Beyond the Certificate:

Across Africa, the shape of young people's lives is shifting. Mobile phones have become classrooms, clinics and marketplaces. Climate change is altering livelihoods in rural and urban communities alike. Health priorities now stretch from HIV and sexual and reproductive health to mental health, nutrition and non-communicable diseases. In Zimbabwe, young people are navigating all of this at once, often with very little room for error. The numbers explain why this matters. An estimated 225 million young people aged 15 to 24 live in Africa, and the continent's youth population is expected to grow by nearly 50 percent by 2050. In Zimbabwe, people aged 15 to 35 make up 34% of the population, according to the 2022 census. Globally, 267 million young people are not in employment, education or training, and the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) reports that roughly 10 to 12 million young Africans enter the workforce each year while only about 3 million formal jobs are created. This demographic reality can become an economic advantage, but only if young people are healthy, informed, skilled and able to take part in decisions that affect them. That is where the work of Youth Advocates Zimbabwe (YAZ) becomes relevant. Established in 2004 and headquartered in Harare, YAZ is a youth-led organisation that supports children, adolescents and young people aged 8 to 24 across Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Kenya. It is not a training college, but its model offers a practical lens on a wider question: how can youth programmes keep pace with changing realities and connect young people to real opportunities? The Gap Between Knowing and Doing The International Labour Organization's Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024 notes that education does not automatically translate into better employment outcomes, particularly where economies are not creating enough suitable jobs. In Zimbabwe, the pressures sit on top of one another. Rural poverty is estimated at 84.3%, with extreme poverty at 29.3%. In urban areas, 83% of households live below the cost of the minimum food basket, and 2.4 million people struggle to meet basic food needs. The barriers facing young people are not only economic. Between 2014 and 2019, the share of young women aged 15 to 24 who had tested for HIV and knew their results fell from 84.5% to 69.3%, and for young men from 58.9% to 55.4%. Early childbearing before 18 rose from 22.4% to 24.1%, and child marriage before 18 from 32.8% to 33.7%. According to the 2019 MICS, 62% of adolescents aged 10 to 14 had experienced violent discipline in the previous month. A young person living through these realities may hold a certificate yet still struggle to turn it into stable work or income. Success depends on far more than qualifications. It is shaped by health, safety, confidence, mentorship, access to information and a chance to practise leadership. A Systems Approach to Youth Empowerment This is why YAZ treats youth empowerment as a system rather than a single intervention. Its implementation model, refined over nearly 20 years, rests on four pillars: awareness raising and knowledge building, social and behaviour change communication, partnerships and linkages, and research, advocacy and influencing. At the centre of all four is the meaningful participation of young people themselves. Evidence is the starting point of programme design. The 2024 to 2027 strategy was itself built on a review of national plans and surveys, including the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey and ZIMPHIA, and on lessons from the previous strategy period. YAZ now plans to publish 16 research articles over four years, train 4,000 young people in research and advocacy, and build a pool of 200 Youth Advocates who conduct research and share findings with local and national decision-makers. A youth-led research academy is part of that plan. Technology supports this loop between evidence and action. YAZ has developed the Youth Connect App, a data management tool (YDMT) and Power BI dashboards, and the strategy commits to scaling them up with developers and an in-house ICT expert. The aim is simple: real-time information that tells programmes where young people are, what they need and whether support is working. Meeting Young People Where They Are The same thinking shapes how YAZ reaches young people. In 2017 it launched the Youth Helpline, reachable by dialling 393 on any mobile network, offering a confidential space to talk about mental health, education, sexual and reproductive health, gender-based violence and substance abuse in Shona, Ndebele and English. Alongside it sit school health clubs, bulk SMS, social media campaigns, community murals and community-based volunteers. The strategy sets out how far this reach is meant to grow: 1.3 million young people reached through the helpline between 2024 and 2027, rising from 250,000 in 2024 to 400,000 in 