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SNAPSHOTS OF YES CAMPAIGN
Mission:
The mission of the YES Campaign is to nurture the over 55 YES Country Networks, empowered to lead a global movement that would collectively help address the unemployment problem among youth by providing them with opportunities to develop their leadership skills, training in marketable job oriented skills, and access to resources and linkages needed to realize their potential as young social and economic entrepreneurs. The Campaign aims to resolve the global youth unemployment crisis by encouraging diverse groups of stakeholders to support youth-led Country Networks to identify design and implement specific training and development programs for promoting youth employment and entrepreneurship. There are not enough jobs in the public and private sectors to employ the burgeoning youth populations* therefore creating markets and promoting entrepreneurship is critical to our mission. Training youth as social entrepreneurs and supporting them to find innovative way to fulfill the UN Millennium Development Goals.
* One billion youth (14 – 24 years), 850 million in developing countries, 1.2 billion below the age of 14 – waiting to enter the labor market in large numbers unprepared to get into the productive workforce, again 85 percent in developing countries
Activities/Programs:
- Capacity Building: The 3Ps Program
- Global Agenda Setting: Youth Employment Summits
- Entrepreneurship Development: YES Fund: Global Fund for Youth Entrepreneurship
- Social Entrepreneurship Development: YES Fellows Program
- Customized Programs for Donors that focus on Youth Employment Generation /creation
- Capacity Building: The 3Ps Program: In August 2007 YES published a comprehensive toolkit titled “The Three Ps: Policy, Programs, and Partnerships,” to empower network leaders with the resources and framework necessary to implement effective and innovative programs that achieve campaign and stakeholder objectives at both the local and national levels. The 3Ps strategies highlight three steps for addressing youth unemployment:
Step 1 is for the YES Network leaders to learn about their country’s poverty eradication
strategies such as PRSPs etc., and understand how youth employment is/can be embedded in these strategies, to also analyze and understand the government and development partner’s (such as donors, UN Agencies, the World Bank etc.) commitment to these strategies in terms of funds and technical support;
Step 2 is for the YES Network Leaders to develop a study about the poverty eradication strategies, and how the YES Network seeks to support their governments and development partners by bringing in a youth leadership and entrepreneurship element. In addition they will need to meet these partners and establish a working relationship and share how the YES Campaign methodology and 5 Sectors for employment approach can support the already established goals and establish partnerships, and finally
Step 3 is to work with these and other partners to develop the programs against the existing donor and government’s financial commitments. At this stage the YES Inc. will help them develop concrete proposal for donors and other partners
- Global Agenda Setting: Youth Employment Summits: To place and hold the burning issue of youth unemployment on the global agenda: we do this by convening stakeholders at our Global Summits which have been held in Egypt 2002, Mexico 2004 and Kenya 2006. The next one is scheduled for 2008 in Azerbaijan. At these Summits – the youth delegates meet with experts, donors, practitioners, and other stakeholders to develop program and polices that will help build in-country capacity to provide the education, training and other services needed by young people to find productive work or to become entrepreneurs. Three global Summits still need to be organized from now to the end of the Campaign in 2012 (1) 2008 in Azerbaijan; (2) 2010 host country to be confirmed (conversation is going on with Sweden); and (3) 2012 Alexandria Egypt. Each summit attended by over 1500 delegates from over 100 countries, for five days, hosted by the host government, UN agencies, foundations, corporations, NGOs and other stakeholders.)
- Entrepreneurship Development: YES Fund: Global Fund for Youth Entrepreneurship (YES Fund) was launched by the Youth Employment Summit (YES) Campaign, and Microsoft, at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in September 2006 with the aim of building a coalition of partners all over the world to work on ‘creating markets and unleashing entrepreneurship’. YES Fund is essential since there are not enough jobs in the private and public sectors to absorb the millions of young people who are in the labor market. More so, the global youth population is expected to increase by 50 percent over next 30 years, while the number of unemployed youth is projected to quadruple. The developing countries’ labor markets are not prepared to face this challenge resulting in a tremendous waste of talent and a potential threat to social stability. Currently there are 1 billion youth on the planet – with 850 million in developing countries where there is low infrastructure for providing education and other services for employment.
