Non-formal education (NFE) is now considered as playing a critical role in the achievement of the objective of Education for All, by reaching the learning needs of youth and adults who do not have access to formal education, increasing their employment opportunities and therefore contributing to poverty alleviation. Yet there is still insufficient knowledge available on the relationships between NFE, learning needs of out-of-school youth and adults, and employment. This paper intends to contribute to the debate by discussing both the data collected in rural Mali and the evidence drawn from a household survey on the outcomes of the Educational Centres for Development (Centres d'education pour le developpement--CEDs), which address out-of-school youth in rural areas. This paper argues that the effective approach of the CED programme is similar to formal schooling, with some adjustments in order to meet what is considered as the specific learning needs of out-of-school youth. However, CEDs are more adapted to boys' learning needs than they are to girls'. This paper also demonstrates that the CED programme has no effect on the scope of activities of young people as they stay in their village but do improve the way these activities are carried out and widens their employment opportunities as they migrate. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table and 6 notes.)