SDEPAY

This project focuses on increasing formal youth employment opportunities with decent work in semi-urban and rural settings of three districts of Rwanda namely Gatsibo, Nyaruguru, and Bugesera by 2023 through the boosting of youth self-employment capabilities and employability readiness skills. The project is financed by the German government (BMZ) for a period of 3 years from 2020 to 2023.  The project directly targets 1,200 vulnerable youth aged between 16 to 30 years and the group consists of 55% of young women and 45% of young men. It is therefore expected that a total of 10,120 people (with an average household size of 4.4 people per household) will benefit indirectly from the project measures.

85.2% of youth project beneficiaries who are employed, 22.1% of unemployed youth before the project, have paid jobs after the training, 3.5% of youth are generating income from newly formed businesses, 43.4% of youth of the direct target group have improved income, 58.6% of youth have shifted from casual to permanent employment, etc.   

64.1% of youth who have joined new or existing Voluntary Saving and Loan Groups (VSLG) and have improved their skills in financial management due to the training received and 51.2% of members of VSLG or Cooperatives are applying the acquired skills and are running profitable businesses. Similarly, 70.6% of members of youth saving groups have increased their earnings by at least 2%. Many youths have been linked with Microfinance institutions and according to the evaluation findings, 69.1% of youths linked have an improved understanding and improved access to financial services (e.g. bank accounts for saving and loan purposes).