The YES Inc., staff will work with in-country partners such as governments, business, NGOs and youth to realize the Fund objectives. The Fund’s mandate is to train young people as entrepreneurs, and organize global competitions for best business ideas; provide prize money, small-scale risk capital, start-up funding or loan guarantees; and innovative business development services to nurture entrepreneurship among youth. The key components of the Fund include: building local capacity, training entrepreneurs, providing access to capital through, offering continued support, and regularly monitoring progress. More specifically, the objectives and activities of the Fund are as follows:
Objective 1: To build an entrepreneurial culture in developing countries.
Activities: Conduct business plan competitions as an incentive to build the ecology of partners, policies and services for developing an entrepreneurial culture. This effort will build on the existing experiences of leaders and innovators the Fund would partner with. The key focus is to work with in-country partners to build their stake in the program, and provide each with a role (such as marketing, organizing workshops, conducting competition through expert agencies, provide training and development services, financial institutions to handle the seed grants, loans and manage repayments, and YES Networks to recruit and empower youth). The YES team and its partners will organize innovative workshops to develop the enterprising spirit among the youth and impart training on writing business plans and participate in a competitive process.
Objective 2: To build in-country capacity to provide Business Development Services and access to credit to young people.
Activities: The winners of the business plan competition will receive mentoring from local entrepreneurs, and retired professionals from established organizations, and subject matter experts, as they move to implement their business plans. In each country the partner organizations will take this on with the technical support of the YES Fund team. The Fund team will also monitor the implementation while the YES partners will provide the mentoring and technical support. This will include highlighting the successes of the winners to stakeholders via its networks, website, discussion lists and partners.
Objective 3: To build local capacity and identify entrepreneurs.
Activity: Work with local YES Networks to identify and build relationships with partners, and potential youth entrepreneurs, provide support to networks to build capacity for generating local “buy-in” to YES agenda, provide targeted business management and technical skills training to enable youth to develop viable business plans, utilize online distance learning technology, where appropriate, conduct business plan competitions to select winning youth businesses, screen applicants and provide feedback.
Objective 4: To build linkages with buyers for YES certified products.
Activities: A key role of YES Fund local and global teams will be to help create markets for these entrepreneurs. Getting buyers on board to commit to purchasing goods and services from the young winning entrepreneurs will accomplish this task. The ultimate goal will be to have two kinds of global certifications – YES certified youth product and YES Employmentors (i.e. those businesses who are committed to buy a certain percentage of their products from youth businesses).
Objective 5: An Online Marketplace of YES certified goods and services.
Activities: Developing the web based market place and working with Youth groups and Diaspora groups in Western countries to market local goods.
- Social Entrepreneurship Development: YES Fellows Program - in partnership with Cambridge College in 2008 will be the first-ever youth social entrepreneurship training program. The first offering will be a twelve-month program including three weeks of intensive training and eleven months of project based learning. YES Fellows will be empowered to create a vision of what is possible, build their commitment to action by sharing success stories and tools, and inspire action through their developing and completing a project-based internship at a public, private or NGO institution. YES Inc. and Cambridge College will apply innovative models of teaching and learning to unleash the ‘can-do’ spirit of the young participants – instilling the spirit – Every Youth a Change-Maker
- Customized Programs for Donors that focus on Youth Employment Generation /creation
Sector/Field: YES Campaign has chosen to focus on 5 key sectors from the UN Millennium Development Goals. Youth employment and entrepreneurship activities may include, but will not be limited to, the following areas:
| Targeted Sector |
Objectives |
Sample Projects |
Renewable Energy |
Organize youth at community level to assemble, install, service, and market renewable energy systems |
- Provide energy for agro-based industries for making fruit juices, pickles, and vegetables
- Manufacture small refrigerators for storing medicine, milk
- Manufacture and install small home systems such as solar panels and solar cookers
- Sell lanterns for night-time fishing activities
|
Water and Sanitation |
Integrate youth in community processes to improve the availability and supply of clean drinking water and sanitation services |
- Support income-generating programs in rain water-harvesting, storage, and supply
- Organize community level training for youth to build and maintain low cost toilets
- Train youth to build and maintain hand pumps to provide water supply to rural communities
|
Rural Development |
Mobilize youth to develop agricultural extension programs |
- Plant leguminous trees for dry season feeding
- Build agro-business value chains to produce new farm products
- Develop businesses aimed at efficient resource management
|
Information Communication Technology (ICT) |
Develop programs to support ICT-based entrepreneurship |
- Develop businesses that offer web-based services (i.e. website design, e-marketing)
- Use technology to monitor agricultural crops and planting cycles
- Develop ways to incorporate ICT into educational programs for students
|
Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS |
Improve reproductive health and family planning choices |
- Conduct pilot programs to evaluate the correlation between economic empowerment and improved reproductive health
- Run support and mentorship networks for orphans living with HIV/AIDS
- Work on advocacy and promotion of safe sex and other related HIV/AIDS prevention issues
- Work on anti-stigma campaigns or programs
|
Target Population: YES Campaign has taken the Commonwealth Secretariat’s age group for youth – 14 – 35 years. The UN age is from 14 – 24.
