Why
Studies show that young people want to start businesses, yet the established business rate among adults is substantially higher than it is for youth. This implies that young people face higher barriers to entrepreneurship than adults, and there is a need for better policies aimed at enabling young entrepreneurs to realize their ambitions. Youth-led enterprises also primarily employ their peers, which could potentially catalyze more quality job creation in an enabling environment.
What
Decent Jobs for Youth focuses on supporting the development of policies, regulations and institutions that enable and encourage the creation of youth-led enterprises. To tackle weak skills and knowledge transfer, it is crucial to foster peer-to-peer support networks. Improving access to adequate information, training, finance and technology can help lift many of the obstacles that prevent young people from succeeding in business.
Who
The ILO, ITC, UNCDF, UNCTAD and UNIDO lead on this thematic priority. Decent Jobs for Youth brings together a growing number of partners who are committed to unleashing the potential of youth entrepreneurship and self-employment through fostering enabling environments and improving access to productive assets.
Youth Participation&Employment in the MENA region
Launched in 2017, the Youth Participation and Employment (YPE) programme is a five-year initiative, implemented by Oxfam IBIS (Denmark), and funded by the Danish Arab Partnership program. YPE aims to improve economic opportunities for young women and men in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. By building diverse and effective partnerships, it seeks to achieve three outcomes: (i) strengthened technical and life skills that enable young people to actively engage in society; (ii) increased organisational capacity of institutions, the private sector, entrepreneurs and communities to support young people; (iii) enhanced advocacy and dialogue between youth, public and private institutions, and business.
Coping with youth unemployment in North Macedonia
The ultimate goal of the commitment is supporting the development of evidence-based national policies and strategies to improve young people’s access to decent jobs. Research on young people’s position in the labour market in North Macedonia will be conducted. This includes an examination of the micro and macro determinants that lead to youth unemployment and underemployment. Research findings will provide evidence-based policy recommendations. Through direct contact with the national policymakers and dissemination activities, the issue of youth unemployment will be put on their agenda and will raise public awareness on the importance of mitigating negative consequences of youth employment challenges.