This blog was written by Foretia Divine, CSA YN Communications Lead, & Ntiokam Divine, CSA YN Founder”.
Animal resources are key assets that support the livelihoods of rural communities in Africa and the world. Yet the animal resource sector in Africa faces the challenge of insufficiency in supply due to the growing demand for animals and animal products making Africa a net importer of animal products. Agriculture is therefore a lucrative sector for wealth generation and jobs creation given that over 400 million youth in Africa (40%) are not employed or underemployed.
It is from this backdrop that the African Union Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) and the African Agribusiness Incubators Network (AAIN) in July 2018 launched the African Youth in Livestock, Fisheries and Aquaculture Incubators Network (AYL-FAIN) as a leading continental youth network for supporting investment and business start-ups in livestock, fisheries and aquaculture. AYL-FAIN core values are in promoting inclusive youth engagement in Africa’s Animal Resource sector for job and wealth creation and supports youth to build viable enterprises in livestock and fisheries sector. In effect, AYL-FAIN Cameroon chapter was launched in October 2019 as the only operating functional body to domesticate the overall AYL-FAIN objectives (to support 500 incubators across the 55 Africa countries) and to map out and build the capacity of potential young people in the country who are engage in agriculture.
AYL-FAIN Cameroon is currently being hosted at Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network (CSAYN), a group of volunteers (based in in the African continent and, also Asia, USA and Europe)- linked across the world via an online platform to share findings and seek advice for their practical projects – that have a strong interest in Climate-Smart Agriculture(CSA) and the environment.
CSAYN looks at the effect of climate change across the entire agricultural value chain. Some of the key issues with CSAYN are to make sure young people look at agriculture as a business and to use climate smart practices as one of the approaches to scale up agricultural productivity. Agriculture is the only sector that employs all indiscriminately.
Read on about CSAYN here.
