African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a $3.5 million grant to support the Sustainable Enterprise Development for Women and Youth Project in Zimbabwe.

The fund, Development Diaries understands, will be used to create jobs and boost livelihoods for youth and women in artisanal mining, horticulture and dairy value chains in the country.

The project is expected to create more than 3,000 direct jobs and at least 6,000 indirect jobs for women and youth.

In 2019, the World Bank put youth unemployment in Zimbabwe at 27.5 percent.

‘The project, which builds on the ongoing Youth and Women Empowerment Project, will facilitate linkages for 500 market stallholders to supply their products to big companies and build the capacity of some 3,000 youth to conduct viable businesses in the fruit and vegetable value chains by improving the quality and sales of their produce’, AfDB said in a statement.

The project is one of three that the AfDB is implementing in Zimbabwe under the African Development Fund 15 cycle.

‘The scheme will also assist over 720 small-scale miners in adding value to their mineral products’, the statement read.

Women make up ten percent of Zimbabwe’s 535,000 artisanal and small-scale miners, according to a report from the Pact Institute.

Data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) shows that agricultural activities provide employment and income for 60 to 70 percent of the population.

‘The support for growth-oriented enterprises for women and youth is a timely intervention as it will contribute to job creation and improved household incomes in Zimbabwe’, AfDB Director for Human Capital, Youth and Skills Development, Martha Phiri, said.

Source: AfDB

Photo source: Stephen Tsoroti/Toward Freedom