Scope of Activities: (e.g., number of: beneficiaries, locations, volunteers, etc.)
- Snapshot of YES Accomplishments since the launch of the Campaign 2002- 2006
- YES Summits
- YES Networks
- YES Academy
- YES HQ Projects
- In-kind support
- Publications
- Consultations
- Snapshot of YES Accomplishments since the launch of the Campaign 2002- 2006:
- $ 9,641,000 Raised by the YES Campaign since 2002 (excluding in-kind donations)
- $3,000,000 Raised for the first three YES global summits
- $2.5 million size of the largest grant received for the YES Academy
- $800,000 Global Environment Facility (GEF) grant to support first YES global project on renewable energy entrepreneurship
- 737,000 Youth reached by YES since from 2002 – 2006 (as reported by the YES Coordinators)
- $ 75,000 Average size of UN grants received by YES since 2002
- 10,000 Delegates have participated in YES Summits and consultations
- 400 Programs initiated by YES since 2002
- 65 Country Networks as of August 2007
- 65 National consultations sponsored by YES since 1998
- 56 Networks that have developed regional partnership
- 29 Networks that have relationship with UN agencies
- 12 Government aid agencies that have funded YES
- 7 Networks in conflict zones
- 2 Regional Summits since 2002
- 3 Global Summits since 2002
- YES Summits:
Three global YES Summits and two Regional Forums were held during the first half (2002-2007) of the decade long YES Campaign. YES Global Summits are held to provide support to the YES Country Network Coordinators with the much needed knowledge, skills and the connections they need to work with governments, corporations, foundations, individual funders and other stakeholders, to develop and implement their country strategic plans that are fine tuned at the YES Summits. (See Appendix 1 for more details)
(2a) YES Alexandria 2002: Co-chaired by Mrs. Mubarak, the First Lady of Egypt, and President William J. Clinton and hosted by the Arab Republic of Egypt.
- Attended by 1800 delegates, who attended the Civil Society Forum
- Represented by over 120 countries
- Over 70 Ministerial delegates, who attended the Ministerial Forum
- About 100 Speakers
- Spread over 5 days
- Over 10 Thematic Publications
- Several Plenary, Thematic, Regional Sessions, Capacity Building Programs and Open Sessions
- Over 300 local youth volunteers oriented, trained and coached to support organizing such high profile events
- Capacity of over 50 YES Country Network Coordinators built to lead in country youth employment programs
- Helped to pave the way for launching a decade campaign of action by the Country Networks
- Facilitated creation of a YES Frame Work for Action during the decade long campaign of action by the Country Networks
(2b) Hyderabad YES Regional Forum: 2003: Hosted by the government of Andhra Pradesh, India.
- Focused on identifying sectors for employment generation: renewable energy, water and sanitation, information and communication technology, rural development and HIV/AIDS
- Attended by 1200 delegates
- Represented by over 48 countries, primarily from Asia.
