Year in Review 2025

Highlights

In 2025, Generation Unlimited (GenU) operated in a global context shaped by economic uncertainty, climate disruption, demographic pressure and rapid advances in artificial intelligence. These forces are reshaping how young people learn, work and transition into livelihoods. As more than 1.2 billion young people in the Global South prepare to enter the labour market over the coming decade, the gap between learning and employment opportunities continues to widen.

Against this backdrop, GenU’s role as a public-private-youth partnership has become increasingly urgent: to align fragmented efforts, connect learning to earning, and support systems that enable young people to access dignified and sustainable livelihoods at scale.

In 2025, GenU-supported initiatives reached 62.7 million young people across 52 countries, the vast majority in low- and middle-income economies.

More than 31 million young people engaged in skilling and employment initiatives, while 3.3 million were reached with entrepreneurship-related programmes, and 28 million with social impact programmes.

This broad reach translated into deeper and sustainable impact, with young people not only participating in programmes but gaining skills, accessing pathways to work, and creating livelihoods of their own. More than 17.4 million gained market-relevant skills, including technical-vocational and transferrable skills for the twenty-first century world of work. More than 447,000 young people secured livelihoods through work-based learning and job placement, while nearly 180,000 started or expanded their own enterprises.