Investing young people in facing the challenges of Corona
How do youth employment investment programs deal with the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic? How have their content and service delivery channels adapted to ensure continued support for young beneficiaries?
The Youth Employment Solutions Alliance tried to find the answer to this question. So, in the past few months, we have contacted our Impact Portfolio Project partners, which is a network of practitioners of 44 innovative youth employment programs implemented by our partner organizations. In our new knowledge summary for the Youth Employment Solutions Alliance entitled “How do youth employment programs adapt to the Corona pandemic?”, We review six main trends that we have observed in the programs managed by our partners in the portfolio of influencing activities in the context of the pandemic response.Among the first of these trends is the acceleration of distance education, as the participating organizations have transformed the contents of their classrooms into educational units smaller in size, flexible to suit the time of learners, and attractive as well.
For example, Visa is developing short and compact videos that highlight the most important topics included in its financial literacy courses, such as practical skills in cash transactions to attract the attention of young people who depend on cell phones for information. These clips direct users to other sources to obtain more detailed information on a topic. In addition, the Impact Portfolio Partners have expanded mobile applications, SMS messaging platforms, and broadcast programs to accelerate distance learning in rural communities for groups without computers.Harambe, a social enterprise from South Africa, is working with the United Nations to create mobile phone courses with limited data volumes - less than 10 megabytes - for the neediest population, such as young refugees.
EDUCATE, a non-profit organization that fights unemployment in Africa has converted its educational programs into texts of broadcast lessons to be taught over the air of local radio stations to reach communities with low internet access.
Second: Expanding the range of virtual operations, as the partners of the influential activities portfolio of the Federation of Youth Employment Solutions have transformed their operations into virtual working formats on the Internet for employees by increasing investment in technology tools, providing support for capacity building, and adapting human resources policies to accommodate remote work. Accenture has released its Virtual Working Methods Guide, which provides practical advice to help nonprofits around the world adapt to working virtually.Anima, an educational services company from Uruguay, is integrating artificial intelligence to automate procedures such as selecting candidates for its work-study program. The company’s team developed a conversation program called Anymen for the WhatsApp application to help with the candidate registration process, which was done through school visits and existing workshops. On personal interaction before the outbreak of the Corona pandemic. Third: Inspiring ideas from the youth audience, in the first few months of the Corona pandemic, several projects within the portfolio of activities affecting the Youth Employment Solutions Union developed initiatives to inspire solutions from the public, such as hackathon forums and innovation challenges, to support local solutions led by young people seeking to crystallize New ideas to tackle this pandemic. For example, the Enterprise Platform Foundation, one of the incubators and accelerators on the continent of Africa, has supported the Nigerian Center for Disease Control by identifying and expanding the scope of youth-led solutions to the national healthcare system and among those solutions was the online self-managed risk assessment tool, An AI-powered crisis response hotline, and a case management system designed to manage resource allocation by healthcare agencies
The fourth trend in youth investment to face the challenges of the pandemic is to encourage the voice of youth, so projects directed at youth work to create safe digital spaces to encourage the voice of youth, allow them to participate, and manage the impacts of the Corona pandemic. For example, the Empowerment of Youth for Work program, a project of Oxfam, has developed a podcast called "Power in Pandemic Time" to showcase youth experiences during the Corona crisis.
This podcast highlights how young people from Pakistan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Canada, and Italy are harnessing their power to take action at the local level. Fifthly: Supporting small enterprises with digital tools, as small businesses, which constitute more than half of the global employment rates, were among the sectors most affected by the Corona pandemic. Many of these establishments suffer from the lack of cash flows and capital required for continuous operation during the long periods in which their sales decrease or are totally non-existent. The Corona pandemic has exacerbated the digital divide between larger companies and small businesses that often have limited digital tools. In order to bridge this gap, "influencing portfolio" partners such as the International Youth Business Foundation train small businesses in the areas of e-commerce, digital marketing, and e-wallet integration, communicate with suppliers and partners to deliver services and products via virtual electronic channels, and use social media tools for Communicate with others.
Sixth: Identifying new and emerging job opportunities, since the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, the world has witnessed a growth in new job opportunities in the electronic delivery services sector and the health sector, like grocery stores, pharmacies, and e-commerce markets help to sustain consumer access to life necessities such as food, medicine, hygiene supplies, etc. It also strives to maintain the safety of customers, employees, and suppliers alike. In Kenya, Educate has developed a training program called NawirePro for its mobile educational platform. This training is specialized and targeted for drivers and motorcycle delivery personnel called "boda-boda". It helped equip young people with leadership skills and the ability to use Google Maps applications. The success of this rapid and on-demand training has increased the income of young people "from five dollars to 30 dollars a day in some cases." The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently selected this platform as one of two accelerators for 2020.
The Youth Employment Solutions Alliance is a global, multi-stakeholder program based on the Jobs Team of the World Bank Group's Social Protection and Jobs Global Practices Sector. It focuses on identifying, organizing, learning from, and scaling innovations in youth employment programs. The Youth Employment Solutions Alliance consists of a wide network of stakeholders that includes: First, more than 35 private companies, "The Private Sector Advisory Council for the Youth Employment Solutions Alliance", second: a group of 44 innovative projects with high potential for youth employment "Portfolio of influencing activities in the Youth Employment Solutions Alliance. It is run by leading NGOs / social institutions, the third is a group of 17 young entrepreneurs, the “Youth Advisory Group” that provides a voice for young people regarding the outputs of the Youth Employment Solutions Alliance, and fourth, a network of technical experts in the World Bank Group that manages more than 150 operations from Youth employment operations in 69 countries collectively invest more than $ 17 billion. The founding members of the Youth Employment Solutions Alliance include the World Bank, Accenture, and foundations: Rockefeller, MasterCard, Microsoft, Plan International, Youth International, Youth Business International, RAND, the International Labor Organization, the governments of Norway and Germany, and the Office of the UN Secretary-General's Envoy. For youth.