1. The Youth Employment Network (YEN)

2. Innovative pilot projects Brokering Partnerships
About YEN
Policy Advice
Lead Country Network
Innovative pilot projects
Youth to Youth Fund
Brokering Partnerships
YEN Marketplace
Knowledge Sharing
YEN Evaluation Clinics
Inter agency initiative
ILO, World Bank and United Nations
Objective
To engage, educate and motivate actors to provide improved employment opportunities for youth 
YEN products and services
YEN is a platform and service provider focusing on 4 core areas.
Structure
YEN’s headquarters are in Geneva and has a field office here in Dakar.
YEN’s business model is that of a non-profit consulting firm

3. The Challenge Youth in West Africa Large proportion of young people
High unemployment
Low wages
65% under 30
~ 20%
+ underemployment + discouraged workers
65% of 260 million people in West Africa are below the age of 30
Youth unemployment rates are high (~20%) but do not tell the full story of invisible underemployment
50% of all employed youth live on less than USD 1 a day
Between 65% and 90% of urban youth make less than minimum hourly wage (adults: 30% to 50%)
50% earn under $1 a day
65% - 90% earn under min. wage

4. The Challenge The environment Large informal economy No job economies
Entrepreneurship – necessity vs. opportunity
Weak education system
Political instability
The informal sector is the most important job creator (95% of all new jobs in the case of Senegal)
necessity” entrepreneurs are less educated, cannot find other forms of employment, they remain small, informal, low contribution to employment creation
“opportunity” entrepreneurs are better educated, most are male, they seize opportunities, growth oriented enterprises, high contribution to employment creation

5. Case study Creating Jobs in a no job economy : The Youth to Youth Fund
Youth-led development
Innovation
Pro-poor products and services, green micro businesses
Cooperatives vs. entrepreneurs
Comprehensive training approach
Support /Monitoring network on the ground
Impact evaluation -

6. Case study Results of the pilot round: Applications received: 270
Winners selected:
Grant sizes: $7,000 - $50,000
Total Grants: $450,000
Total Jobs created: 800 jobs
Cost benefit ratio: $560 per job

7. Examples of projects SOS MISKINES Cash for plastic trash GUIDE
The Miracle Tree
SOS Miskines
Idea: Cash for plastic trash. New opportunities for youth from an abundant resource – plastic trash
Impact: Create 37 Jobs in first year then expand the project with the profit earned.
Moringa, GUIDE
In a nutshell:  Growth and commercial exploitation of Moringa tree, a rapidly growing and extremely nutritious plant.
The Idea:    The Moringa tree is famed for being a nutritional dyna mite as shown in the figure below. GUIDE wants to grow the plant in Pita and Labé, Guinea. They plan to make a health supplement with the plants’ leaves that they will sell at both at markets and through a network of 100 health centers in the 2 regions.
Impact: The project will create employment for 20 young women, during the first year of production the cooperative will focus on the commercialization of the leaves alone. During the second year the youth cooperative will be able to continue producing leaves as well as higher value products such as the Moringa Oil and water purifying seed cakes.

8. Policy Recommendations
Building the evidence on what works and why
Impact evaluations of ye projects have shown that comprehensive training programs and Targeting disadvantaged youth can be an effective approach, BUT
Knowledge of what works is incomplete.
Even worse, policy-makers are overestimating the effectiveness of programs.
The knowledge gap particularly serious in developing countries.
Program success is far from guaranteed
Evidence from the YEI shows that only 60% of programs appear to yield positive impacts and this falls to 33-44% when cost effectiveness is taken into consideration
… which highlights the need for:
diagnosis of the obstacles, sound design and implementation, and monitoring effectiveness, adjusting programming as needed.
Interventions tend to be more successful in developing and transition countries than in advanced economies.
There is no silver bullet: policy-makers should consider which type of intervention best addresses the problem of concern.

9. Areas for cooperation Evaluation Clinics
Expanding the Youth to Youth Fund
Evaluation Clinics
Bench marking youth employment
Youth Employment Inventory
benchmarking youth employment policies in 20 developing and emerging countries (see the first benchmarking report on our website network of countries that volunteer to make youth employment a priority,
youth employment inventory, the only global repository on results of youth employment programs which is a project of World Bank, ILO, YEN and a couple of other agencies see
our experiences in running youth employment projects in West Africa and in evaluating them through impact assessments.

10. Thank you for your attention
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Contact Information:
Website:
Tendai Pasipanodya
West Africa Coordinator