Rural Youth Enterprise for Food Security Programme

The Decent Jobs for Employment and Improved Food Security Programme is aimed at creating decent jobs for through the development of sustainable rural Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. The programme had a target of creating 3,000 jobs for young people and to improve the performance of 5,000 rural and peri-urban enterprises. Early on the project highlighted the focus on enterprise development for income for youths through employment or self-employment in the belief that increased income would lead to greater food security. To better reflect the youth entrepreneurship emphasis the project re-branded as Yapasa – Youth in Agribusiness.

Project details

Duration

1 September 2014 - 28 February 2019

Development partner(s)

Swedish Government

Location

Lusaka, Zambia

Contact

Steve Morris , Chief Technical Advisor, [email protected]

Additional details

The project followed a Market Systems Development approach to achieve the developmental objectives through forming partnerships with carefully selected public and private sector organizations and companies. The key focus of interventions was product and process innovation to make business models more inclusive and by doing so the businesses now provide more opportunities for young women and men in the agriculture space to enter and excel in their own farm enterprise.
The project so far has achieved the following results:
  • 8383 small-scale agricultural producers supported:
  • 3666 (44%) of the producers supported are youths
  • 983 (12%) of the producers supported are young women:
  • 2604 FTE jobs created
  • 106 enterprises supported
  • Geographic coverage: Northern, Luapula, North Western, Copperbelt, Central and Lusaka provinces
  • Work areas : Aquaculture, Soybean and Agro-input/offtake market systems
  • $571,770 of leveraged private sector investment in innovative business models:
For more details of the work of the project, its performance and results achieved please visit:

http://www.yapasa.org/