With the addition of youth as a cross-cutting objective in the Office of Food for Peace’s (FFP) Food Assistance and Food Security Strategy in 2016, FFP encouraged Implementing Partners (IPs) to include youth in activities. While many IPs have experience working with youth—and it is likely that most FFP programs are already supporting young beneficiaries, the focus on youth was new for Development Food Security Activities (DFSA). However, it is less clear what IPs are doing to address the unique needs of young people and the challenges IPs were facing in the DFSA context. To help FFP better understand how DFSA IPs are addressing youth and how this could improve, FFP secured a buy-in to YouthPower Action to determine how FFP programs integrated and engaged youth throughout DFSAs, and identify ideas, processes, and concrete entry points for IPs to better address the large young populations in existing activities.

YouthPower Action carried out a survey of IPs to understand how they currently address youth needs, and reviewed two DFSAs (Apolou in Karamoja, Uganda implemented by Mercy- Corps; and Nobo Jatra in the Khulna and Satkhira Districts in Bangladesh, implemented by World Vision) to better understand how youth needs are being addressed and provide recommendations, tips and tools for FFP. The purpose of the review was to learn how FFP IPs were supporting youth during implementation rather than to evaluate the activities.