Youth employment is now a priority in most regions of the world. There is growing focus and investment on youth employment programs, but at the moment there is limited evidence on what works, which leads to low impact and wasted resources. According to the World Bank, as much as 40% of youth employment projects have no impact on labour market outcomes for youth.
With this in mind, the Youth Employment Network (YEN) and Making Cents International have partnered up to create the What’s Working? competition to find out what strategies and approaches are working and share them among the youth employment community. The following three rounds of the competition will be held leading up to Making Cent’s Global Youth Opportunities Conference in September 2013 where the winning Smart Notes will be published. The theme of the conference will be Linking Youth to Rural Markets.
Round 1: September – December 2012
Round 2: January – April 2013
Round 3: May – August 2013
The What’s Working? competition highlights success stories. Organizations who have had positive results from their youth employment projects can submit an entry form about their project, including why they think it worked and what lessons they learned. The winners are selected through online voting, comments, and a judges panel. The winning projects will have their Smart Note published on the website and receive a monetary award of up to USD 800.
The overarching focus of the competition is on rural youth and increasing opportunities in rural areas. Submissions will be accepted in any of the following 5 areas:
- Workforce Development
- Financial Services and Capabilities
- Enterprise Development
- Adolescent Girls and Young Women
- Monitoring, Evaluation and Impact Assessment
It’s free to enter and the application is online. Check the Submission Guidelines for full details.
Competition deadlines:
- Enter by December 31, 2012
- Voting closes January 6, 2013
- Winners announced January 23, 2013