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The Youth Employment Summit Framework for Action

A vision of young people building their communities and nations and sustaining their environments.

PREAMBLE

Meeting in Alexandria, Egypt, we, the participants in the Youth Employment Summit, commit to the vision of a world in which all young adults, especially youth facing poverty, have productive, decent and sustainable employment. To achieve this vision, we will work to ensure that by 2012 every country has a targeted youth employment strategy in its national policy agenda and has a network of individuals and institutions committed to sustainable employment for youth.

We recognize, support and promote the commitments and goals of the international community with respect to achieving productive, decent and sustainable employment for all youth, most notably through the UN Millennium Goal #16, the UN Youth Employment Network, Youth Ending Hunger, the FAO Special Programme for Food Security, the Microcredit Summit, and the Beijing World Conference on Women.

YES CAMPAIGN PRINCIPLES

Launching a Decade Campaign of Action 2001–2002

Great results can be accomplished when individuals commit and align themselves to a compelling vision.

Partnerships between inspired, empowered, committed youth and other diverse stakeholders will lead to the fulfillment of this campaign.

The issue of youth employment must be kept alive and on the global agenda, and the cost of inaction must be communicated effectively to catalyze public and private action.

Government policies must take into account promoting job-led economic growth.

A committed group of people is essential to keep the momentum going and to launch innovative initiatives.

THE CHALLENGE OF YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT¹

There are a billion youth on the planet, 850 million in developing countries. One of the greatest challenges facing the world is to generate productive work opportunities for young people, ages 15–30, who bring rising expectations for employment opportunities and lifestyles comparable to those found in industrial economies. Without such opportunities, thwarted expectations can become the breeding ground for global discontent. A targeted and timely intervention for youth employment is urgently required to resolve a rapidly building global crisis.

Youth unemployment rates are almost always at least double the adult rate. In Algeria, the official unemployment rate is 29 percent. However, the youth unemployment rate is estimated to be as high as 70 percent. In Iran, youth account for 70 percent of the population, and about 760,000 youth enter the Iranian labour market each year, putting enormous pressure on the ability of the economy to meet these demands. Similar figures can be cited for Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The problem is not confined to developing countries. A stark example is Italy, a member of the Group of Seven largest economies, where 30.1 percent of youth ages 20–24 were unemployed in 1998.

Between now and 2010, 700 million young people will enter the labour force in developing countries (more than the entire labour force of the developed countries in 1990). The International Labour Organization projects that more than a billion jobs will need to be created to accommodate these new workers and reduce unemployment. If a concerted effort is not focused on this particular age group, the problems will only multiply as these undirected and unfocused youth mature into adults who have no stake in the societies in which they live. Conversely, by harnessing the potential of these youth, the world can benefit enormously from a new wave of civic participation and intellectual creativity.

INTRODUCTION TO THE 5 E'S

The Secretary General high-level policy network for Youth Employment has recommended 4 E's:

• Employability
• Employment Creation
• Equity (Equal Opportunity)
• Entrepreneurship

YES has, in the year of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, added a fifth E:

• Environmental Sustainability

YES COUNTRY NETWORKS

In 60 countries, youth are getting organized for the Decade Campaign. Young people are our best hope for creating a poverty-free world.

Tapping the energy, idealism and innovation of youth for the youth employment campaign will have a three-fold effect:

• Releasing new energy in accomplishing many of the goals set by the global community, especially the Millennium Development goals of halving poverty by 2015
• Moving young people into productive and long-term nation-building activities and away from nonproductive pursuits
• Directing youth to income-generating activities

Mission of YES Country Networks

To engage their communities in promoting youth employment and to develop innovative and effective youth employment initiatives by:

• organizing consultations
• building leadership commitment
• engaging local governments
• promoting effective practices
• building the YES Global Alliance
• developing and implementing action plans
• networking with other YES Country Networks
• keeping the flame alive

STRATEGIC STAKEHOLDER RESPONSIBILITY

Defining Productive Roles for All to Play

Everyone has a role to play in this Campaign.

Young women and men within the YES network must drive the Campaign. They can work to establish and build sustainable country networks to raise awareness about the issue of youth employment, to contribute to the development of a Youth Employment Plan of Action and to establish a mechanism to gather and disseminate knowledge and tools on effective practices in youth employment.

Governments can identify youth employment as a national priority and develop policies that encourage the engagement of government agencies, educational institutions and the private sector in the effort to generate youth employment.

Multilateral and bilateral agencies can assist governments in designing effective policy and can fund the implementation of youth employment policies.

Philanthropies can provide grants to civil society organizations and government agencies seeking to develop projects that support youth employment.

Educational institutions can ensure that young people are trained with skills that prepare them to take advantage of available employment or to create employment of their own.

The private sector can invest financial and technical resources in providing practical training opportunities for young people and in generating sustainable employment for them.

Civil society organizations and the media can be advocates to build public awareness on the importance of youth employment and engage the society in building an environment of expectation and action that ensures the success of the campaign.

¹ Note: This is an excerpted version of the YES Framework for Action. To read the full Framework, visit www.yesweb.org.

For questions or comments, contact mosaic@edc.org.

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Youth idealism, drive and innovation will be the engine for economic growth and community development.

The future promise of any nation can be directly measured by the present prospects of its youth.

—John F. Kennedy