OPPORTUNITY FOR RURAL YOUTH
SESSION VIDEO
SESSION OUTLINE
India is a young nation – 20% or every fifth youth in the world resides in India. However, there are 108 million young girls and boys who are outside Education, Employment, or Training. They are digitally savvy, and restless and will be critical to shaping our economy and society.
The exciting session was spearheaded by leading professionals who discussed the scale of the challenge of the youth dividend and how it can be seen as an incredible opportunity for the country. The illustrious panelists shared their experiences and new approaches to harness the potential of young people – especially rural youth. The aspirations of rural youth have changed significantly over the last few decades and the session focused on how to connect young people to the available opportunities. The panelist also deliberated on ways to work together across sectors and stakeholders to address the problem at scale. The session then focused on new approaches to address the issue of scale with sustainability in mind.
Sector leaders also discussed the need to look at different types of financing for increasing access to livelihood opportunities. The panelists drew insights from direct ground experiences and global solutions shared by the thought leaders to identify pathways and solutions for rural youth in India.
PANEL
Madan Padaki
Founder & CEO 1Bridge; Managing Trustee Head Held High Services , Co-Founder GAME, Strategic Advisor, YuWaah, UNICEF India
Alice Gugulev
Managing Director,
Global Development Incubator
Alkesh Wadhwani
Director, Poverty Alleviation,
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Aliva Das
Lead, Employability & Entrepreneurship, TRIF
Alka Upadhyaya
Additional Secretary, MoRD, CEO, DAY-NRLM
SESSION TAKEAWAYS
SCALING UP
Scale is considered either an opportunity or a downfall. Pathways to scale encompass local context through place-based scale interventions using feedback loops with stakeholders. Specifically, agriculture contributes 17 % of the national GDP and employs 50% of the workforce, who earn only one-third of an average Indian. The use of technology, asset building and encouraging agripreneurship is a step to boost scale and incomes.
CLUSTER & ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Balancing the forces of markets, government and community – which can reshape the future of rural youth is a major challenge. The focus is on consciously progressing from pilots to scales thinking to build local rural ecosystems. Support in the form of safety nets, access to finance, ease of doing business and last-mile connectivity foster and instil entrepreneurship as an identity. Enabling policy like “One produce, One district” funds the building of assets as required by community.
OPPORTUNITIES = ASPIRATIONS
Effortless transition from education/training programs to employment opens a world of opportunities. Job shadowing in the form of mentorship that guides rural youth towards a plethora of available avenues. The absence of relatable role models, peer network, career counselling services limit the spread of catalyzing opportunities. Post-placement retention, skill up-gradation are opportunities and challenges that will make the interventions more inclusive with long term impacts.
"85% of farmers in India have less than 2 hectares of land. Micro level simple interventions like correct methods of weight and measurement have increased income of farmers by 22%. Functioning FPOs, Agripreneurship at tech led village level provide access to inputs, knowledge and market linkages."
"The definition of entrepreneurship is flawed. It is not about unicorn evaluation, growth, etc. For a street vendor, entrepreneurship is necessity driven. The missing link is to make it opportunity-driven."
"Initially NRLM just got women out of their houses. After 2018-19, we moved towards sustainable livelihoods with one producer enterprise in UP. Today we have the members earning Rs.3-4,000 extra every month. So, the off-farm is the real opportunity like investing in fisheries and animal husbandry."