Since 2020, Procasur has been collaborating with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in piloting the ‘Grassroots Approach to connect youth voices to action’ as a way to achieve the inclusivity of young people’s voices and effectively connect them with the design and implementation of project interventions and strategies.
Rural Youth Alliances: a pilot strategy in four countries
As part of this process, the creation of Rural Youth Alliances has been promoted to facilitate the establishment of an inclusive and democratic mechanism that connects young women and men at the grassroots level and is capable of systematically capturing the demands, aspirations, challenges and solutions of young people to inform the programmes of IFAD and other key stakeholders. In its first phase, the deployment of Rural Youth Alliances is a pilot initiative being carried out in four pilot countries: Colombia, Rwanda, Senegal and Morocco between 2021 and 2023.
Organisational skills and youth leadership
In these countries, Procasur and IFAD have supported the creation of Rural Youth Alliances, facilitating leadership and management capacity development among youth organizations so that they can represent the voices and perspectives of rural youth to key actors involved in rural development. Through this pilot process, each Alliance has been supported in identifying its members, defining aspects related to its mission, vision and governance system, and defining an organisational identity.
Training in political advocacy for rural youth
Within this framework, Procasur has designed and developed a training course on ‘Political Advocacy’ aimed at key members of Rural Youth Alliances, with the aim of strengthening their capacities to carry out advocacy, consultation and representative functions.
Preliminary assessment of the grassroots approach
Between June and September 2024, Procasur conducted a preliminary assessment study to understand the scope of the grassroots approach in the four pilot countries (Colombia, Morocco, Rwanda, and Senegal). The study adopted a multidimensional approach focused on analysing the preliminary results achieved by the alliances of rural youth in the different countries. In-depth interviews, focus group discussions and self-administered surveys were used as methodological tools. With regard to the Rural Youth Alliance in Colombia and Senegal, the results highlighted by the study are available at the following links:
