Jobs for Rural Youth: The Role of Local Food Economies was prepared by the OECD Development Centre under the overall guidance of Director Ragnheiður Elín Árnadóttir and Deputy Directors Federico Bonaglia and Ayumi Yuasa. Alexandre Kolev, Head of the Social Cohesion Unit and Ji-Yeun Rim, Senior Policy Analyst supervised and co-ordinated the project. The report was drafted by the Social Cohesion team: Alexandre Kolev, Ji-Yeun Rim, Justina La and Antoine Bonnet with research assistance from Sarah Karam, Antonela Leiva, Toma Savitki and Shirsha Sen. The report was edited by Jill Gaston and prepared for final publication by Aida Buendia, Delphine Grandrieux and Elizabeth Nash.
The report benefited from technical inputs from internal OECD colleagues, international organisations, United Nations agencies, research institutes and non-governmental organisations working on rural youth employment and agri-food value chains in developing countries. The contributions from the following individuals are gratefully acknowledged: OECD Development Centre colleagues Henri-Bernard Solignac-Lecomte, Senior Communications Manager; Arthur Minsat, Keiko Alvarez and Bakary Traoré of the Africa Desk; and Vicente Ruiz and Semhar Haile of the Territorial Development Unit; and Philipp Heinrigs of the Sahel and West Africa Club; Koen Deconinck of the OECD Trade and Agriculture Directorate; Anna Befus, Maria Lee and Marwan Benali of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN; Pierre Girard of ART-Dev Research Unit at CIRAD; Leonard Mizzi, Willem Olthof and Conrad Rein of the Rural Development, Food Security, Nutrition Unit at the European Commission.
The study’s research concept and draft results were presented and discussed on 24 January 2020 at the OECD in Paris; on 12 February 2021 at the meeting of the European Union Heads of Agriculture, Rural Development and Food and Nutrition Security departments to share preliminary findings; and on 17 June 2021 at an expert meeting on the findings of the report. The participation and contributions of the following experts are gratefully acknowledged: David Asare Asiamah, Founder of Agro Mindset Ltd., Ghana; Lebogang Botsheleng of the Department of Agriculture Land Reform and Rural Development of South Africa; Laurent Cortese of the Education, Vocational Training and Employment Sector of Agence française de développement; Nadine Gbossa of the International Fund for Agricultural Development; Josphat Gathiru Muhunyu of the State Department for Crop Development and Agricultural Research, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives of Kenya; and Fati N’zi-Hassan of the Africa Union Development Agency.
This report is co-financed by the European Union.