800,000 youth enter the workforce each year in Tanzania. They have the potential to play an enormous role in their country’s sustainable economic development. But unemployment remains a critical challenge for these young people. The World Bank estimates that most of Tanzania’s working youth are engaged in vulnerable employment, defined by inadequate, uncertain incomes and difficult conditions.

To help Tanzania’s youth lead productive and healthy lives, and contribute to their country’s growth and development, SNV is implementing USAID’s Feed the Future Tanzania Advancing Youth (AY), led by DAI. AY aims to empower Tanzanian youth between the ages of 15 and 29 with the skills, knowledge, and resources they need to enter into meaningful and sustainable employment or entrepreneurship in agriculture and other rural-based value chains that have sustainable income-generating potential.

AY works with the private sector to identify the skills and labour needed by agribusinesses to accelerate growth in the sector, and based on this demand, AY develops tailor-made interventions to empower young people with relevant new skills and opportunities. Responding to the most pressing needs of the private sector, government, and youth workforce, the project will connect youth with employment and entrepreneurship opportunities that coincide with their interests, aspirations, and capabilities. This matching process is paired with mentorship and grant opportunities to stimulate viable youth-driven investments.

By 2022, AY aims to have trained 33,000 youth in business, leadership, or other work-related skills, leading to a sustainable increase in income for 80% of the young people reached. AY's interventions are projected to support 5,000 young Tanzanians to enter into employment, and to help establish 2,800 rural micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

The project will demonstrate the capability of Tanzania’s young people to contribute to the economy and accelerate broad-based, inclusive development outcomes, and for the country to capitalise on the potential and ambition of its young people. AY will couple its employment and entrepreneurship interventions with activities to make community-based health services more accessible to young people, and will support young people to become active members of decision-making bodies in their communities.

AY is implemented by a consortium led by DAI, also including SNV, Pathfinder International, and Khanga Rue Media. The project was developed in accordance with the Tanzanian National Youth Development Policy of 2007 and Development Vision 2025, and is operating in Iringa, Mbeya, and Zanzibar. The project began implementation in 2017 and will continue until 2022.