All publications and documents

This paper presents a framework to analyse the political economy of rural youth policy and institutions’ opportunity space, with a quadrant that measures the extent to which rural youth are a priority in policies and institutions versus the extent to which the government has the capacity to effectively implement rural youth policies. It asks under what conditions policies focused on rural youth…

This paper is motivated by the consistent portrayal, within current policy discourse, of agriculture and the broader rural economy in Africa as domains of opportunity for rural youth. It presents a new conceptualization of landscapes of rural youth opportunity, where these landscapes reflect an individual’s reading of the complex interplay between economic geography; local history, agrarian…

Climate change matters for all young people. It matters especially for those whose livelihoods dependon agriculture and will continue to do so in the future due to slowing growth in labour-intensivemanufacturing andconstraints on labour absorption in the service sector. Of the slightly more than500million rural young people projected globally in 2030, two thirds will be in sub-Saharan Africa and…

This paper examines the intersections between youth access to land, migration decisions and employment opportunities using nationally representative and multi-year data from multiple African countries. We document evidence on the evolving dynamics in land distribution and ownership patterns, the effect of land access on youth livelihood choices and development of rental and sales market in the…

A narrative on rural youth in Africa has continued to evolve in policy circles around the world. Much of it is driven by population statistics that point to an imminent youth bulge in Africa and concerns about a poor economic outlook (stagnation) for African productivity and growth. Fears of massive unemployment, social unrest and undesirable migration due to limited economic growth drive the…

Countries of the Near East, North Africa, Europe and Central Asia (NEN) region face a myriad of social, economic and political challenges that have stalled their structural and rural transformation processes. This has had a detrimental impacton rural youth, who, as a result, face limited economic opportunities. The NEN region has the highest youth unemployment rates in the world. Weak education…