- Over 15 Ministerial delegates (Ministers of Youth and Employments)
- About 60 Speakers
- Spread over 5 days
- Over 15 Thematic Publications
- Over 200 Youth Volunteers and YES Country Leaders oriented, trained and coached to support organizing such high profile events.
- Led to the announcement of a number of projects and programs aligned with the Decade Campaign of Action by the YES Head Quarters and the Country Networks- like the announcement by the government of Andhra Pradesh to set up the YES Academy and provide 2.5 million US Dollar for the same , announcement of several projects by UNDP, UNIDO, EDC, etc.
(2c) YES Mexico 2004: Hosted by the Government of Veracruz, Mexico.
- Attended by 1600 delegates
- Represented by over 100 countries
- Over 50 Ministerial delegates, who attended the Ministerial Meeting
- Several Plenary, Thematic, Regional Sessions, Capacity Building Programs and Open Sessions held.
- About 90 Speakers
- Spread over 5 days
- Over 5 Thematic Publications
- Over 250 local youth volunteers oriented, trained and coached to support organizing such high profile events.
- Capacity of over 65 YES Country Network Leaders built to lead in country youth employment programs.
- YES Country Networks to showcased their country level success stories and got aligned with existing expert agencies to work together to move the Campaign based on their country strategic plans.
- Several YES allies announced a number of projects and programs aligned with the decade campaign of action by the YES Head Quarters and the Country Networks.
(2d) Latin American YES Regional Forum: 2005:
- The second Regional Forum was hosted by YES Latin America and the Government of Paraguay, in partnership with UNDP, World Bank and UNFPA. The purpose of the Encounter was to understand the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) and how they could be fulfilled in the Latin American Countries, through youth employment and entrepreneurship led approaches.
(2e) YES Kenya 2006: Hosted by Republic of Kenya:
- Focused on Creating Markets…Unleashing Entrepreneurship, identifying markets at the Bottom of the Pyramid’, markets in eco-entrepreneurship, building trade capacity, attracting foreign investment, building an entrepreneurial culture and YCN Capacity building.
- Attended by 2000 delegates
- Represented by over 101 countries
- Over 65 Ministerial delegates
- About 90 Speakers
- Spread over 5 days
- Several Plenary, Thematic, Regional Sessions, Capacity Building Programs and Open Sessions were held.
- Over 5 Thematic Publications
- Several Plenary, Thematic, Regional Sessions, Capacity Building Programs and Open Sessions were held.
- Over 300 Youth Volunteers and YES Country Leaders oriented, trained and coached to support organizing such high profile events.
- Several YES allies announced a number of projects and programs aligned with the decade campaign of action eg: The Ministry of Youth affairs by the Republic of Kenya, was created by the host of the YES Summit, while preparing for the YES Kenya 2006 Summit; subsequently, the Youth Ministry announced a Youth Fund; YES Inc announced the YES Fund: a global fund for youth entrepreneurship; the Ministers of Youth and Employment who attended the YES Summit, formed the African Ministerial Network, UNIDO announced a Renewable Energy Project for Mexico in partnership with YES; a green room was launched to promote environmentally friendly projects in Mexico etc. to name a few.
(2f) YES Azerbaijan 2008: Hosted by the Government of Azerbaijan, the next millstone Summit is scheduled to be held in Azerbaijan, Baku, in September, 2008. The agenda for this Summit will be ‘Large Scale Employment Projects for Youth.
3. YES Networks:
- YES Inc has facilitated the creation of YES Country Network, which is an in-country infrastructure of youth-led networks to disseminate information, develop youth employment programs, be advocates for innovative youth friendly policies, and implement projects that promote youth employment and youth leadership building.
- YES Inc has facilitated the creation of over 65 YES Country Networks
- Another 24 of such networks are in its making.
- The YES Networks have initiated over 400 programs and projects that promotes youth leadership, employment and entrepreneurship at the grass roots level.
