published: June 2025, updated: August 2026
Investing in young lives, shaping resilient futures.
The Foundation Alliance for Africa (SAfA) united the Dirk Roßmann Foundation, the Hanns R. Neumann Foundation (HRNS), the Kühne Foundation and the Max und Ingeburg Herz Foundation (MIHS) behind a common vision: to pursue the welfare of youth in an impact-oriented manner.
HereWeGrow represented MIHS in this consortium and directly supported the implementation of Youth Agricultural Innovation Groups (YAIGs), implemented by HRNS. The project was co-financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The implementation has concluded, and project impact was assessed through a four-year, mixed-methods evaluation led by IFPRI.
KEY IMPACT METRIC
25% increase
in yearly income
KEY FACTS
WHERE
Ethiopia (Oromia Region, Buno Bedele Zone & Amhara Region, West Gojjam Zone)
WHO
HRNS (Implementation) & IFPRI (Evaluation)
WHEN
May 2021 – July 2025
GOAL
Increase income and welfare of youth
REACH
9,331 youth
EVALUATION
Difference-in-Difference
KEY IMPACT METRIC
70% increase
of income for 70% of youth
Approach
The SAfA project aimed to improve livelihood prospects as well as SRHR (sexual and reproductive health and rights) of young people aged 15 to 29 in Ethiopia through an integrated approach of three types of interventions:
- group-based youth training in agronomy, animal husbandry, and business and entrepreneurial skills;
- training in SRHR and provision of youth-friendly SRHR services; and
- training in logistics, transportation, entrepreneurship, and supply chain management.
Our funding focused on group-based youth training implemented by HRNS through Youth Agricultural Innovation Groups (YAIGs), which combine capacity building in agriculture, livestock, entrepreneurship and life skills with facilitated access to land, savings, credit, and cooperative membership.
EVALUATION & LEARNING
The project was externally evaluated by IFPRI in collaboration with the University of North Carolina (UNC) and Ethiopia’s Policy Studies Institute (PSI), using a quasi-experimental Difference-in-Differences accompanied by qualitative research. The endline draws on a panel of 2,380 youth surveyed at baseline, midline and endline, complemented by 18 focus group discussions and 24 key informant interviews.
IMPACT
The impact evaluation confirmed meaningful, statistically significant impact for youth reached through YAIGs, despite a challenging operating environment marked by inflation and armed conflict in one of the implementation regions:
- Income: Young people who participated in YAIGs increased their yearly income by ~25% (+3,007 Birr).
- Employment: Self-employment among YAIG youth rose by an estimated 22%, and the share of youth reporting no work at all fell by 53%, compared to similar youth outside the project.
- Financial inclusion: Membership in Youth Saving and Loan Associations (YSLAs) increased by roughly 420% (from 5% to 26% of youth), and cooperative membership rose by 54% (from 13% to 20%), broadening young people’s access to credit and networks.
Youth reached by the full, combined package of all three implementing partners (agronomy + SRHR + logistics training) showed consistently stronger and more robust effects than YAIG training on its own. Because exposure to the combined package was not randomly assigned, this comparison is suggestive rather than causal evidence – but it points to integrated programming as a promising direction worth testing further. In addition, qualitative interviews describe a shift in how communities perceive young people – from passive members to recognized contributors in local decision-making.
What we learned
Not all effects held up equally well over time or across regions — impacts were consistently stronger in Oromia than in conflict-affected Amhara, where active participation in group activities has declined due to conflict.
On sustainability, although group leaders were confident their YAIGs would continue after project support ends, only 30% of individual members shared that confidence. A closer look at how YAIGs operate in practice points to why. Support has often been spread thin across large groups, which has made coordination harder and diluted the guidance and resources each member receives. Larger groups have consistently struggled more with coordination and uneven engagement than smaller ones.
Going forward, implementing partners are prioritizing more intensive support delivered through smaller groups, stronger linkages to markets and financial services, and a more youth-led approach to decisions about training and income-generating activities — paired with clear criteria for when a group is ready to operate independently.
These findings — particularly around the added value of combining agronomy training with complementary interventions, and the practical barriers to group-level sustainability — offer valuable lessons for future youth livelihoods programming in the region.