The SIP youth and development project aims to identify what skills, education, and knowledge matter to the livelihoods needs and changing aspirations of young people across rural, coastal, and peri-urban areas in Maros District. The objectives aim to identify the social and economic status of young people and their changing aspirations, examining how gender dynamics, changing livelihoods, and knowledge influence youth aspirations and access to employment. Understanding these dynamics will also help to identify key issues around skills, education, and training, and seeks to align with policy priorities in the future. This engagement will examine which skills young men and women have, how they obtain those skills, and the overall aspirations of young people for obtaining the types of desired skills in the future.
The initiative aims to look at various landscapes and typologies in Maros, particularly around planned large infrastructure projects connected to larger development interests. The three landscape types include hinterland (rural upland), landscape transition areas, and downstream urbanization sites, as well as rural coastal. In these contexts, class, ethnicity, gender and livelihoods provide the backdrop for the ways in which youth and agrarian transitions are taking place. They related to the process of labor relations, changing means and role of production, and involve broader notions of precarity.