- Several National Consultations and Thematic Workshops are being organized by the YES Networks. It is believed that at least one YES Event takes place every other day through the 65 YES Country Networks and YES HQ. Each YES Country Network has a varied Number of people attached to the country Networks. For example, YES Kenya Network has a membership of over 8000 people
4. YES Academy
The Government of Andhra Pradesh, in India, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with YES to set up the YES Academy to work with the YES Country Networks to under take need based research and capacity building for the YES Country Networks. USD 2.5 million has been earmarked by the government for this initiative and a government order has been passed. The YES Academy initiative has forged partnership with MCR Human Resource Institute and got the required Office infrastructure for beginning on-site programs. Few pilot programs on site have already been initiated, in partnership with the UN agencies. YES would continue to develop Regional Youth Employment Centers which modeled on YES Academy to contribute to building capacity for promoting youth employment through research, training, curriculum, policy making and other program development unique to each area. This would be achieved by exploring economically viable markets in the region and share those opportunities with the actors and policy makers on the ground, all stakeholders invested in the success of youth.
5. YES HQ Projects:
- YES Renewable Energy Entrepreneurship Program: Funded by Global Environment Facility (GEF) -
- This global project had several components like Renewable Energy Fellowship, creation of publications, Tool Kits for creating a global knowledge resource and thematic workshops at YES Summits to build the capacity of youth to be renewable energy entrepreneurs. $800,00
- YES Renewable Energy Labs and Training Programs: Funded by UNIDO, YES set up
- Renewable Energy Technology-Training Centre in India at SRTRI Institute for creating employment for rural youth and over 1000 youth already trained in Renewable Energy Technologies. $100,000
- Renewable Energy Lab and Training Center in Zambia- trained master trainers from all 23 districts in Zambia, prepared micro-finance policy guidelines and set-up a Renewable Energy Network for Entrepreneurs. $350,000
- Renewable Energy Training in Mexico – it has been funded by UNIDO but has yet to start. $250,000
- Micro-enterprise Training – Funded by Levi Straus $300,000
- Training Programs have been held in Mexico
- Training Programs have been held in Dominican Republic
- Training Programs have been held in Honduras
- Training Programs have been held in Costa Rica
- YES Fund– a global fund for youth entrepreneurship funded by Microsoft, Swiss Development Corporation, Levis, NIIT and IGSSS is being piloted in India and Kenya $275,000.
It was officially launched at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) September 2006, with the aim of building a coalition of partners all over the world to work on 'creating markets and unleashing entrepreneurship'. This will be accomplished by helping young people identify business opportunities, prepare their business plans and compete for the best ideas. The winners will be provided award money and innovative business development services to start their businesses. The pilot will be conducted in India and Kenya.
- Five Country Survey for HIV/AIDS and youth employment : USAID funded this study for African countries. $50,000
- East Africa working group meeting on on- farm and off-farm employment: funded by UNIDO. $125, 000
6. In-kind support:
YES Inc today is in its new phase of growth and expansion has adopted a partnership model for growth, capacity building and sustainability.
YES Country Networks: Are all housed by local host agencies
YES Inc. US: is based at offices provided by Cambridge College (CC), Cambridge and is providing technical and administrative support. CC and YES are in the process of developing a Youth Social Entrepreneurship Institute - to prepare a new generation social entrepreneurs to lead the YES Campaign in their countries.
YES Inc. India: Indo Global Social Service Society (IGSSS) and YES Inc entered in to a memorandum of understanding to host YES Inc Regional Office based in India and work together to nurture the YES Networks in the Region. YES Inc. Latin America: YES entered into partnership with Foundation E Mexico, to build the capacity of the YES Networks in the Latin American Region and undertake collaborative initiatives.
7. Publications:
Youth Employment Summit Campaign has produced over 120 original publications relating to youth empowerment, leadership building and employment generation. All these publications are made available to youth as part of the global knowledge resource section of the YES Website. Global Knowledge Resource maintains a web-based, Global Knowledge Resource Center – a free platform that disseminates labor market knowledge and best practices for individuals, networks, and partners through a range of traditional and new-media technologies (print, conferences, e-groups, CD ROM, and video). The list of the YES Publications are attached as Appendix 2.
8. Consultations:
The YES Country Networks with the support and guidance of the YES HQ have organized countless national and local consultations to bring networks together with diverse stakeholders (governments, private sector, NGO, and educational institutions. Almost every other day a YES event is taking place in one or the other part of the world. |
