USAID Métiers Inclusifs (ingl.)

Context 

Marginalised and underrepresented youth in Kinshasa, Matadi, and Kalemie face serious challenges in securing stable livelihoods as the result of limited education, poorly adapted workforce readiness training, and lack of access to youth-friendly health services and information. To address this problem, the project adopts locally driven approaches of experienced youth-led, youth-serving actors to improve the social mobility and economic livelihoods of young people in urban areas of Kinshasa, Kalemie, and Matadi. Designed with local youth representatives, activities are tailored to meet young people’s various gender, ages, and disability-related needs, using an innovative, individualised approach. Youth will be accompanied through a holistic process to build relevant workforce-related and soft skills, establish healthy relationships, and access youth-friendly information and services, to more effectively participate in the dynamic workforce of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Challenges

Although young people aged 15 to 35 make up 39% of the population in the DRC, they face significant challenges in securing stable livelihoods. While the national unemployment rate is 11%, 76% of the unemployed are youth aged 15 to 34. Underemployment is even higher at 50% for adults, leading to frustration, especially among women, who are at higher risk of insecure employment. The economy is largely informal, with youth relying on multiple income streams. Urbanisation, driven by young people leaving agriculture, adds pressure on cities struggling to absorb labour. Harmful social norms and structural discrimination further marginalise groups like youth with disabilities, adolescent girls, and single mothers. For example, 51% of women have experienced intimate partner violence, and early marriage and childbirth affect many young women. These dynamics create challenges for the DRC’s development, which will require investing in human capital, especially marginalised youth. To secure employment, young people need skills such as literacy, soft skills, digital literacy, and vocational training.

Main challenges:

• The DRC's education system, including primary schooling and technical/vocational training (TVET), is under-resourced and inaccessible, especially for marginalised groups like girls and youth with disabilities, leading to low literacy rates and limited skills development.
• Gender disparities and poor infrastructure, such as lack of menstrual hygiene management, further exclude girls from education, while youth with disabilities face significant barriers, including inaccessible schools and mismatch of qualifications with employer needs.

Expected results

Inclusive Skills Development 

• Marginalised young people develop their basic literacy, numeracy, soft skills and socioemotional competencies.
• Skills training becomes more gender and disability inclusive.
• The learning environment around marginalised young people becomes more supportive.

Income Expanded

• Increased access to employment information and training for young people
• Youth workforce development programmes become more gender and disability inclusive.
• Marginalised young people gain better access to financial information and resources.

Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Status Improved

• Access to appropriate information and health services for adolescent girls is increased.
• Local health systems are strengthened to respond to the needs of survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.
• Available information and health services become more inclusive.