The Youth Employment Evidence and Insights Hub

Africa is the youngest and fastest-growing continent in the world; by 2030, there will be 375 million young people in its job market. However, there is a significant lack of employment opportunities that young people deem dignified and fulfilling; youth unemployment rates are as high as 65% in South Africa, and 80% in Djibouti. 

The Mastercard Foundation’s definition of dignified and fulfilling work is based on four markers, which are based on the perceptions of young people. When at least one of these markers is present, an individual is on a trajectory to having dignified and fulfilling employment: reliable income; a sense of purpose; reputable; and respect in the workplace. 

The Youth Employment Evidence and Insights Hub is a consortium born out of the Pan-African Collective for Evidence (PACE), driven by a passion to provide the best available and contextually-relevant evidence, and deliver it with – and not merely for – decision-makers in Africa. Hosted by PACE, the hub is composed of key organisations from across and beyond Africa, whose expertise and experience will help deliver evidence and insights on a range of issues related to youth employment in Africa both to decision-makers, and to the community at large.

The hub is working in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation in the delivery of the Young Africa Works Strategy, which focuses on youth employment across the thematic areas of entrepreneurship, agriculture, digital economy, finance, health, and education. The Strategy sets out an ambitious goal of enabling 30 million young people in Africa, especially young women, to secure employment that they see as dignified and fulfilling. Through the integration of local and living evidence, and youth voices, the Hub is supporting the Mastercard Foundation in making evidence-informed strategic, programming, and investment decisions to help millions of young people find a pathway out of poverty. 

“Local evidence means rethinking research strategies: how we search; where we search; how we extract data; and how we represent data.” - Patrick Okwen, Ebase Africa. 

Driving transformative change through innovation 

In a rapidly evolving social world, the work environment is also constantly changing and calling for more data-driven, creative solutions. Young people want to be a part of this transformation and believe in the power of innovation and technology to drive forth their vision for a more inclusive future. To this end, the consortium is striving to innovate and champion African youth voices at every stage in their collaboration with the Mastercard Foundation – from generating the evidence, all the way to communicating it back to the community. 

Being inclusive communicators 

The hub is unique in its deliberate and consistent inclusion of youth voices and Indigenous ways of knowing, through their engagement and amplification at all stages of evidence production. To this end, the partners are working to ensure that the evidence resonates with Africa’s most excluded communities. 

MEET THE CONSORTIUM

ACRES  

The Centre for Rapid Evidence Synthesis (ACRES) is a knowledge brokering institution based in Uganda, working to support policy and decision-making with high-quality, relevant, and timely evidence. Their vision is to create a world in which urgent decisions are underpinned by evidence, reducing inequity and improving socio-economic outcomes. 

AEN 

The Africa Evidence Network (AEN) is a Pan-African community of over 5,000 people from diverse backgrounds who share the vision of ending poverty and inequality in Africa. Their goals are to foster collaboration in the evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM) ecosystem in Africa, as well as promoting EIDM within and beyond the continent. 

CommsConsult Ltd 

CommsConsult Ltd. is a global team of strategic communications experts, who have been empowering development processes on the African continent for nearly 30 years. Founded in Zimbabwe in 1996, CommsConsult has offices in Harare and the UK. They have trained hundreds of researchers in communicating and engaging around evidence, and manage the Research to Action (R2A) platform, providing free advice, guidance and resources to practitioners the world over who want their research to make a positive impact. 

eBASE Africa 

Effective Basic Services Africa (eBASE) is a multinational collaborative research organisation based in Bamenda, Cameroon. They implement charity and development projects targeting women, children, people with disabilities and Indigenous populations. Their vision is to be the game-changers for effective basic services – such as health and education – using the best available evidence and technology in Africa. To this end, their Teaching and Learning Toolkit provides an accessible summary of evidence around education. 

EPHI 

The Ethiopian Public Health Institute is based in the technical wing of the Ministry of Health. One of their priorities is the development of the healthcare workforce in Ethiopia. Their aim is to ensure that public health policies adopted in the country are evidence-based and, to this end, undertake scientific research on priority health and nutrition issues. 

Future Evidence Foundation 

From health to climate to all of science, theFuture Evidence Foundation collaborates with scientists and technologists from across the globe to transform the way the world creates – and uses – trustworthy knowledge. Their cornerstone product, Covidence, is a world-leading systematic review tool. 

LARTES-IFAN 

Based in Senegal, LARTES-IFAN is a research laboratory supporting the design, monitoring and evaluation of public policies across various sectors, including education and employment. Their mission is to encourage and support social changes and monitor economic and social transformations in Africa. 

PACE 

The Pan-African Collective for Evidence (PACE) has a long history of working with decision-makers to co-design and co-produce useful evidence for decision-making. Their work involves undertaking evidence syntheses to support youth employment and supporting the sharing of evidence capacities through mentoring; communities of practice; training courses; and embedded advisory services. 

PACKS Africa 

PACKS Arica is an Indigenous, youth-led evidence-to-policy-team working alongside the Ghana government to support interventions to increase youth employment. Their goal is to improve research and evidence uptake in policy, through programmes aimed at improving public sector reform and management.