Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire — The Ivorian Ministry for the Promotion of Youth, Youth Employment, and Civic Engagement and the African Development Bank's Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department are hosting a workshop to reflect on the imperatives for the successful implementation of its program in Côte d'Ivoire. The workshop takes place in the Bank's offices in Abidjan, on Friday, July 8, 2016.

The objective of the workshop is to build traction and increase stakeholder ownership of the ENABLE Youth Côte d'Ivoire program by sensitizing stakeholders and identifying imperatives to ensure its successful implementation.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Development and the Ministry for Youth Employment of Côte d'Ivoire jointly identified importance of the ENABLE Youth program for Côte d'Ivoire. The agricultural sector, one of the most important sectors in terms of job creation, plans to harness this vast youth potential to increase agricultural entrepreneurship and private investment - with support from the Bank.

Youth represent 57.5% of the Ivorian population and their level of unemployment and underemployment is high. Indeed, according to a 2015 survey on living standards, eight out of 10 unemployed are between the ages of 14-35 and the rate of underemployment among young people is 17%, compared with 11% of adults age 36 and over.

AfDB Tackles Africa's Youth Unemployment Problem

Keeping with its High 5s, the African Development Bank (AfDB) is tapping the capacity of agriculture and agribusiness to create the massive number of jobs needed to reduce the continent's high rate of unemployment among African youth. The Bank recently approved an ADF loan of USD 50 million to finance jobs creation programs in Rwanda. While in Cote d'Ivoire where the underemployment rate among young people is 17%, the Bank recently held a workshop to implement its youth job program. Both programs aim to support young African graduates to start businesses along agricultural value chains through agribusiness incubators where they receive training in skills development. More about the AfDB in this BRIEFING. 

ENABLE Youth is a national youth employment program in the agricultural sector which provides support in building the capacity of farmers, promoting agricultural professionals, and funding of youth projects. The program is a strong contributor to improving agricultural entrepreneurship.

The goal is to build the capacity of young graduates to start businesses along the agriculture value chain through agribusiness incubators where they receive training in skills development. Following their incubation, the graduates receive support in obtaining financing to launch their businesses.

The ENABLE Youth program is being championed by the African Development Bank in collaboration with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and aims to develop the next generation of Africans agriculture entrepreneurs, or "agripreneurs".

As a direct outcome of the Dakar High Level Conference on African Agricultural Transformation, the ENABLE Youth program seeks to start 300,000 agribusinesses and create 1.5 million jobs in 30 countries in Africa over the next five years.