reality. The young men sitting in front of the village café could be a 35 year old farmer, who is still a second hand to his father and has nothing to decide about farming and marketing. The young women with the toddler could be a 17 year old mother who did not finish schooling and lives now with her in-laws, with little time and skills.

Rural development programmes that target young people need to take into account the different gender needs. For boys and young men, programmes can get them off the street and help put them to stand on their own feet, by learning new skills or finding employment.

For girls and young women, skills development or income generating activities help them to break up a circle of isolation and chores, gets them out of the house and meet other girls. These programmes help them to socialize, to increase their education and skills, including knowledge about health, nutrition and finance. Expanding girl’s education is the most obvious lever to change the situation of young women. These programmes can also contribute to delay marriages and child birth.

By Maria Hartl

International Year of Youth begins: Join us in addressing the challenges of rural youth

The International year of Youth begins today. “We must not fail these young women and men,” said IFAD President, Kanayo Nwanze. “The International Year of Youth is an opportunity to raise awareness and galvanize action”. This should be the year when IFAD develops a strategy and action plan on rural youth. The challenge is how to promote  employment and income-earning opportunities – in particular in the agricultural sector – which are gainful and attractive to young people. Otherwise, as the Farmers’ Forum 2010 participants asked, ‘who will feed the world tomorrow?’

There are some interesting experiences in IFAD-funded operations, but they have tended to be piecemeal – they need to be scaled up and systematised.  And it isn’t just about creating new and more profitable economic opportunities, in and around agriculture, as well as in non-farm employment and services. It’s also about rural areas being better places to live, of being (far) better equipped in terms of services and infrastructures, less isolated and better connected (roads, radio, internet, telecommunications and more.  And not being the backwaters that young people just want to run away from.  Life in rural areas needs to become better for women for whom city life means –more often in their dreams than in reality – escaping from the daily drudgery of fetching water and fuel, hard work in the fields which is largely unrewarded, headloading produce to distant markets….. Basic services for rural development and wellbeing,  schools and health centres,  often suffer from chronic difficulties in recruiting an retaining staff, who also find living in rural areas difficult and/or unattractive…

There will simply be no future for rural economies unless rural development efforts manage to use and retain the talents and energy of young people. This we realize fully here in IFAD. But the challenges are many - and interconnected. Apart from the general situation of rural areas which I recalled above, factors which specifically affect rural youth include:

• scarcity of land;
• high mobility of rural youth (within rural areas and between rural and urban areas);
• lack of conditions for young people to access sufficient capital to invest in gainful enterprises with a future;
• infrequent consultation of rural youth in programming and policy-making;
• lack or low quality of skills and vocational training, also poorly matched with labour demand;
• low investments in the kinds of services that young people seek (internet connectivity, recreation, sports…);
• limited voice and representation of the young in farmer organizations;
• cultural norms and intergenerational conflict which limit and delay the autonomy of the young…and many more.

As in the case of women,  empowering young people socially, politically and economically is an issue of profound social change, which is not without tensions.

Let’s use the International year of Youth as an opportunity to listen to young people, to share learning on what works, to strengthen partnerships that can carry forward a new action agenda for rural youth.

Annina Lubbock,
Senior Technical Adviser, Gender and Poverty Targeting, IFAD