The G20 initiative for rural youth employment

Between 2017 and 2022, G20 members invested over USD 20 billion in 671 projects related to rural youth employment in Africa. The G20 Initiative for Rural Youth Employment (RYE), launched in 2017, overachieved the targets set to provide employment-related skills to 5 million youth and create 1.1 million jobs by 2022. The most common types of interventions were those focused on agriculture value chain development, skills training, and the promotion of entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized businesses. The paper assesses the achievements of the G20 Initiative for RYE, analyses different RYE programmes and provides recommendations for future G20 initiatives and RYE programming. Despite great progress, much remains to be done to tackle rural youth employment challenges.