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Create sustainable change for young entrepreneurs

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YBI aims to support 1 million young people (18-35 years) to start, strengthen and grow sustainable businesses by 2025. Its global network of expert organisations is present in 50 countries across 6 continents, working to develop new solutions to the critical challenges facing young entrepreneurs. In turn, they help to create more jobs, strengthen communities and foster sustainable development, impacting SDG5 (Gender Equality), SDG8 (Decent Work), and SDG10 (Reduced Inequalities). YBIs work is supported by Accenture, Citi Foundation and Inter-American Bank Group who have been instrumental in helping them increase the impact of their network.

Entity

Youth Business International (YBI) Youth organization, civil society, non-governmental, non-profit organization

Technical assistance, expertise and implementation; Policy, advocacy and convening power

Partners

  • Accenture

    Private sector

    Technical assistance, expertise and implementation; Financial and/or in-kind contribution

  • Citi Foundation

    Foundation or philanthropic organization

    Financial and/or in-kind contribution

  • Inter-American Development Bank Group

    Foundation or philanthropic organization

    Technical assistance, expertise and implementation; Financial and/or in-kind contribution

Sustainable Development Goals & targets

  • 5.5 Ensure women's full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life
  • 5.b Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women
  • 8.3 Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services
  • 8.5 By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value
  • 8.6 By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training
  • 10.2 By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status
  • 17.16 Enhance the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in all countries, in particular developing countries

Themes

Achievement At Glance

A cumulative total of 205,269 young entrepreneurs have benefited from YBI's committment to support young entreprenuers to create, grow, and sustain their businesses; this represents 21% of our committment. 

95,905 young entrpreneurs have received online and in-person technical training from the YBI network to create tangible improvements in their skills and capacity to develop their business, strengthen their resilience, and respond to challenges.  

So far, 50,906 young entrepreneurs have established a business or strengthened their exisitng enterprise. In 2020, entrepreneurs have strengthened their businesses against the shock of the global pandemic by pivoting their business model, adapting products and services, and digitalised their business.

66 network members and delivery partners, 110% of our committment target, have received technical assistance, capacity building, and peer learning. 85% of members reported that being part of the
network supported them to create new or enhance existing products and services for young people and/or scale up operations and 87% of members connected with at least one other member to share knowledge and engage in peer learning.  

 

Key Highlight On Guiding Principle

YBI believes in the need to recognise and reflect the heterogeneity of young people and build services that reflect diverse needs. As a co-founder of M-UP: The Network for Migrant Entrepreneurs to Scale Up and Grow, YBI delivered, with the MAGNET Consortium, the “Migrant Entrepreneurship Support – Access to Finance” conference to develop recommendations and best practices to address the financial needs of migrant entrepreneurs, helping overcome the political and policy barriers often prevent funding. This has further been supported by the 2020 ‘Beating the odds: Supporting youth on the move to become successful entrepreneurs’ which explores how entrepreneurship support organisations (ESOs) and other stakeholders can help youth on the move (refugees and other migrants and displaced youth) fulfil their entrepreneurial ambitions.

Services for young entrepreneurs need to be balanced and holistic. In a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, young entrepreneurs need resilience and strong coping mechanisms, as well as technical skills. To support entrepreneurs’ emotional resilience, the YBI Network is providing:mentoring support, training on soft skills, and grit, peer-to-peer events and spaces to share experiences with those going through the same challenges.  

 

description

YBIs members have diverse expertise in youth entrepreneurship support services. YBI supports them to scale their impact through: delivering training and capacity building initiatives including peer learning exchanges; supporting members to innovate their services; and connecting members to relevant partners to leverage resources and influences. 

YBI members provide young entrepreneurs training they need to thrive in todays changing world of work. This spans business, digital and soft skills. YBIs commitment to mentoring sees young entrepreneurs paired with an experienced volunteer business mentor to guide them through the challenging early stages of establishing a business. YBI members also support young entrepreneurs to access finance. In alignment with the SDGs, they are building their expertise as a network in working with rural youth and youth on the move and ensuring their work both promotes gender equality and reduces inequalities. 

To achieve YBIs goal of reaching 1 million young people by 2025, they will focus on four strategic pillars. Firstly, they will scale their impact through network expansion and innovation in delivery, unlocking resources and supporting members to scale. Secondly, they will work with members to evolve their capacity to enable more young people to start, grow and sustain their business. Thirdly, they will continually evaluate and learn from work, sharing their findings and contributing to the evidence base on what works in youth entrepreneurship. Finally, they will ensure their sustainability through a membership of strong, locally rooted organisations served by a committed Network Team. 

https://www.youthbusiness.org/
https://www.facebook.com/youthbusiness/
https://www.youtube.com/user/youthbusiness
https://twitter.com/YouthBizInt
https://www.youthbusiness.org/initiatives
https://www.youthbusiness.org/global-response-to-covid-19
https://www.youthbusiness.org/resource/three-years-of-support-for-migrant-entrepreneurs
https://www.youthbusiness.org/resource/innovation-challenge-the-blueprint

Deliverables and links to SDG targets

  • Progress: 95,905 out of 1000000 young people trained in relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, ICT skills and soft skills

    5.5 Ensure women's full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life

    Their target to reach 1 million youth is guiding the way YBI innovates as a network. To enhance member capacity and reach, YBI provides training to develop impactful training curriculum, improve the facilitation skills of trainers and equip young entrepreneurs with the business, digital and soft skills needed to thrive.

    BY: Dec 2025
  • Progress: 50,906 out of 250000 youth-led enterprises created or improved

    8.6 By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training

    In the past 4 years, their network has supported over 95,000 young people to build a business by delivering entrepreneurship support services. YBI will support its members to reach 1 million youth (including rural youth, youth on the move and young women) and build 250,000 youth-led enterprises by 2025.

    BY: Dec 2025
  • Progress: 66 youth employment stakeholders supported through technical assistance, capacity-building or peer learning

    17.6 Enhance North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation and enhance knowledge-sharing on mutually agreed terms, including through improved coordination among existing mechanisms, in particular at the United Nations level, and through a global technology facilitation mechanism

    Their members have diverse expertise in youth entrepreneurship support services. YBI enables them to scale their impact through: delivering training and other capacity-building initiatives including peer learning exchanges; supporting members to innovate their services and products; and connecting members to relevant partners to leverage resources and influence.

    BY: Dec 2025
Global

Start

01-Apr-2019

End

31-Dec-2025

USD 5,000,000

Estimated total value of the commitment

1,000,000

young people to benefit directly from this commitment

Target: Only young people 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-35

Primarily:
  • Young people in urban areas
  • Young people in rural areas
  • Young women
  • Young men
  • Youth with disabilities
  • Specific ethnic groups
  • Low-income individuals

Key Successes And Barriers

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major challenge for young entrepreneurs throughout 2020. For the YBI network and implmentation of our goals, this has required rapid digitalisation to ensure that members and delivery partners were still able to support young entrepreneurs as they faced increasing challenges and restrictions. The network were able to rapidly pivot delivery and have continued to build digital resources, such as Chatbots, that can be adapted to the dynamic contexts and can support the network to scale their work and reach new target groups that may have been previously inaccessible due to location. The network has further sought to limit the potential of a digital divide by providing digital literacy training and tech products (laptops, smartphones, credit) were provided to entrepreneurs to enable them to engage with digitalisation at the most basic level.

Gallery

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