How is USAID Promoting Youth Participation in the Creative Economy?
Learn how we support creative skills development for young people through economic opportunity, conflict prevention, tolerance, and peacebuilding programs
When young people are empowered to fully participate within their communities, they contribute to local, national, and international development goals, which is a key component of USAID’s updated Youth in Development Policy. One of the ways USAID is fostering youth participation is through arts-focused, creative skills development, helping young people join — and profit from — the creative economy.
The creative economy is often linked to cultural, service, and tourism industries, which the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted. Although these industries have begun to bounce back in 2022, they have changed and have yet to reach pre-pandemic levels. The International Monetary Fund, for example, has predicted that the global tourism industry is not expected to recover until 2023.
Although challenges exist, young artisans have the ability to re-energize economic growth around the world. For USAID and its partners, the creative economy presents opportunities for youth job growth with relatively low levels of investment.
In fact, creativity is now identified among the top 10 skills sought by employers. If policymakers recognize creativity as an economic asset, countries can bolster their economies while fostering innovation. According to Muhoza Liane Mutaganzwa, a professional actor and director from Rwanda: although “the creative industry is one of the hardest businesses… [it can] also be the most profitable.”
The creative economy continues to evolve with digital production and distribution of goods. For example, during the pandemic Muhoza moved her initiatives online, conducting business using platforms like Zoom, enabling her to engage with a larger, global audience.
Here are some of the ways USAID is helping creatives like Muhoza increase their own profits and participation while supporting economic growth in their countries.
Arts-Based Education
In Indonesia, USAID is working with partners to employ arts and culture-based approaches in education to counter intolerance. Through the Creative Youth for Tolerance (CREATE) program, USAID promotes tolerance and pluralism in Indonesia’s education system by working with the government and local organizations to assist artists in developing interactive models that improve student awareness on issues such as democracy and human rights.
The goal is to refine and expand this creative approach so that, by 2023, there will be a cadre of graduating students who will serve as examples of tolerance for their communities and an established network of teachers and parents empowered to monitor and address incidents of intolerance at schools.
Dwi Agustin, a USAID CREATE participant from East Java, explained how the program exposed her to “Artivism” and created within her a desire to “promote the transmission of knowledge.” Syakila Arischa, a South Sulawesi participant, said she learned “a lot about tolerance, intolerance, pluralism, [and] activism.” Ilhamsyah HB, also from South Sulawesi, expressed how the program teaches young people to “use art as a medium for expressing our aspirations and concerns.”
Board Games
USAID’s Colombia Human Rights Activity (HRA) aimed to work with the Government of Colombia and civil society organizations to promote a culture of human rights and to prevent and respond to human rights violations. In 2018, to advance human rights and peacebuilding initiatives, the program worked with the country’s Office of the Ombudsman to design and produce six human rights-focused games sent to schools to target youth and the broader community with both education and recreation.
These games addressed several human rights issues, such as ethnic issues and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
This creative initiative sent 1,800 board games to 55 schools in seven HRA departments (including Meta, Antioquia, Córdoba, Cauca, Nariño, Tolima, and Caquetá), concentrating on areas with high levels of conflict and many victims. HRA provided training courses on how to properly and effectively use the games, as well as supported the dissemination of these games in HRA departments, while the Ombudsman’s Office was responsible for disseminating the games nationally.
By emphasizing imagination and art to tackle specific policy issues (such as conflict prevention and religious tolerance), USAID fosters the potential of creative skills to promote youth participation in both social and economic development. When governments, the private sector, and donors invest in a robust creative economy, they promote a more inclusive world and mobilize youth for positive changemaking.
About the Author
Ava Lundell interned with the USAID Youth Policy Development Team through the Virtual Student Federal Service program.
