USAID Empowered Youth Program: Final Report

Throughout the course of USAID Empowered Youth’s work, it was clear that youth are eager to be engaged in civil society and economic empowerment spaces. One of the core barriers faced by youth was a lack of confidence in the 18–24-year-old cohort held by employers, and slight resistance to providing the initial opportunities needed for youth to grow professionally and personally, as young adults.

Given there is acknowledgment of youth’s desire and need to receive training in soft skills and learn about the expectations often set in a workplace, addressing the peripheral actors through a systems thinking approach will be helpful for future opportunities to open for youth.

In this realm, changes in mindset could be expanded beyond youth themselves, to employers and how they view the younger population. Perception altering can help to broaden the economy to be more inclusive of youth, as USAID programming continues to work towards exposing youth to various employment avenues and advocates for self-employment support and enrollment in tertiary education.