Reimagining development, unlocking youth’s potential to transform lives

Having celebrated its 76th year of independence with hope and aspiration, India will remain a young nation for many years to come given its growing young population. As a result, an increasing number of young people are set to enter the workforce. Our youth needs skills that enable them to find meaningful and rewarding avenues of work and in turn help the country reap its demographic dividend.

For practitioners of development, this calls for reimagining of development with a youth-focused lens across sectors. Reimagining not just in the sense of leveraging what is new, like AI and other digital advances, but reimagining for the future of work. While building momentum for such efforts at spaces like charcha ’23, not only should we ask how we can ensure equitable access to quality education, but we should also find ways to make traditional sectors more attractive while considering ever-evolving markets, technologies and skill sets.

Among such sectors is agriculture, which is the largest employer of India’s workforce and is critical for the country to sustain its growing population in environmentally meaningful ways. Efforts are underway with big commitments from the government to transform agriculture, make it more remunerative and safeguard livelihoods of farmers. From the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund announced when the COVID-19 pandemic hit to a host of initiatives to bring in new technologies to lower drudgery in farming, it is vital for young people to be aware of these opportunities and tap them. With the right knowledge and skill set, young farmers can develop the capacity for quick uptake of new technologies and can conservatively use natural resources. They can effectively seize market opportunities, like post-harvest processing, and find ways to fully tap them.

Agriculture and agri-based livelihoods offer plenty of scope for microenterprise development with opportunities to create value and enhance rural livelihoods. Through our work in more than 52,000 villages, we have witnessed how agriculture becomes a viable option for youth when combined with enterprise development. By cultivating entrepreneurship, it is possible to drive greater diversification of income generation activities, both on- and off-farm, in a farm household. Diversification is indispensable to enhancing resilience to climate and other shocks.

For youth in rural India who aspire to work outside agriculture, gaps in education and skill development will need bridging. Closing these gaps for young women and girls can prove transformational for entire communities. The journey of Anamika Dwivedi in Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh, shows how this can happen. The 22-year-old became the first woman from her village to join the police force last year after acquiring the skills needed to secure the job. In doing so, she inspired the girls of her village to pursue higher education.

Evolving sporting ecosystem in India in recent years has had multiple dividends. It has not only been helping more youth in pursuing sports but has also created pathways for livelihoods apart from the benefits of health and well-being, character and leadership building and life-long learning. From playing a sport to coaching sportspersons to becoming a scout or a sports medicine expert, the possibilities are endless. The challenge for many talented young sports aspirants lies in inequitable access to world-class sporting platforms and coaching owing to gaps in information about opportunities, geographical and financial barriers. Scaling up proven models and innovating new ones that help youth overcome these challenges is the need of the hour.

The harnessing of strong grassroots affinity for football by the Reliance Foundation Young Champs (RFYC) academy speaks to the above. As a home-grown model for shaping India’s football future, the RFYC programme nurtures sporting talent and provides high-quality education for holistic development. Coming from the grassroots, its graduates were pre-teen children when they were scouted by the academy and offered scholarships. Many have gone on to play in the Indian Super League, the country’s top football league, and have secured their livelihoods.

By fostering holistic development with quality education, sports and relevant skills, and showing career pathways in traditional as well as emerging sectors, we will be preparing India’s youth for the future.

Reliance Foundation is hosting the Reliance Foundation Dialogues at The/Nudge Institute’s charcha ’23 in Hyderabad on August 23 and 24, and is bringing an amalgam of expertise and learnings with partners to build on collective knowledge and generate momentum on key matters of development - Rethinking education for 21st century skills, Agri innovations and safe guarding rural livelihoods, Future of skilling for the sports sector in India and Entrepreneurship in wake of the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Charcha is an initiative towards closing the distance between samaaj, sarkaar and bazaar, (society, government and markets) and was held in-person on Aug 23-Aug 24, at ISB, Hyderabad.

Authors Note: Jagannatha Kumar is CEO of Reliance Foundation

 This is a partnered post