More Impact for More Young Entrepreneurs
2023 - 2025 Strategy
1. Foreword
Purity Gakuo was born and raised in an off-grid community in Kenya, where most people depend on fishing to earn a living. Together with co-founder, Dennis Onkangi, she set out to help her community by making and selling solar-powered freezers. Affordable and accessible cold-storage equipment increases a fisherman’s income as it reduces the number of fish that spoil as they are transported from sea to market.
When Purity was crowned Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2022, she shared her plans to scale her business and grow from supporting 250 fishermen to over 1,000 next year,
“We’re going to make our dreams come true and that means serving our community.”
Purity speaks to the heart of what Youth Business International stands for. Supporting young people to start and grow businesses that not only thrive but also have a positive impact on their communities, economies and the planet.
In our 2023-2025 strategy, Youth Business International sets out to accelerate more impact for more young entrepreneurs like Purity. This ambition is set against a permacrisis of global challenges. Young entrepreneurs are agents of change and youth entrepreneurship is a critical lever for economic recovery and resilience, and a driving force towards a just, fair and greener future for us all. Despite this enormous potential, entrepreneurship remains out of reach for millions of young people. And that’s where Youth Business International comes in.
2. About Youth Business International (YBI)
Established in 2000, YBI leads a growing global network of 50 enterprise support organisations with a passion for empowering underserved young people (18-35) to start, scale and sustain their businesses.
Working with this global network of members, we develop and scale the most effective solutions to the critical challenges facing young entrepreneurs and strengthen our members’ capabilities and the quality of their delivery models to support young people into entrepreneurship.
Together, we focus on sustainable and inclusive entrepreneurship and delivering more impactful support, equipping underserved young people with the skills, confidence and the connections they need to beat the odds and become successful, responsible business owners.
YBI’s Impact on its
Global Network of Members
In 2022:
Connection
170 delegates from 41 countries joined in our Global Youth Entrepreneurship Summit
Collaboration
25 members participated in powerful youth entrepreneurship partnerships
Content
96% members took part in YBI’s Entrepreneurship Development Services
90% member satisfaction
Impact of
YBI’s Global Network
Since 2014:
126,197 Youth-led businesses started
137,095 Existing businesses strengthened or supported or grown
752,219 Young people provided with entrepreneurship training
Since 2017:
322,989 Jobs created
3. The Network Effect
Our leadership of the only global youth entrepreneurship network gives us a unique perspective on youth entrepreneurship worldwide, and the ability to bring together our member enterprise support organisations from across the world to connect, collaborate and exchange ideas, knowledge and insights.
We:
- Combine robust data from our global network of members with independent and proprietary research on themes such as Decent Work, Social and Green Entrepreneurship and Soft Skills
- Identify gaps and generate learnings to build our members’ capacity to support young entrepreneurs
- Invest in and lead the development and co-creation with our members of new training, products and services, and share knowledge of ‘what works’ in youth entrepreneurship
- Contribute to wider debates on youth economic empowerment to advance the case for investment in effective youth entrepreneurship
Our approach means we are able to develop and scale the most effective solutions to the critical challenges facing young entrepreneurs, while simultaneously building and enhancing our members’ capabilities and the quality of their delivery models.
The result is improved outcomes for aspiring and existing young entrepreneurs.
In leading a global youth entrepreneurship network, we work with our global network of members to connect, collaborate and generate content.
Connection
YBI continually drives connection as the essential foundation to support effective collaboration. Connecting with peers allows the exchange of ideas, knowledge and insights, and the opportunity for new ideas to emerge.
Collaboration
YBI places priority on collaboration with our members and other experts, knowing that these skills are essential to solving complex problems. We enable co-creation of content to develop and scale the most effective solutions to critical challenges facing young entrepreneurs.
Content
YBI is committed to providing the global standard in inclusive economic programmes for young entrepreneurs. This ensures members are able to access content to improve the quality of their delivery models, which in turn improves outcomes for young entrepreneurs.
4. Our Strategy for Impact and Growth
A global network of
80 enterprise
support organisations
750,000
young people
supported
250,000 youth-led
businesses started
or grown
One million
jobs created
Success in 2025 is a thriving, dynamic global network providing personal and business training and wider connections that enable all young entrepreneurs to pivot their business and flex to future challenges and shocks.
It is more inclusive enterprise support organisations delivering relevant, tailored programmes that make any young person’s dream of starting or growing their business a reality. And it is an acknowledged generation of thriving, youth-led, responsible businesses having a positive impact on their community and country through decent job creation, innovative services and wealth creation.
