The Young Leaders Development Foundation (YLDF) implemented an economic youth development program to enhance the network of graduates from the Middle East Partnership Initiative in Yemen, in collaboration with the US Embassy in Sana'a and the Youth Association for Public Development in Aden, starting in January 2011. The program aimed to develop skills and build organizational capacity for initiatives created by program graduates to serve as activists in their communities. The program included training in basic management (administrative operations, planning, organization, leadership, communication skills, and monitoring), strategic planning (strategy, the difference between strategic planning and management, how to create a strategic plan, formulating strategic objectives, formulating annual and specific objectives, and developing an action plan), project management and design (reviewing strategies for previous initiatives, the importance of proposal writing, generating development proposal ideas, how to write proposals, how to develop target group needs and characteristics, analyzing the problem trees, how to identify the target group, designing appropriate activities and a monitoring and evaluation system, designing administrative structures, budgeting, presenting some sample presentations, the importance of networks and partnerships, fundraising, and project management basics).

The program targeted five initiatives in Sana'a and 22 participants: the Assistance Initiative, the Book Bag Initiative, the Creative Youth Forum, the We Are the Change Initiative, and the Orphans Assistance Initiative. In Aden, the program targeted five initiatives and eight participants: the Future Youth Association, the Environmental Activists Club, the Community Service Leaders, the Ethar Group, and the Yemeni Youth Development Forum. The Creative Youth Forum was the only initiative that expressed interest and follow-up with YLDF to obtain incubation opportunities, and they continued to use the incubators four days a week. YLDF continued to implement the program as social supporters of MEPI graduates in Yemen on an annual basis until September 2014.