CFYE
Climate Futures Labs
New Silk Roads designed and facilitated five multi-day Futures Labs in Tunis, Cairo, and Sinai to foster collaboration on climate justice and localised climate adaptation across the Middle East, North Africa, and East Africa. Using a futures thinking approach, we convened entrepreneurs, civil society representatives, creatives, policymakers, and funders to co-create climate innovation pathways.
We translated the Labs’ insights into digital stories with local illustrators and data visualizers, promoted through targeted social media campaigns, and complemented the Labs with an online Futures Talks series on sustainable cities, energy futures, and place-based design.
Strengthening Youth Employability in the ICT Sector
ReBootKamp (RBK) is Tunisia’s first immersive coding bootcamp which trains young people to become employment-ready software engineers.
Under the Challenge Fund for Youth Employment, New Silk Roads supported RBK to scale its operations nationally across Tunisia while further professionalising its operations and services.
We specifically worked with RBK to strengthen its curriculum offerings in an increasingly global hiring market. We provided strategic assessments and guidance for gender inclusion, resulting in increased retention and graduation of young women. Finally, we implemented a monitoring, evaluation, and learning framework to track training effectiveness and job placements to boost RBK’s competitiveness.
Coaching Sudanese Scaleups
The Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE) supports market-based, scalable approaches to enable over 200,000 young people to access new or better employment opportunities. In Sudan, the CFYE is supporting 249Startups, Alsalam Factory, and IATL International to create job opportunities for young people in their country.
As part of the CFYE’s technical support to its Sudan portfolio, New Silk Roads provided three days of tailored workshops and one-on-one coaching on:
- Operating in fragile and post-conflict markets
- AI-assisted writing tools for grants and applications
- Impact investment, private funders, and blended finance opportunities
Digital Jobs & Women: Multi-Country Research Report
New Silk Roads produced “Digital Jobs and Women in the MENA Region,” an in-depth research study exploring how digitally-enabled jobs can create sustainable employment opportunities for women in Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, and Morocco.
To produce this study, our team designed a mixed methods framework composed of in-person interviews, focus group discussions, and robust desk research. Our research examined barriers to women’s workforce participation, the specific gender dynamics within different countries and regions, and the role of ecosystem actors. This study was also transformed into a short explainer animation and podcast.