Youth Entrepreneurship in Agriculture - Rwanda (YEA-R)

YEA-R is a five-year Mastercard Foundation program that seeks to create 40,000 dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for young people in the agri-food sector in Rwanda by 2029. The program’s goal is to foster inclusive and sustainable economic growth for young people, with a specific focus on young women and young people with disabilities in the horticulture and poultry value chains. The programme is implemented by a consortium of partners led by SNV, which includes HoReCo, Imbaraga, UWEZO, Kvinna till Kivinna, Our Sisters Opportunity, Resonate, and Afro Ark.

Young people have great potential to participate actively and take up agricultural opportunities in Rwanda. However, there are systemic barriers that hinder their success, including:

1. Access to productive assets to embrace climate-smart practices,

2. Access to markets for their produce,

3. Lack of skills for market-readiness and

4. Enabling Ecosystem for Youth-Led Businesses.

Together with partners in this program, SNV will:

• Strengthen the productive and financial resilience of young people by equipping them with industry-relevant skills that will enable them to become successful in starting, managing, and growing businesses in increasingly more competitive poultry and horticulture sub-sectors.

• Strengthen business operations and linkages to markets and financial services by facilitating the creation of reliable market and financial linkages for youth-led businesses through digitally innovative platforms.

• Promote empowerment and create voice and agency for young women and young people with disabilities to influence a more inclusive ecosystem at the household, community and national level. This will be achieved by embedding GESI (Gender, Equality, Social Inclusion) transformation within the program.

• 40,000 financially disadvantaged young women, men and people with disabilities gain decent employment through increased youth entrepreneurship and value chain growth.

• Young women and men influence value chain actors, resulting in a more inclusive ecosystem for young women, men, and people with disabilities.