Reports

Over the next decade, 1.2 billion young people in low- and middle-income countries will reach working age. Around 700 million of them will no longer be in school, while projected job creation is around 420 million. For many, formal employment will remain out of reach. Yet young people are already building working lives through trading, small shops, household enterprises, farming, delivery and repair: what this report calls the “livelihood economy.”

Commissioned by Generation Unlimited and Youth Business International (YBI) and written by Systemic Innovation, the report “From Necessity to Economic Opportunity: Turning the work young people already do into secure livelihoods” argues that the goal is not to push these livelihoods towards formalisation or high-growth business, but to make them more secure, productive and visible, while opening pathways to enterprise growth and wage employment where they exist. It sets out how finance, business support, regulation, social protection and data can be redesigned to make livelihoods safer and more resilient, and the roles that governments, financial institutions, large firms, enterprise support organisations and youth networks can play.

Read the executive summary on the Generation Unlimited website.

The full report will launch in November 2026.