In the frame of the ‘Boosting decent employment for Africa’s youth’ partnership between INCLUDE, IDRC and ILO, under the umbrella of the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth, a series of evidence synthesis papers will be released in the coming years. Led by INCLUDE, these papers will take stock of existing evidence on themes relevant to the youth employment debate. This second paper in the series was prepared by independent consultant Themrise Khan. ‘Young, female and African: barriers, interventions and opportunities for female youth employment in Africa’ documents the evidence from the existing literature on what are the key barriers that prevent young women in Africa from joining the workforce; the sort of interventions that currently exist to address these barriers; and what future opportunities are likely to emerge for young women to enable them to become equal and productive members of Africa’s workforce.