The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund approved a grant of $3.57 million to the government of Zimbabwe to increase the resilience, skills and entrepreneurial capacity of young people and women in the southern African country.
The support from the African Development Bank Group's concessional window covers the bulk of the project's costs, which are estimated at a total of $3.93 million. The Zimbabwean government (10 per cent) and the project beneficiaries (2 per cent) constitute the other contributors to the funding.
The core objective of the project is to boost employment opportunities for young people and women through vocational training, increased productivity, market ties and entrepreneurship in selected agricultural value chains.
Specifically, the "Skills Required for Employability and Productivity of Young People and Women" project in Zimbabwe will strengthen skills that are essential for productivity through technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions in the agricultural sector and support work-integrated learning with internships and work placements. It also strives to create links between agricultural production and private buyers - both young people and women - around targeted TVET institutions.
"Developing skills through TVET centres and strengthening market ties are crucial to the economic empowerment of women and young people in Zimbabwe's rural economy," said Moono Mupotola, the Bank's Country Manager for Zimbabwe. "Over the past decade, the African Development Bank has supported three initiatives of this type in Zimbabwe including the USD 5.8 million Youth and Women Empowerment Project (2017-2022) and the USD3.5 million Sustainable Enterprise Development for Women and Youth Project (2021-2025)."
The project is expected to create 3,900 direct and 10,000 indirect jobs and directly benefit TVET institutions as well as 200 women, 1,000 young people, 400 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) composed of women and young workers, and 10 agricultural cooperatives. A total of 5,000 participants will benefit from various technical and business management training initiatives and will be actively engaged in the production, processing and marketing of products from the horticulture, goat farming and fishery value chains.