5. Our 2023 -2025 Strategic Goals
Our goal is to create one million jobs through supporting the start-up and growth of 250,000 youth-led businesses
We will accelerate
more impact for young people
YBI aims to create one million jobs by supporting the start-up and growth of 250,000 youth-led businesses
We want youth entrepreneurship to be recognised as a force for good
YBI aims to inspire more inclusive, responsible youth-led businesses focused on solving social, economic & environmental problems
We will build a growing, dynamic and inclusive network of ESOs
YBI aims to grow our global network of expert enterprise support organisations to 80 members
We want to be the
leading voice for youth entrepreneurship
YBI aims to be the leading voice for inclusive youth entrepreneurship, influencing the ecosystem to invest in jobs and business creation
Accelerating more impact
for more young people
YBI aims to create one million jobs by supporting the start-up and growth of 250,000 youth-led businesses
Our 2023-2025 Priorities
Leveraging YBI’s global network of members to accelerate more impact for more young people through:
- Advocating for our network-created and endorsed quality standards for effective youth entrepreneurship support. These have been built around the three critical areas of youth entrepreneurship: personal development, business development and an enabling ecosystem
- Developing a Global Accelerator for the global network’s young entrepreneurs, to support them to successfully transition from start-up to growth
- Co-creating tailored programmes that promote inclusive economic growth so that any young person’s dream of starting or growing their business becomes a reality
Sparking innovation to address critical challenges in the three critical areas of youth entrepreneurship support:
- Personal Development: fostering resilient young entrepreneurs with the soft skills, life skills and leadership capabilities to run businesses that are innovative and agile to withstand future shocks
- Business Development: equipping young entrepreneurs with the core business and digital capabilities that breed success
- An Enabling Ecosystem: exploring new partnerships so all young entrepreneurs can access the markets and finance that foster business growth
Exploring the potential of models that support young entrepreneurs to:
- Innovate technologies and solutions that address local and global climate challenges
- Unleash the potential of circular, social, green and blue economies
- Disrupt our finance, health and food consumer sectors
- Reimagine ways to deliver planet and people positive agribusiness, construction, waste management and textiles industries along their whole supply and value chains
- Express and support themselves through thriving creative industries
Youth entrepreneurship
as a force for good
YBI aims to inspire more inclusive, responsible youth-led businesses focused on solving social, economic and environmental problems
Our 2023-2025 Priorities
Empowering young people to create a just, fair and greener future for us all by:
- Co-creating new products, training and services to address the critical challenges facing all social and green young entrepreneurs
- Building the capacities and capability of our global network of members to better advance the mission of social and green entrepreneurs
- Collaborating with partners to champion the youth-led social and green revolution across our global network of members and ecosystem
Building the next generation of responsible, inclusive businesses and leaders by:
- Enabling all young entrepreneurs to become familiar with and successfully introduce responsible practices into their businesses, including decent work
- Collaborating with partners who share our belief and commitment to catalyse responsible and inclusive economic growth
Unlocking the potential of ESG for youth-led businesses by:
- Working with corporations to realise the global ESG agenda through partnerships with young entrepreneurs
- Breaking down the complexities of language and practice to understand and apply ESG to youth-led businesses
A growing, dynamic
inclusive global network
YBI aims to grow our global network of expert enterprise support organisations
Our 2023-2025 Priorities
Expanding YBI’s global network’s footprint and diversity by:
- Growing the global network in countries with significant opportunity and need for quality youth entrepreneurship support
- Diversifying the global network with quality organisations aligned with our responsible, inclusive business agenda, and with expertise in social, green and inclusive entrepreneurship
- Developing relevant, effective and efficient internal membership systems for our growing global network
Driving deeper engagement, both regionally and globally, including:
- Promoting collaboration and collective action amongst organisations with shared youth entrepreneurship opportunities and challenges
- Delivering co-created, tested and scalable youth entrepreneurship support solutions that can be localised
- Evolving our value proposition to drive dynamic engagement and network citizenship
Catalysing connections and learning amongst our global network for greater impact by:
- Enhancing our global learning opportunities through research and Communities of Expert Practice to support quality youth entrepreneurship programme development
- Convening members, partners, experts and young entrepreneurs at the bi-annual Global Youth Entrepreneurship Summit to catalyse learning, collaboration and connection
- Strengthening the evidence for and championing our Network Effect
The leading voice for
youth entrepreneurship
YBI aims to be the leading voice for youth entrepreneurship, influencing the ecosystem to invest in jobs and business creation for young people
Our 2023-2025 Priorities
Making the case for increased investment in youth entrepreneurship through:
- Developing an evidence-based argument for increased investment in youth entrepreneurship and economic opportunities by leveraging internal and external research
- Partnering with governments, multi-lateral bodies and industry influencers to produce insights into the trends, opportunities and policy changes for youth entrepreneurship support globally
Amplifying the collective voice and action of our global network by:
- Increasing our engagement with multi-lateral events, fora and institutions, business platforms and ecosystem actors to advance the case for effective youth entrepreneurship support
- Harnessing and sharing the voice of our young entrepreneurs, enterprise support organisations and partners in this work, including through a collective campaign approach and increased public voice
- Spotlighting and celebrating young entrepreneurs through YBI’s global signature events
6. Delivering our Ambition
To deliver our strategic goals we will increase and diversify our funding and enhance our organisational capabilities
Funding our ambition
YBI aims to generate US$20 million to invest in our work and realise our ambition
Our priorities for 2023-2025 are to think about income generation and fundraising differently by:
- Unlocking diverse opportunities for investment in YBI’s Network Effect
- Capitalising on our greatest strength as a credible partner that delivers meaningful impact for young entrepreneurs globally
- Building on our recognition as an innovative organisation that pioneers approaches to drive youth entrepreneurship and youth employment globally
Building our organisational capabilities
YBI aims to think broadly and creatively about how we can and need to evolve as an organisation to deliver our ambition
Our priorities for 2023-2025 are to focus on our people, ways of working, our responsible business approach and infrastructure by:
- Building a talented, diverse and motivated team responding to the changing world of work
- Evolving our ways of working to ensure we remain connected to our staff and can successfully collaborate across teams
- Ensuring YBI embodies the responsible business practices we are promoting in our strategy
- Investing in more effective and efficient management systems and tools that support better ways of working across YBI and our global network of members
Connect with us
Get to know us better. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube to learn about our global network of members, upcoming events, opportunities to get involved and more. Or if you have any questions or comments, we'd love to hear from you at info@youthbusiness.org.
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