Digital Entrepreneurship for Vulnerable Urban Youth in Rwanda

pipeline

The project will design and pilot a set of innovative, evidence-based measures that tackle underlying barriers to successful entrepreneurship among vulnerable youth in Kigali. It will take a two-stage approach: the first stage will address job market constraints faced by youth to enhance their ‘labor market readiness.’ The second stage will provide customized interventions for digital entrepreneurship to improve youth ‘entrepreneurial outcomes.’ Throughout the pilot activities, interventions will explore and promote digital savviness of youth. They will provide digital skills, and develop, test, and strengthen digital tools and digital platforms especially open access that facilitate youth entrepreneurship.The specific components will include:The first component which is also Stage 1 of the project will focus on improving labor market readiness. The first stage is the foundational stage for stage 2 and will involve identifying about 9,000 potential participants from communities in Kigali. This stage will leverage the Imibereho Social Registry System (ISRS) to identify select youth who (1) are between 18 to 34 years old; (2) live in the city of Kigali; (3) are poor and vulnerable as demonstrated by household income and employment status (Not in Employment, Education, or Training (NEET) or under-employed), and (4) are not currently benefiting from other similar interventions. The selection will be randomized to ensure equitable representation by (1) all communities in the three districts of Kigali, (2) education level variations, and (3) diversity in entrepreneurship in regards to products and services. The project will also be implemented with a gender lens to ensure a female participation rate of at least 50%. Eligible and selected youth will take a profiling test which will assess their basic literacy, numeracy levels, and soft skills to help implementing partners to better understand and respond to the needs and constraints that the different groups of youth face. To best address their unique challenges, youth will be grouped based on gender and labor market readiness profile. Youth friendly training and empowerment solutions that leverage local youth centers, health counseling and psychosocial support, and peer-to-peer mentoring will be employed to equip youth with stronger foundational and socioemotional skills.The second component includes stage 2, which will focus on promoting digital entrepreneurship. Among youth who complete stage 1, about 3,000 individuals, who demonstrate relatively higher labor market readiness and entrepreneurial aptitude, will be invited to participate in stage 2. The selection criteria for stage 2 will include (1) higher assessment score as measured by end of stage 1 labor market readiness and entrepreneurship aptitude profiling test as will be assessed by the SkillCraft Profiling tool; and (2) entrepreneurship motivation and experience as demonstrated by business activities or statement of plans. Eligible youth who are selected for stage 2 will be supported through a combination of interventions including (1) business skills training on book-keeping, marketing, customer relations, (2) digital tools that enable good business practices, and (3) business development services including seed grants and technical assistance including business consulting and networking. The third component of strengthening delivery systems and implementation capacity, will focus on policy alignment, delivery systems and implementation capacity. It will also focus on project management, administration, monitoring and evaluation, and knowledge dissemination to ensure that project gains are embedded within institutional frameworks and contribute to broader employment and innovation strategies.