2012 State of The Field In Youth Economic Opportunities: A Guide for Programming, Policymaking, and Partnership Building

This report discusses how participants in the 2011 Global Youth Economic Opportunities Conference (GYEOC) create safe and viable economic opportunities for young people. It also highlights the lessons they have learned along the way. The Global Youth Economic Opportunities (YEO) field seeks to grow evidence-based, sustainable, scalable, and cost-effective programs and policies that address the causes of youth unemployment while increasing young people's opportunities to obtain a decent job or start a successful business. Such a mandate calls for collaboration, sharing, and peer-to-peer learning.

Organized by Making Cents International, the GYEOC convened more than 400 stakeholders from over 50 countries who shared key findings and promising practices, discussed common challenges, and reflected on next steps. Participants exchanged information on themes that included expanding workforce development efforts to encompass youth who lack skills relevant to employment opportunities, advocating and assisting governments to grow YEO programming to scale, and refining approaches for growth-oriented entrepreneurs. The conference focused on five learning tracks, namely:

• Workforce development;
• Youth enterprise development;
• Adolescent girls and young women;
• Youth-inclusive financial services and capabilities;
• Monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessment.