When we look at the news, the world can seem overwhelming but my optimism is sustained by the youth themselves. I am reassured having met champions within governments and civil society organizations who are dedicated to the cause of youth well-being.

Meet Elisenda Estruch Puertas, Rural Economy Specialist at the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the new Co-Chair of the Platform’s Rural Youth Employment Thematic Working Group.

Africa’s demographic dividend has tremendous potential to transform the supply and demand of future goods and services, including in the agriculture and food industry.

Youth are the main actors in shaping a sustainable food system transformation and rural youth employment has direct links to a broad spectrum of thematic areas in development cooperation.

We need to do our best to understand youth and include them in all their diversity.

It is important to hear the voices of the youth themselves, in terms of what they want to happen if they are to be involved in the agricultural sector.

The agricultural sector must be transformed by ensuring that we develop value chains that create jobs in the agricultural system and by encouraging and supporting the continental programs for agriculture, such as CAADP, to ensure and enhance youth employment.

A reconfiguration of land ownership across the African Continent needs to be undertaken with ownership by the youth being prioritised.

We need to get more focused and engaged in decentralising our system of work and our system of policy-making, to ensure a bottom-up approach that develops policies which respond to the issues of youth.