SNV is implementing the second phase of the Scaling Up Youth Employment in Agriculture Initiative Opportunities for Youth Employment (OYE)+/ Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship (YEE) project. The four-year OYE+/YEE Phase II project builds off successes, lessons learned and evaluations to date from the Phase I project in Zimbabwe and Zambia, experience from other SNV youth employment projects and the OYE/YEE program in the Africa region. The OYE+/YEE Phase II program aims at fostering a strengthened approach to youth employment programming by addressing structural barriers, offering tailored support, and promoting collaboration among community, private sector, and government stakeholders to create dignified livelihoods for young people.

The key objectives of the project are to:

• Increase market and trading opportunities for young people, also in climate resilient in high value agri-food value-chains
• Increase young people access to decent (self) employment
• Improve policy support and market decisions for increased gender equality and youth inclusion

SNV seeks a talented, result-oriented professional as interns who will support the project team, the interns will focus on providing support to implementation and   monitoring project activities and verifications to support overall objective of the project.

Overview of the Position:

SNV through this new project is wishing to invite interested Zambian nationals to work as interns from April 2025 to assist on initiating the project activities in new areas and facilitate support on various activities in core areas. The YEE project will connect rural youth (aged 18-35 years) with 50 – 50 gender balance to growing agri-business, renewable energy (RE) and emerging sectors, as employees, entrepreneurs and commercial farmers through private sector engagement.

The strategic YEE approach consists of:

1. Targeting growth oriented and demand driven markets with concrete potential for employment creation (PULL)
2. Skills and capacity development of youth to capitalize upon local market dynamics (PUSH)
3. Linking of youth to market opportunities for employment and/or small enterprise development (MATCH)

The interns will support young people engaged in the project as they transition to self-employment and entrepreneurship. Initially, the role will focus on supporting tracking, monitoring, and verifying youth progress. This includes evaluating the quality and delivery of soft skills training (primarily provided by local service providers) and assessing technical skills acquired in workplace settings (e.g., on-the-job training or apprenticeships). Additionally, the interns will facilitate the engagement of YEE youth with private sector companies and local markets.

The YEE internship offers valuable learning opportunities for candidates interested in youth empowerment and enhancing youth inclusion, particularly within private sector companies and financial institutions (such as banks and microfinance institutions).

The interns supports the YEE project within the Agriculture and Renewable Energy sectors, including the identification of opportunities for youth self-employment and entrepreneurship.

SNV YEE Staff provide Strategic advice around   linkages/recruitment/training/marketing/enterprise development aspects, to smoothen the implementation and assure results are met in a quality and timely manner. Monitoring & Evaluation is a key part of the Intern role.

The role of the intern in this assignment is to support YEE staff around monitoring & evaluation during project implementation, support and monitoring and verification upon submission of deliverables.

The interns will undertake systematic verification exercises to the output and outcome results achieved by the LSPs and the youth; verify the supporting documents and output deliverables; support the YEE MEL advisor and YEE PM in other M&E related activities; and provide other day-to-day support to the SNV advisors. The intern will spend around 10 to 15 days/month in the field conducting the verification assignments. A work-plan will be developed on a monthly basis steered by the YEE Project Manager and Project Coordinator in line with the LSP activity plans.

1. Activity: Monitoring and Quality control of the youth recruitment and Identification activities by 10 LSPs of 18,000 youth for YEE year 1

Outputs/deliverables:

1. Participate and support the selection and registration in mobile data collection tool (LogAlto of 20,100 new youth in 5 provinces, 22 districts in Zambia
2. Participate in selection of YEE Champions from previous youth groups
3. Participate in uploading youth data in the online database
4. Develop a verification report on the youth selection process and result of 20,100 new youth in year
5. Activity: Monitoring and verification of trainings in: Social Skills and Business Development, Youth Savings Lending Associations (YSLA) -, technical training and coaching activities of 20,100 youth for year 1

Output/deliverable:

1. Participate and verify the Social Skills and Business Development, YSLA – and technical training and coaching activities of 12,000 youth by 10 LSPs
2. Participate and verify the training and coaching activities for the youth groups
3. Develop verification reports on these activities in line with the due deliverable deadlines of the activities on the quality, quantity, output and outcomes of these activities
4. Develop verification reports on the quality, quantity, output and outcome of this activity

1. Activity: Support youth in participatory market research during the National Agricultural Events such as agricultural shows, Youth indabas or other learning event and verification.

Output/deliverable

1. Verification report for youth participating in the National Events and other Stakeholder events
2. Documentation of the lessons and linkages identified through the events

1. Activity: Support YEE PM, PC and MEL advisor in the collection and validation of youth progress reports

Output/deliverable

1. 20,100 progress reports submitted
2. Lessons learned from supporting the project

• University degree in Development Studies, Business administration, marketing, gender studies, communication or media or development studies etc. with minimum of 2 years of experience.
• A proactive and entrepreneurial individual who will explore and develop innovative approaches that appeal to rural youth in Zambia
• Business/enterprise development skills
• Monitoring and evaluation skills
• Extensive understanding of business, marketing and development issues.
• Understanding of project cycle management, monitoring and evaluation framework, reporting and communication strategies/ tools.
• Demonstrated experience implementing visibility communications.
• Demonstrated experience working with stakeholders to build strategic partnerships.