Today is International Youth Day, a day designated by the United Nations to celebrate the potential of youth as partners in our global society. The global youth population currently stands at 1.8 billion—the largest in history—with 88% living in developing countries. Youth are essential to the future of rural communities, particularly in developing countries, where they serve as an indispensable local talent pool for agricultural enterprises with aging workforces...
Read moreTopics: Youth |
As the youth population explodes worldwide, Root Capital is turning a demographic challenge into an opportunity for impact. Jobs in rural communities are often low paying and sporadic, with little opportunity for advancement-prompting many young people to migrate. Root Capital’s Talent Partnerships program places young graduates into internships at local agricultural enterprises, creating a win/win situation: jobs for the next…
Read moreTopics: East Africa | Youth |
Root Capital’s innovative advisory services are powered by our talented team of advisory consultants. These trainers work closely with agricultural businesses to address the day-to-day challenges of running a remote enterprise. Working together, they build skills and processes that foster growth and resilience in the long term. One of these advisors is Ousmane Sané, known as Sané, who’s been a…
Read moreTopics: Advisory Services | Digital Business Intelligence | Partnerships | Staff Profiles | Stories of Impact | West Africa | Youth |
Duban Gómez Alvarado grew up expecting to one day enter the family business: coffee farming. The Alvarados have worked the flourishing fields of western Colombia for generations—but, in recent years, climate change has imperiled their crop yields. Simultaneously, the global coffee price has plummeted below the cost of production, leaving many farmers without a livable income. “For many years, we have been coffee farmers in my family,” Duban says, “but I am not convinced at the prospect of continuing with my family’s work.”
Read moreTopics: Partnerships | South America | Stories of Impact | Youth |
Eighty kilometers outside of Nairobi, the Patel family’s macadamia factory buzzes with activity. In 2016, Mehul and Chirag Patel founded macadamia processing business Rainsun Nuts; every year since, they’ve doubled their sales. Between their office in Nairobi and their factory in the rural town of Sagana, they’ve created jobs for dozens of people—the majority of whom are women, and many of whom are under 35.
Read moreTopics: Advisory Services | East Africa | Partnerships | Youth |
Over the past 20 years, we’ve offered hundreds of coffee businesses the capital and training they need to succeed. But to truly maximize their impact, these businesses sometimes require additional support. That’s why, in partnership with USAID Feed the Future, we launched a Resilience Fund that provides $20,000 grants to some of our highest-performing client businesses in Colombia and Peru.
Read moreTopics: Livelihoods | South America | Stories of Impact | Youth |
This post originally appeared on the blog of the Rural and Agricultural Finance Learning Lab. Each year, more than 10 million young people across Africa enter the job market, competing for just three million formal jobs. As the continent’s youth population swells steadily towards a projected total of 800 million by 2050, this demographic crisis will intensify even further.
Read moreTopics: Advisory Services | Partnerships | West Africa | Youth |
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of traveling to the coffeelands of northern Nicaragua to see Root Capital’s advisory team in action.
Read moreTopics: Advisory Services | Mexico and Central America | Youth |
Young people in rural communities are struggling. There are few jobs. Those that exist are low-paying, physically demanding, and unfulfilling. It’s no wonder so many youth leave their family farms behind. Their parents can barely make ends meet. Crop disease and extreme weather make it harder every year. Eager to find meaningful work, young people migrate to urban areas at home and abroad—but jobs are scarce there too. With few options but a crowded slum and exploitative labor, their lives become even more precarious.
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Thirty years ago, this place looked very different. Nestled in the foothills where the Amazon rainforest meets the towering Andes Mountains, the Peruvian town of San Martín de Pangoa exudes an aura of calm. Life seems to move at a leisurely pace; ambling through the town’s mostly-unpaved streets, you’ll see mototaxis rumble slowly past indigenous women cradling their babies in brightly-colored wool blankets. The hills rising above the town are patchworked with a lattice of small farms, and every moto and pickup truck seems to be laden with nearly-bursting sacks of coffee.
Read moreTopics: Environment | Peace | South America | Stories of Impact | Women in Agriculture | Youth |
