MULTI-STAKEHOLDER ASSESSMENT OF YOUTH PERCEPTION AND DEVELOPMENT Development Food Security Activity (DFSA) MERCY CORPS March 2018 Prepared by Lauren Servin 1 DFSA, Youth Multi-Stakeholder Assessment Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................................................... 5 Background ............................................................................................................................................... 5 Assessment Overview ............................................................................................................................... 5 Key Findings ............................................................................................................................................. 6 Recommendations ..................................................................................................................................... 8 1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 11 1.1 Background ................................................................................................................................. 11 1.2 Development Food Security Activity (DFSA) ............................................................................ 12 1.3 Youth component under DFSA ................................................................................................... 12 2 OBJECTIVES & METHODOLOGY OF ASSESSMENT ................................................................ 13 3 BACKGROUND TO YOUTH SITUATION IN ETHIOPIA ............................................................ 17 3.1 Education .................................................................................................................................... 17 3.2 Employment ................................................................................................................................ 17 3.3 Access to Land ............................................................................................................................ 17 4 ASSESSMENT FINDINGS ............................................................................................................... 18 4.1 Community Perception of Youth Equity, Agency, Empowerment & Development .................. 20 4.2 Implementing Partners Perception of Youth Equity, Agency, Empowerment & Development . 28 4.3 Government Perception of Youth Equity, Agency, Empowerment & Development ................. 33 4.4 OVERALL ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................. 41 5 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................. 44 6 RECOMMENDATIONS .................................................................................................................... 45 6.1 General Recommendations ......................................................................................................... 46 6.2 Recommendations specific to youth livelihoods programming .................................................. 47 6.3 Livelihood Options ..................................................................................................................... 48 6.4 Recommendations for community engagement .......................................................................... 50 6.5 Gender Specific Pre-Requisite Activities.................................................................................... 51 6.6 Recommendations for DFSA ...................................................................................................... 51 6.7 Recommendations for government engagement ......................................................................... 54 ANNEX A: AGGREGATED DATA FROM COMMUNITY FGDs ........................................................ 56 ANNEX B: REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 62 ANNEX C: Tools ........................................................................................................................................ 63 ANNEX D: Youth Multi-Stakeholder Assessment SoW .............................................................................. 76 2 | P a g e DFSA, Youth Multi-Stakeholder Assessment ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, we would like to acknowledge and thank USAID for supporting to this study to better be able to inform the project on the current perceptions of youth. We greatly thank the team who provided support in completing this assessment, especially the lead. We would also like to extend thanks to the all of respondents from the Community Focus Groups and the Individual Community respondents, who provided their time to openly answer the questions of this study. We would also like to respectively and graciously thank the government officials in Dire Dawa Zone, Arsi & Wester Arsi Zones and East Hararghe Zone, who took valuable time out of their working schedule to provide valuable and in-depth information related to the work of their offices and their perceptions of young people in their administrative areas. We also extend sincere thanks to the Implementing Partners HCS and MCS, who provided further insights to the situation of young people in their areas of operation and also deeper insight into their organizations. We would also like to thank the various enumerators who spent long hours asking the survey questions and collecting data, which was used as the main substance for this report. Finally, I would like to sincerely thank the team from Mercy Corps, whom have played a huge role in making this study possible and who have facilitated each and every aspect of the study by providing managerial, logistical and technical support. About the Author Lauren Servin is a youth entrepreneurship and youth employment specialist who has been managing youth programs for over 11 years in East Africa. Most recently she was the country manager for a youth entrepreneurship organization called SPARK, where she was responsible for developing innovative solutions for employment challenges facing youth. This also involved developing and managing programmes related to the enabling environment for youth enterprises and entrepreneurship in South Sudan. She has an additional expertise in agri-value chain analysis and development also geared toward creating jobs for youth, training curriculums for youth entrepreneurship and Access-to-Finance for youth enterprises. She graduated from New York University’s Wagner School of Public Policy, with a with a Master’s in Public Administration, with a specialization in International Development Policy. Presently, Lauren consults multiple organizations on youth agribusiness development projects and she also runs her own start-up social enterprise which focuses on improving women’s employment in impoverished areas in East Africa. 3 | P a g e DFSA, Youth Multi-Stakeholder Assessment List of Acronyms CBO – Community-based Organization CRS – Catholic Relief Services DFAP – Development Food Assistance Program DFSA – Development Food Security Activity ELRP – Enhancing Livelihoods & Resilience Program FGD – Focus Group Discussion GoE – Government of Ethiopia HCS – Hararghe Catholic Secretariat INGO – International Non-Governmental Organization IP – Implementing Partner LRO - Livelihoods for Resilience-Oromia Program MCS – Meki Catholic Secretariat MFI – Microfinance Institution NGO – Non-governmental Organization PIM – Programme Implementation Manual PSNP – Productive Safety Net Programme SACCO – Savings & Credit Cooperative SME – Small & Medium-size Enterprise STD – Sexually Transmitted Disease ToT – Training of Trainers VSLA – Village Savings and Loans Association 4 | P a g e DFSA, Youth Multi-Stakeholder Assessment EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Background The ILO, in their Global Employment Trends Report, found that Global Youth unemployment rests at about 13.1 percent and it is predicted that youth unemployment rates will remain stable in sub-Saharan Africa into 2018. When young women and men are able to access employment, there is still a challenge in the quality of employment and their income level, as in developing countries 16.7% are still earning under $2 a day.1 Ethiopia, with the second largest population in Africa, has experienced rapid population growth over the last century from 18.1 million in 1950 to now 105.2 million people in 20172. This growth has potentially contributed to periodic food insecurity, particularly in rural areas, where young people lack opportunities to become productive members of society. While Ethiopia’s economy is growing rapidly, economic growth is happening mostly in urban areas and is not benefiting young people sufficiently enough. The Ethiopian government tried to address youth unemployment in 2005 through the roll-out of the Protective Safety Net Program (PSNP), which was also aimed at supporting socio-economic recovery in areas that suffer repeated droughts and other environmental challenges. The PSNP is now in its fourth phase, with the PSNP IV starting in 2015, and it is offering increasingly holistic ways for improving community resilience. This study was conducted by Mercy Corps as part of youth livelihood improvement in “Development Food Security Activity” (DFSA) for Ethiopia. DFSA is a five-year program,