Across the countries where the Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE) operates, most young people are not unemployed but under-employed, working in informal, low-paid, insecure or hazardous jobs with limited prospects for progression.Improving the quality of existing work is therefore often as important as creating new jobs. In practice, several CFYE-supported business models, particularly intermediaries working with SMEs or partners working in informal value chains, improvements to existing jobs accounted for a large share of outcomes. This learning brief outlines CFYE’s approach to promoting job decency and strengthening job quality across a diverse portfolio, highlighting lessons on how programmes can support meaningful improvements for workers while remaining aligned with business realities.