Impact of agribusiness empowerment interventions on youth livelihoods: Insight from Africa.

This study generates evidence to understand the impact of agribusiness empowerment programmes on youth livelihoods in developing countries based on the ENABLE-TAAT programme implemented in Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. A multistage sampling technique was used in obtaining primary agribusiness-level data from a sample of 1435 young agripreneurs from the study countries. An Endogenous Treatment Effect Regression (ETER) model was used to assess the impact of programme participation on youth livelihoods (income and food security). Results show that participation significantly increased youth's agripreneurship income by 7% and improved food security by 75% for the pooled analysis. The country disaggregation results show that participation led to a 54% and 37% increase in the income of participants in Nigeria and Uganda, respectively. Also, positive and significant impacts were obtained for food security in the two East African countries. These findings suggest policy interventions or programmes focusing on youth agribusiness empowerment, particularly those that target young actors along different agricultural value chains. The study also suggests interventions geared towards mitigating constraints to credit access and productive resources by young agripreneurs to ease barriers to working capital and business innovation.

Assessing food security among young farmers in Africa: evidence from Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda.

Food insecurity remains a serious challenge for many households in Africa and the situation is even more prevalent among young people. However, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on youth food security status in Africa. We assessed the level and determinants of food security among young farmers in Africa. We adopted a multi-stage sampling technique to select 400, 429, and 606 young farmers in Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda, respectively. Individual food consumption was assessed following a 7 days recall method. The Food Consumption Score, which combines dietary diversity and consumption frequency was used to assess food security status while the determinants of food security were identified using a logistic regression model. Results suggest low dietary diversity across the three countries. Also, the majority of the respondents had an unacceptable food consumption score, suggesting that despite being food producers, young farmers are still food insecure. The odds of being food secure was positively determined by access to extension services, participation in the ENABLE TAAT business incubation programme, and access to market information but, negatively by access to credit, number of employees, Covid-19 pandemic, and location. Additionally, the food security status of young female farmers was positively influenced by age, suggesting that younger youths are less food secure compared to older ones. These results suggest that more efforts should be directed towards improving the food security of young African farmers and that policy- and programme-level interventions should support access to extension services, market information, and land. Additionally, more investments should be directed towards developing need-based agribusiness incubation programmes with an effort to scale existing programmes beyond the regular one-time period.

Can young agripreneurs improve their skills through agripreneurship empowerment programmes? Evidence from Africa.

This article examined the driving forces behind young agripreneurs' participation in agripreneurship empowerment programmes and estimates the causal impact of programme participation on agripreneurship skills using data from a random cross-section sample of 1435 young agripreneurs in Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. Specifically, the study took evidence from the youth component of the African Development Bank Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) programme, Empowering Novel Agribusiness-Led Employment (ENABLE). An endogenous switching model was used to identify factors that significantly informed participation decisions and assess the programme's impact on youth agripreneurship skills. Age, education, agripreneurship experience, business level, current residence, and training perception significantly influenced participation. Even though both programme participants and non-participants had high agripreneurship skills scores, participants had higher scores across the three countries than non-participants. The causal impact estimation from the switching regression model also indicates that participation has a positive and significant impact on agripreneurship skills, which implies that the higher score achieved by participants could be attributed to their involvement in the ENABLE-TAAT programme. These results suggest raising awareness of youth agribusiness empowerment programmes and encouraging youth to participate more actively. Additionally, the result suggests the need to implement strategies that could change young people's negative perception of agricultural interventions for increased participation.