PODCAST: African Development Bank Group on Encouraging Youth Entrepreneurship

9 November 2025. Edson Mpyisi, Chief Financial Economist and Coordinator of the Enable Youth Program at the African Development Bank Group talks with Harriette Foulkes-Arnold of the Africa Food Systems Forum about Africa’s youth and how critical it is to encourage entrepreneurship among the youth.

The ENABLE Youth Programme (Agri-Business Led Employment) is an initiative by the African Development Bank Group to support young men and women in Africa to access financing, develop enterprises, especially in agricultural value chains. 

The programme is active in multiple African countries (for example, Sudan) and focuses on youth (age ~18-35) at post-secondary level, training, business incubation, and finance access. 

• ENABLE Youth is an AfDB flagship under Feed Africa and Jobs for Youth in Africa, designed to incubate young agripreneurs (18–35) and help them access finance to start or scale agribusinesses.
• It’s implemented through national projects and incubation centers (YABICs) in specific countries (e.g., Kenya, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Lesotho), often in partnership with local universities (Egerton University, University of Eldoret, etc.). 

The ENABLE Youth Kenya - Planned Completion Date 30 Dec 2027

The Empowering Novel Agri-Business-Led Employment (ENABLE) Youth Programme, launched in 2016, demonstrates how strategic investment in youth-led enterprises can accelerate agricultural transformation across the continent.

The ENABLE Youth Kenya is a skills and capacity development program for youth. It largely entails
training of Youth on business skills and development of business plans; providing mentorship and linkages to markets and financing. The training will be conducted in selected incubation centres, which will be rehabilitated and outfitted to cater for better interaction, networking and exchange of innovative ideas. 

The program is also in line with the recently launched Kenya Youth Agribusiness Strategy (KYAS) 2017-2021 which aims at providing opportunities for the youth to benefit from the various agribusiness enterprises along the agricultural value chains. It was designed because the increased of youth unemployment, particularly recent graduates from universities, colleges and other tertiary institutions becomes a major concern for the Government of Kenya since nearly 500,000 youth graduate from tertiary institutions and are ready to enter the job market every year. 

The program consists of four (04) components, namely: 

1. Enabling Environment for Youth Empowerment in Agribusiness; 
2. Entrepreneurship and agribusiness incubation; 
3. Financing Youth Agribusinesses; and 
4. Program Management and Coordination.

Stories: African youth transform agriculture with capital that works

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