UNESCO, Nestlé team up on ‘Youth Impact: Because You Matter’ initiative

Nestlé has teamed up with UNESCO to unveil a new global initiative, Youth Impact: Because You Matter, which aims to empower young people to develop solutions to enhance climate resilience and accelerate the sustainability of food systems.

The initiative, which builds on a pilot project that was launched in Latin America in 2023, will support youth groups aged 18-30 with the development and launch of business ideas that aim to make the production, processing, transportation and consumption of food more resilient and sustainable.

‘Young people today are struggling to find work because they are lacking the skills that employers are looking for,’ Nestlé said in a statement. ‘The agriculture and food sector has the highest rate of skills misalignments. At the same time, young people are showing less interest in farming, while agriculture is also evolving. The increasing need to produce food in a sustainable way while at the same time ensuring food security for a growing population means new skills are needed.’

An example of such an initiative, from the pilot, was Earth-IoT: Conectando el Campo, which utilised digital tools to improve efficiency, profitability, and sustainability in Mexican rural areas, helping to boost farmers’ income projections by 50%, and reduce fertiliser and water/energy use by 40% and 30%, respectively.

Future workforce

“A highly qualified future workforce and a more resilient supply of raw materials are essential to Nestlé’s long-term success,” commented Laurent Freixe, CEO of Nestlé. “We’re facing the challenge of feeding a growing population while addressing the cause and effect of climate change.

“These are critical challenges that require decisive actions. That’s why we are supporting young changemakers in solving them.”

Youth Impact: Because You Matter will provide training and mentoring programmes developed in part by by Nestlé’s Youth Entrepreneurship Platform (YEP), which will also serve as the central hub through a six-month capability-building programme for participants.

Nestlé needs YOUth

This initiative forms part of the broader ‘Nestlé needs YOUth’ strategy, which has helped ten million young people access economic opportunities over the past decade.

It also reinforces the food group’s commitment to support young people to develop future-ready skills by 2030, ‘to foster the next generation of employees, agripreneurs and food entrepreneurs’, the company said. Read more here.