Worldwide, young people aged 15 to 24 represent roughly one person in six. This generation, particularly large in Africa, faces a major challenge: finding their place in the working world and participating fully in society, even as climate change, economic shifts, and various forms of instability upend their future.
For Interloan, the challenge is to give young people the capabilities and opportunities they need to become genuine agents of the transformations that will shape their future.
The demographic weight of youth can represent a tremendous opportunity, provided young people have the resources needed to gradually gain their independence. Entering adulthood today happens in an environment marked by profound economic, social and ecological change.
Youth policies, however, are often organised around a single area: education, training, employment, health, or civic participation. Such an approach can overlook the close links between these different dimensions.
Vocational training, for example, can facilitate access to a job without necessarily guaranteeing real autonomy when the job obtained remains precarious, when the young person remains distant from local decision-making processes, or when their work is particularly exposed to the consequences of climate change.
It therefore seems essential to bring together skills development, access to decent work, civic participation and commitment to the ecological transition. This comprehensive approach allows young people to strengthen their ability to build their own future while contributing to the development of their community.
The approach championed by Interloan rests on the idea that young people's autonomy cannot be reduced to professional integration alone. Economic, social and environmental dimensions are closely linked and must be considered together.
This first dimension concerns young people's ability to achieve financial independence through employment, entrepreneurship, or participation in their region's economic activities.
It includes, in particular, skills acquisition, vocational training, access to economic opportunities, and support in entering the labour market.
However, developing employability alone is not enough. A young person may be well trained and hold a job without necessarily grasping the social or environmental consequences of their work. The goal is therefore also to foster responsible professional practices suited to today's changes.
Young people must also be regarded as full citizens, capable of asserting their rights and taking on their responsibilities within society.
This dimension covers, in particular, access to education and healthcare, the fight against inequality, social justice, gender equality, and participation in the various forms of civic, social and political life. Enabling young people to take part in decisions concerning their region thus directly contributes to their autonomy and their ability to act.
The third component concerns young people's participation in environmental transformation. Preserving natural resources, fighting the effects of climate change, and promoting greater environmental justice are now issues that concern every generation.
Young people have a particularly important role to play in these transformations, not least because they will be directly affected by their long-term consequences.
These three components are complementary. Genuine economic autonomy is difficult to sustain when young people cannot exercise their rights or take part in decisions that affect their daily lives.
Likewise, civic and environmental initiatives can hardly endure when the people involved lack sufficiently solid economic prospects.
This is why Interloan favours a comprehensive vision of youth support, in which training, employment, citizenship and the ecological transition reinforce one another.
This conception of youth autonomy can draw in particular on programmes combining professional development, civic participation and environmental awareness.
The goal is to enable young people not merely to be beneficiaries of development policies, but to become agents themselves, capable of identifying problems in their region, proposing solutions, and taking part in implementing them.
From this perspective, sectors linked to agriculture, waste management, the circular economy, or jobs in the ecological transition can represent significant opportunities.
In several regions, training schemes can thus combine technical learning, social skills, and environmental awareness.
Take waste management as an example: training aimed at young people should not only teach them the technical aspects of the trade. It can also incorporate issues of health, safety, collective organisation, environmental protection, and waste recovery.
Trained young people then become not only professionals capable of earning a living, but also active participants in the circular economy and the ecological transition of their region.
The challenge for the coming years is therefore to move beyond approaches limited to a single sector. Supporting young people means enabling them to acquire skills, access economic opportunities, take part in collective life, and participate in environmental transformation.
In a context where the youth population continues to grow rapidly in many parts of the world, particularly in Africa, investing in their autonomy represents a critical development challenge.
Interloan therefore intends to place youth at the centre of transformative dynamics, favouring an approach that combines economic development, social inclusion and environmental responsibility.
The ultimate goal is simple: to enable young people to build their own future while giving them the means to actively contribute to that of their communities and regions.