South Africa’s youth unemployment rate stood at 47.4% in the second quarter of this year, according to Statistics South Africa: five million people between the ages of 15 and 34 without work. The debate that follows each release rightly centres on growth and the private sector, where most jobs will come from.
One part of the labour market receives far less attention. Across Africa, non-profit organisations employ young people, train them and support them to start businesses. Yet their contribution is barely visible in the evidence, and what is missing from the evidence can also be missing from policy.
Since 2023, the Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment (CAPSI) at Wits Business School has been examining this contribution across 17 African countries, through an African-led research network whose regional research I lead. We have now surveyed 20,180 young people and 4,170 non-profit organisations in 15 of those countries. As far as we can establish, nothing of this scope has been attempted across these countries before.
What we mean by dignified and fulfilling work
The study treats dignified and fulfilling work as having four dimensions: reliable income, enough to live on and steady enough to plan around; respect, both in the workplace and in the community; a sense of purpose beyond the wage; and reputation, meaning the work is valued by the people whose opinion matters to the young person.
Employment policy tends to measure the first and assume the others will follow. A young person who is paid well but treated as disposable is not doing dignified and fulfilling work. Neither is one who is respected for what they do but cannot earn a living from it. Employment statistics record whether a young person is working, not whether that work is secure, adequately paid or valued. We therefore asked about each dimension separately.
What young people told us
Among young people who had received work from a non-profit, almost 85% told us they feel respected at work, and almost exactly the same proportion feel respected in their communities. More than three-quarters often or always feel a sense of purpose, and more than eight in 10 rate the reputation of their work as good or very good.
The economic picture is harder. Close to half told us their salary is not sufficient, and roughly three in 10 said their income is not reliable.
This is the paradox in our findings. Non-profits appear to be creating the conditions that make work dignified and fulfilling, while struggling to provide the income that makes it economically secure.
It is important to be clear about where responsibility lies, and this is not a criticism of the organisations themselves. The findings describe a sector financed through short project cycles, capped overheads and grant structures that treat salaries as an administrative cost to be minimised. The result is committed young people doing valuable work for an income that is neither sufficient nor reliable.
A contribution that is undercounted
The organisations we surveyed reported giving work to 195,029 young people over the past five years. Almost 85% of them employ young people, and on average they devote close to 40% of their budgets to youth employment programmes. Very little of this appears in national employment accounts.
Direct jobs are only part of the contribution. Around a quarter of the young people we surveyed had received work directly from a non-profit. Closer to four in 10 had received other support: mainly training, but also entrepreneurship support, scholarships, and small loans and grants. A young person supported in this way may never appear in a non-profit’s employment figures. Yet close to two-thirds of organisations recording positive outcomes said their programmes had helped young people move from informal into formal work. The contribution lies in the pathways to work the sector creates, not only the jobs it provides.
A shared pattern, not a uniform one
Our surveys were not nationally representative, and contexts differ. In South Africa, roughly three in 10 of the 585 young people we surveyed in selected provinces had been given work by a non-profit in the past five years, an indicative figure rather than a national estimate. What holds across countries is the shape of the finding rather than its size: stronger on recognition, weaker on remuneration.
One result surprised us. Asked which sectors they would most like to work in, young people put agriculture first, ahead of health, business and education. Yet agriculture is only the fourth sector in which non-profits place them. Given how much of the youth employment conversation concerns digital jobs, this preference merits closer attention.
Implications for policy and funding
A familiar objection is that the sector is small, donor-dependent and cannot absorb youth unemployment at scale. That is largely true. The African Development Bank estimates that 10 to 12 million young Africans enter the labour market each year, against roughly three million formal jobs. Non-profits are no substitute for governments, businesses or structural transformation.
Their importance lies elsewhere. The sector reaches young people whom neither the state nor the market reaches. It is better understood as a bridge into the economy than as a destination. The findings point to three implications.
First, for ministers of finance and labour, and the statisticians who serve them: count the sector, formal and informal alike.
Second, for funders: fund the full cost of the work you commission. Multi-year, full-cost funding is the difference between respected young workers who stay and respected young workers who leave within the year.
Third, for non-profit leaders: make the employment conditions of your own organisations part of the conversation about dignified and fulfilling work.
The contraction in donor funding makes this more pressing. We cannot yet quantify the jobs being lost, but where organisations depend heavily on international funding, funding instability becomes employment instability.
Non-profits cannot solve Africa’s youth unemployment alone. But Africa cannot solve it without them.
Dr Dennis Boahene Osei is regional lead researcher at the Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment (CAPSI), Wits Business School. The study covers 17 African countries and runs until 2028.