About Youth Employment at Mercy Corps
Written by Rachel Shah, Director of Youth Employment at Mercy Corps.
Quality employment is more important than ever.
Employment is critical to alleviating poverty, increasing resilience and enabling individuals and communities to build towards a more inclusive, resilient future. Yet, there is a huge mismatch between the number of young people entering the labor market each year and availability of jobs — and this has only grown following the global economic crisis caused by COVID-19 and subsequent shocks. And the jobs that do exist are often not accessible to the most marginalized within communities.
Meanwhile, it’s an open secret that the status quo in youth employment programming isn’t effective. Did you know that traditional labor market interventions lead to only about 2% increase in employment, on average? Or that for every 100 people trained on a vocational skills course, on average only 3 are likely to get employed?
Clearly, alternative approaches are needed.
Mercy Corps’ youth employment programming works to deliver alternatives to the status quo — innovative, quality youth employment programming that responds to the job creation issue (the need for more work), improves the quality of work and the income workers get from it (the need for better work), and makes the world of work more inclusive to job seekers and entrepreneurs from diverse and marginalized communities (the need for better access to work). We’re particularly focused on improving work for youth, women and girls, and people on the move.
Along with our collaborators in the global MSD4E Community of Practice (a cross-agency, cross-donor working group that we co-lead) and the Africa-focused Jobtech Alliance, we’re also building the evidence base for the innovative approaches we’re using, and working hard to spread awareness of them and improve guidance about them.
Our Approach
Our strategy for youth employment programming is anchored on two approaches:
Market Systems Development for Employment (MSD4E)
We apply and adapt established market systems development approaches to employment programming, to achieve sustainable employment outcomes driven by inclusive systems change. This approach involves moving towards more locally-led and evidence-driven solutions that are embedded in the systems we work in, instead of being delivered by Mercy Corps directly. You can find out more about our MSD4E approach here.
Jobtech @ Mercy Corps
We harness the potential of digital technology to enable more viable, inclusive, and impactful ways for youth to access and deliver quality work, by working with jobtech start-ups and platform providers. This innovative and locally-led approach to youth employment programming positions un- and under-employed young people for the future of work. You can find out more about our Jobtech work here.
Our Programs
Our programs’ work towards catalyzing sustainable changes that enable economically marginalized people to become employees or business owners, and ultimately enables individuals, businesses, and markets to become more resilient to conflict and climate related shocks and stresses. A few examples of our programs include:
The Jobtech Alliance is building the ecosystem in Africa for inclusive jobtech, by creating the enabling environment (funding, research, community building, policy, and infrastructure) for jobtech start-ups, and by delivering a range of acceleration activities to enable jobtech platforms to build greater scale, impact, and inclusivity in their solutions. [Jobtech]
LIWAY is an urban market systems development program — one of the first of its kind — increasing incomes of women and youth through waged and self employment opportunities in Addis Ababa. Funded by Sida and the Government of the Netherlands, and implemented by a consortium including SNV, Mercy Corps, Technoserve and Save the Children, its interventions use MSD4E and jobtech to generate sustainable change. [Jobtech and MSD4E]
CEDIS is a market systems development program focused on improving incomes, working conditions, and resilience to shocks and stresses for 30,000 marginalized women and young females in the informal sector in Zimbabwe. Funded by the Embassy of Sweden, this program pushes the boundaries of conventional MSD practice through its application of the MSD approach to employment outcomes in informal markets, with a particular emphasis on rules, norms, and social networks while strengthening urban and rural relations in target regions. [MSD4E]
IQLAA, the Informal Livelihoods Advancement Activity, is taking a hybrid technical approach to supporting Jordan’s micro and small-sized enterprises (MSEs) to grow and build resilience to future shocks. It has a particular focus on MSEs owned by (or employing) women, youth, and people living with disabilities. This large USAID-funded program is working to improve a variety of the functions that enable MSEs to thrive, including finance, skills development, aggregation, and export. [Jobtech and MSD4E]
Prospects IV is a Sida-funded MSD4E program working to benefit over 14,000 young people through improved employment opportunities in urban and peri-urban parts of Liberia. It is pioneering the use of jobtech and MSD4E approaches by working through the capabilities and incentives of private sector actors in Liberia’s fragile economy to develop and introduce sustainable innovations that enhance Liberia youth’s employment opportunities and experiences. [Jobtech and MSD4E]
The Rural SMEs Development Project in Georgia aims to increase employment and incomes for rural women and men by facilitating the sustainable diversification and expansion of rural Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) through better access to finance and advisory services. It is implemented by Swisscontact in consortium with Mercy Corps and The Springfield Centre. [MSD4E]
Gaza Sky Geeks was born out of Mercy Corps’ desire to extend its work beyond traditional humanitarian programs and Google’s interest in the Gazan tech community. Now operating across Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, and funded by multiple partners, Gaza Sky Geeks provides freelancers, founders, and coders with the technical training and support they need to earn an income online. [Jobtech]
Micromentor is a program entirely focused on delivering an easy-to-use social platform that enables the world’s largest community of entrepreneurs and volunteer business mentors to connect. Funded by multiple donors, it aims to enable entrepreneurs to achieve better business outcomes through no-cost access to volunteer mentors. [Jobtech]
Our Team
Rachel Shah | Director of Youth Employment
Gituku Ngene | Senior Global Advisor — Youth Employment and Innovation, Jobtech
Dhita Radcliffe | Senior Regional Advisor — Market Systems Development for Employment
For more information about Youth Employment at Mercy Corps, contact us at youthemployment@mercycorps.org.
