Themes & Trends: Dominant Themes

• Sections:     Intro & Context | Themes & Trends | Donors & Funds

2. Funding the International Youth Sector

Youth Employability, Livelihoods, and Entrepreneurship

These activities aim at helping young people enter and remain in the labor market. They focus on providing young people with different kinds of training to develop the skills necessary for an active and stable professional life; they also give guidance on getting a job or starting up businesses, covering a wide range of issues from attitudes (e.g., innovation, creativity, initiative), to skills (e.g., leadership, financial management, running a business, etc.), to the provision of small-scale seed funding for a startup to develop a good business plan, technical assistance, advice, and support for establishing and running a business, etc.

This goal is at the top of many organizations’ agendas. In many regions of the world, a significant portion of young people is and remains unemployed for long periods, even when they have higher education qualifications. Research consistently shows that young people are more likely to be unemployed than their elders, especially in times of economic uncertainty or crisis. Much of the support is directed at individual young people “with a good idea,” who need funds to “make it happen,” especially in countries where the formal labor market excludes young people or where they are likely to be able to get only poorly paid jobs, or temporary contracts. This is also often the kind of employment which is first to be cut in times of crisis, putting young people at even greater risk of unemployment.

Often what is promoted in terms of youth entrepreneurship is, in fact, more about employability, focusing on the lack of skills rather than on the areas in the labor market that have suitable jobs available or where youth initiatives and ideas might create new forms of employment for youth. Such efforts in terms of grant-making to young people are somewhat problematic, however, as investments in skill building for the labor market will have long-term effects only if efforts are also made to create jobs, something that rarely is within the scope of agencies’ grant-making plans. So, while the objectives of their programs are reached, the ultimate goal of developing employment for youth often remains elusive.

Youth Development, Focusing Heavily on Formal Education

Of significant concern to many organizations is the condition of young people in the developing world and in countries in transition. Organizations specializing in development are beginning to realize that young people in developing countries, in fact, form the majority of their “clients” and are a key constituency for the success of development efforts. Hence, an increasing number of development initiatives have a strong youth focus, although these do tend to be operational rather than grant-making programs.

Development has traditionally had a tendency to focus on investments in formal education. Clearly, a lack of basic education is an important reason why young people can be in poor health, contract HIV/AIDS, are unable to gain employment, etc. But the great emphasis placed on formal education in terms of financial investments has not necessarily produced great results in development. This may be because of the insularity of such programs, focusing as they do only on formal education to the exclusion of non-formal education and other aspects such as the match (or, better put, mismatch) between education and the labor market; such dearth of results might also be attributed to a lack of awareness about the need to reform and improve training processes for teachers and other education professionals, etc. Another possible cause might be the enormous costs of extending education to a large number of young people in developing countries.

Finally, poor development outcomes might also result from not understanding the need to partner with government, which is generally slow to move and slow to change. Many donors focus exclusively on young people in formal education through operational programs; such tunnel vision can and does limit development effectiveness because it does not take into account the dimensions of development that go beyond the scope of influence of education—including the availability of adequate employment opportunities, adequate housing, formalized and institutionalized channels for social and political participation for young people in and after their formal education, and other opportunities for young people to become autonomous and independent citizens.

Youth and HIV/AIDS

The rapid spread of HIV/AIDS among young people has been identified as a significant threat, especially in the developing world. Young people, who may be more likely to engage in “risky behavior,” have rightly been identified as a vulnerable group. Again, largely through operational programs, young people have been identified as both targets for and drivers of HIV/AIDS prevention. Enormous resources have been dedicated to this work, although controversy continues about the effectiveness of the so-called behavioral change programs that are usually directed at young people. Some institutions are beginning to see HIV/AIDS in the context of broader concerns about healthy lifestyles for and among youth.

Youth and Participation

Youth participation (or, more narrowly, civic/political engagement) is a traditional focus of attention of both grant-making and operational programs. But, it has a tendency of fading in importance in the face of newer or more urgent issues that funders feel need to be addressed. Youth participation periodically resurfaces when young people are very visible in democratic change or when they are not visible enough in political milestones—national elections or European elections, for example.

European institutional funders often have it as a permanent priority. In other regions, such activity tends to be regarded with some suspicion—by governments especially. Hence, intergovernmental structures in some regions tend to avoid the issue and focus their attention on “nonpolitical” priorities, for example, development. If youth engagement is considered a priority, then the “nonpolitical” type of participation is favored—involvement in leisure-time activities, meaningful pursuits outside of school, actions that develop the competence of young people, other social and cultural activities.