Africa Youth Aspirations and Resilience (AYAR)

The YAR House focuses on using evidence from the ongoing multi-country research on Africa Youth Aspirations, Resilience and Adaptability to support policy interventions in designing dignified employment and resilience strategies for youth across Africa.

The study Young Women and Men’s Aspirations and Resilience: Prospects for Livelihoods, Employment and Accountability, during and Beyond COVID-19, is implemented in seven African countries of Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Uganda. COVID-19 has caused unprecedented impact across the globe. For Africa, these impacts have exacerbated pre-existing challenges such as unemployment and underemployment, thus hinder socio-economic development and growth.

The objective of the YAR House is to enable co-creation of knowledge and evidence through the interaction and collaboration with various stakeholders including the Youth themselves towards understanding the aspirations, resilience and adaptability of African Youth and further use the evidence to advocate and support the design of dignified work and employment.

Policy Issue

The core policy issue for the house is the need to catalyse and increase young men and women participation and contribution in fast-tracking development across Africa. This is to be achieved through understanding their aspirations and resilience mechanisms during and in the post COVID-19 era.  To capture the aspirations of young women and men, and center them on policy and decision making, policymakers have to entail an in-depth understanding of how young women and men innovate to create their own opportunities would present a nuanced appreciation of the context and voices of young people in Africa.