Technology provider IXO has been awarded a contract by UNICEF South Africa to build and pilot a next-generation Impact Marketplace and Verification Portal. Integrated into the Yoma digital ecosystem, the platform will provide young Africans with verifiable records of their skills, work, and achievements to dramatically improve their future employability. This contract focuses on addressing youth unemployment challenges in South Africa and Nigeria, with the vision to support other African countries with high-levels of youth unemployment.
The initiative directly addresses South Africa’s critical youth unemployment crisis.
Statistics South Africa reports a 58.5% unemployment rate for youth aged 15–24 (Q3 2025), the pilot aims to bridge the gap between sidelined talent and active economic participation.
Through the platform, young people will be able to access micro-gigs, environmental projects, and skills training. Using Web3 infrastructure, the portal ensures that completed work is cryptographically verified and payout-ready, creating an auditable, trustless bridge between youth and potential employers.
Over January - December 2026 Key Pilot Targets Include:
- Onboarding 16,600 youth to the marketplace to earn verifiable work experience.
- Completing 6,000 "green" opportunities, including climate data collection and nature-based initiatives.
- Securing 300 sustained work placements (six months or longer) via strategic public-private partnerships.
- Issuing portable Youth Identity credentials (YoID), empowering participants to carry their verified work histories across different organisations and platforms.
"Instead of building walled gardens, we are configuring a modular, verification-first platform that adapts to field realities while giving young people actual ownership of their professional data," said Shaun Conway, CEO and Founder at IXO.
To ensure the project's long-term sustainability, IXO is partnering with local skills development organisation Umuzi to implement a Solutions Engineer training and certification programme. This ensures the technical capacity to deploy, scale, and maintain the platform remains within the region long after the pilot concludes.
“We need to keep the dreams of young people alive while allowing them to tap into new opportunities. Through initiatives like this, we are focusing on ‘earning while learning’. Young people are the engine to drive the continent forward and it is our responsibility to make these opportunities possible" —Johannes Wedenig, UNICEF South Africa Country Representative.
Governance and Ecosystem Trust
To steward the shared assets of the Yoma ecosystem, the Yoma Youth Venture Cooperative (LVC) has been established in Liechtenstein. This is designed to enable transparent coordination and between partners, account for contributions of capital, work, and market access, whilst paving the way for innovative financing mechanisms tied to verifiable outcomes.
Pilot locations and delivery timeline:
The platform is initially being rolled out across South Africa, Nigeria, and Zambia as part of the broader Yoma ecosystem and complementary initiatives. The first phase of implementation will run from 1 April 2026 to 31 December 2026, focusing on onboarding youth, launching verifiable green economy opportunities, and testing market adoption, credentialing mechanisms, and payout workflows.
Pilot locations and specific projects will be developed through two 3-month Design Partner Programmes, at which point IXO and UNICEF South Africa will publish additional detail on priority geographies, partner-led use cases, and expected verified outcomes.
About IXO
IXO is a frontier technology provider of intelligent digital infrastructure for coordinating, measuring, verifying, and financing outcomes. By combining verifiable data with an intelligent cooperating system, IXO helps direct capital more efficiently toward activities that deliver stronger economic performance and measurable impacts.
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About Yoma
Yoma is a digital marketplace that helps young people build employability through opportunities to learn, earn, and create impact, supported by a portable, verifiable Youth Identity (YoID).
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About UNICEF
UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children, works to protect the rights of every child, everywhere, especially the most disadvantaged children and in the toughest places to reach. Across more than 190 countries and territories, we do whatever it takes to help children survive, thrive, and fulfil their potential.
For more information about UNICEF and its work, please visit: www.unicef.org/southafrica
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