Livelihoods Through Self-Employment

Across the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region, the average youth unemployment level is nearly 18%, and economic growth averaged just 1.4% in 2018. Formal employment cannot absorb all entrants into the labor market. Lack of skills, experience, and professional networks place youth at a particular disadvantage in formal employment. Promoting self-employment and entrepreneurship is a key approach to support more successful labor market entry and income generation for youth in LAC. Youth themselves recognize the value of self-employment: according to a 2016 Gallup poll, around 20% of Latin American youth planned to start a business in the next year. Programs that support youth in creating and growing productive businesses, even businesses that start and remain small, can provide pathways for youth to gain more secure livelihoods.

The goal of this brief is provide guidance on steps for using best practices in entrepreneurship program design, implementation and evaluation to support youth who are oriented toward securing livelihoods. These are youth who are most often entrepreneurs of necessity, rather than entrepreneurs of opportunity.

The social entrepreneurship model is increasingly perceived by young people as a tool to do exactly that – mobilize, organize, innovate and deliver solutions – while generating employment. Young social entrepreneurs often live in the communities they seek to serve, which regularly include marginalized or underserved groups. Moreover, a growing number of young social entrepreneurs are focusing their efforts on global challenges such as promoting climate action, sustaining peace, addressing inequalities, and now, responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Setif, our research team identified three key industries that, as of Q4 2019, showed potential to provide youth employment and entrepreneurship opportunities: agribusiness/food processing; construction materials; and plastics. This selection was based on an analysis of export potential, presence of SMEs; volume of entry-level jobs; a supportive enabling environment; and committed leadership. In light of the current pandemic, the personal care and hygiene product industry, and related offshoots of the plastics industry, may also hold at least short-term potential for youth employment, as well as a variety of types of support to remote work and e-commerce.

Through interviews and workshops with SME representatives, the team mapped sector supply chains and identified and analyzed a) needs to support SME business growth and b) opportunities for youth employment and entrepreneurship in and across the three sectors. When asked how the project could help firms in their industry, a majority of firms identified help finding a trained workforce and connecting to inputs as major needs. Business strategy and the opportunity to interact with other firms were mentioned, but less of a priority.

From the way youth see it, business as usual just won’t cut it. Consider the staggering statistics: According to a survey done in 2014 by the World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, 72 percent of millennials –between 18 and 34 – believe corruption is holding back their country. An equal number think it is causing lost opportunities for their generation.

Young entrepreneurs who want their work to have a positive impact on their communities, urgently need more help from governments if they’re to succeed and resist the COVID-19-fuelled economic downturn.

As the COVID-19 global pandemic continues to disrupt the global economy, not only the health but the livelihoods of millions are at stake through reduced earnings and increased poverty.

The spread of COVID-19 across the globe has changed many people's lives. As more and more people are asked to stay home, many activities have been forced to move from offline to online (O2O), including work, grocery shopping, food delivery, education and entertainment. This new trend could help the global O2O gig economy flourish provided key challenges can be overcome.

Technology is not simply digitizing the activities that make financial services possible in Africa. It is reshaping how and when people use financial services and, increasingly, how they earn incomes in the first place. The Mastercard Foundation’s Partnership for Finance in a Digital Africa (FiDA) draws insights from a large, diverse portfolio of fintech partners to focus on defining trends, such as how digital marketplaces (“platforms”) facilitate financial services to digitizing workers and small businesses. Increasingly, platforms combine access to markets, finance, and skills development for consumers, workers, and small businesses. These enablers are critical to the Foundation’s strategy going forward, and this paper highlights an important new approach to skills development through platforms.

COVID-19 has drawn global attention to the fragile nature of work for people in the gig economy; with few legislated benefits or worker protections, these people are among those hardest hit economically by the crisis. But while the issue is global, some places will be harder hit than others.