Engaging rural youth in agribusiness has become an important strategy to create employment opportunities in Africa. To this end, governments and development partners have implemented various interventions that facilitate youth engagement in agribusiness for several years. However, there is a dearth of evidence on what worked and what did not work well, making it difficult to inform evidence-based policy making. In an effort to fill this knowledge gap, a comprehensive literature review of the outcomes of interventions related to youth engagement in agribusiness was conducted using a deductive coding approach. Results showed that the interventions implemented by governments and development partners across Africa have succeeded in producing favorable outcomes despite some limitations. Interventions that integrate capacity development, financial support for startups, and continuous mentorship on the technical and financial aspects of youth-run agribusiness projects proved successful in enhancing youth engagement in agribusiness. This suggests that the design and implementation of future interventions should be based on an integrated approach that considers diversity of youths’ aspirations and shared capabilities, interests, expectations, as well as challenges associated with access to resources and participation in collective action. The design of future interventions should also be built on strong partnerships among rural communities, academia, research, and private sector for increased impact on livelihood improvements.

A large proportion of the rural population in Ethiopia depends on community-managed forests for food security and livelihoods. However, the government and development partners have paid little attention to the governance challenges which limit the contributions of community-managed forests to food security and livelihoods. Also lacking is a synthesis of evidence relating to the requirements for improved governance to support the efforts of decision makers and practitioners. This paper attempts to review and synthesize the available evidence with the aim of identifying the requirements to achieve improved governance in community-managed forests. The results revealed that failure to devise benefit-sharing mechanisms which consider the heterogeneity of rural communities was prevalent. Interference of local authorities and elite capture in decision-making processes of forest and landscape restoration also compromised the willingness of rural communities to engage in collective action. Requirements such as the identification of the needs of specific categories of communities and enabling of the negotiation of diverse interests in the design and implementation of interventions could improve the governance of community-managed forests. Developing management plans and business model scenarios which balance the ecological and socio-economic goals at a local level in collaboration with rural communities is important to improve the governance of community-managed forests. There is also a need to revisit the practice of evaluating the performance of community-managed forests almost exclusively based on the goals of climate change adaptation and mitigation and biodiversity conservation.

Involvement of youth in horticulture agribusiness has become a vital approach to create employment opportunities among the youth in Tanzania. This study aimed at examining the extent of youth participation and factors influencing youth involvement in horticulture agribusiness with a focus on innovations in post-harvest management (PHM). Data were collected from a sample of 576 male and female youth in Njombe region using a multi-stage random sampling technique. Data were analyzed using an ordered logit model and descriptive statistics. Results of the ordered logit analysis showed that primary school education, Form IV and above, management innovation, access to credit, good perception of horticulture for agribusiness and improved packaging materials positively and significantly influence youth involvement in horticulture agribusiness. Gender and land size had a negative and significant influence on youth involvement in horticulture agribusiness, as indicated by higher percentages of male youth (59%) participation in the horticulture agribusiness. Therefore, this study suggests increased investment in capacity development of the youth on PHM innovations and the development of rural infrastructure such as agro-processing and storage facilities by the government and private sector. Increasing the availability of improved packaging materials and provision of youth-friendly credit schemes could encourage youth in horticulture agribusiness.