Youth and the Rural Economy in Africa

How do young people across Africa engage with the rural economy? And what are the implications for how they build livelihoods and futures for themselves, and for rural areas and policy? These questions are closely linked to the broader debate about Africa’s employment crisis, and specifically youth employment, which has received ever-increasing policy and public attention over the past two decades. Indeed, employment and the idea of ‘decent work for all’ is central to the Sustainable Development Goals to which national governments and development partners across sub-Saharan Africa have publicly subscribed. It is in this context that between 2017 and 2020, a consortium led by the Institute of Development Studies, with funding from the International Fund for Agricultural Development, undertook research on young people’s engagement with the rural economy in SSA.