From June to November 2008, the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children conducted an assessment of educational and skills training opportunities available to displaced youth in Darfur. This report looks at the challenges and opportunities young people face; examines existing services targeting youth; identifies programming gaps; and provides recommendations on how donors, policymakers and field practitioners can more effectively support displaced youth in Darfur.

The study showed that while vocational and technical training programmes do operate in Darfur, very few humanitarian agencies specifically target young women and men. Out of 124 local and international nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), youth groups and UN agencies reviewed for this report, only 15 explicitly target youth (15-24 years old) and of those that did, 14 focus on education and/or livelihoods. Training programmes that do exist face many programmatic challenges, including operating under increasingly insecure conditions and attempting to match longer-term education needs of young people with shorter-term donor funding cycles. Young women, rural youth and those with disabilities, in particular, have more difficulties accessing programs and services that do exist.