2027, and 260,000 using private online self-care platforms. Comprehensive Sexuality Education support is planned to grow from 180 schools in 2024 to 300 in 2027. Pathways from adolescence into adulthood are rarely linear, and YAZ's targets reflect this. They include reaching 8,000 adolescent girls, young women, adolescent boys and young men through LSJP training, linking 800 of them to internships and vocational colleges, and reaching 43,000 with social asset building across health, social, economic and cognitive skills. The strategy also names enterprise work readiness and vocational skills as a success factor, aimed at improving access to finance for youth-owned businesses and strengthening work readiness. Making New Priorities Visible and Viable New priorities can be hard for communities to see at first. YAZ's experience during the COVID-19 pandemic shows how an organisation can introduce them and make them practical. With funding from UNICEF Zimbabwe, USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance and ECHO, YAZ youth advocates worked in 12 hotspot districts across Bulawayo, Masvingo, Midlands, Matabeleland South, Manicaland and Mashonaland East. They reached more than 50,000 adolescents and young people with integrated COVID-19 and sexual and reproductive health information and referrals. Twenty-four youth ambassadors from 10 provinces were trained through a human-centred design workshop in Domboshava to shape how that message was delivered. The lesson was that information reaches people when it is trusted, co-designed and linked to services. The same logic is now guiding YAZ as new issues move to the foreground. Community-based volunteers who once focused on sexual and reproductive health have taken on nutrition, climate change and non-communicable diseases, a significant concern given 3,205 NCD deaths among 15 to 19 year olds and 4,079 among 20 to 24 year olds in 2020. The strategy's fifth objective builds adaptive programming for humanitarian and crisis situations, with early warning systems and helpline-based community feedback planned in 64 communities and 5,120 young people and community members engaged in preparedness, response and recovery. Leadership is built alongside this. Through the Youth Advocates Leadership Programme (YALEP), young people learn to speak confidently, support peers living with HIV, follow up on clinic services and run support groups. One participant said the programme gave her the confidence to speak in front of people and help her peers. [Insert a short quote from a current YALEP participant or youth ambassador on what changed for them. Partnerships and Early Lessons None of this happens alone. YAZ works with the Ministry of Health and Childcare, the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, HIVOS and the National AIDS Council, as well as SADC, the African Union, Africa CDC, CARE International, World Vision, Plan International, UNICEF, UNAIDS and UNFPA. These partnerships give YAZ access to communities, nationally approved expertise and existing structures, and keep its work aligned with government priorities. The organisation is also candid about what it is still learning. Its own strategy review identified the need to diversify funding beyond a small number of partners, to invest more in research and evidence use, and to keep strengthening internal systems. Short grant cycles and small grant sizes limit long-term planning, so YAZ is building corporate partnerships, revenue-generating projects and fundraising skills, with a four-year revenue target of 3.5 million. The operating environment adds complexity: political sensitivities around civil society, delays in securing operating agreements, climate-related access challenges, and a digital divide among the young people it serves. YAZ has built risk management and monitoring systems with these in mind, and it is open that the work is gradual. Preparing for What Is Coming For YAZ, the shift is clear. Youth programmes can no longer focus only on the problems of today. They must anticipate the next challenge, whether it is a pandemic, a climate shock or a changing job market, and equip young people to respond. The 2024 to 2027 strategy puts the goal plainly: an empowered generation of adolescents and young people living healthy, enterprising lifestyles. A certificate can open a door. Health, confidence, evidence and opportunity are what allow a young person to walk through it. Young people can reach the Youth Helpline by dialling 393 on any mobile network. Sources • Youth Advocates, Strategic Plan 2024 to 2027, including its indicators matrix and cited sources (ZIMSTAT 2019 and 2022; ZIMSTAT and UNICEF, Zimbabwe MICS 2019; ILO Global Employment Trends for Youth 2020; World Bank data) • ILO, Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024 • ACET, 2025 six-country TVET study press release • UNICEF Zimbabwe stories on YAZ's COVID-19 youth-led response • Find A Helpline, Youth Advocates Helpline listing