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Sep 30th, 2003 - 17:00:14 |
Emily Davila
Youth Employment Network Briefing 9.30
From a briefing by Steve Miller, Secretary of the Youth Employment Network (YEN), which is a partnership between World Bank, International Labour Organization, and the UN Secretariat.
The document A/57/165 “Promoting Youth Employment” was presented by the Senegal this past year as the outcome of the Secretary Generals’ high level panel on youth employment. It was co-sponsored by 106 countries and unanimously adopted. Youth employment is more than a technical issue; it has political implications since youth employment is a millennium development goal. In some countries youth employment is a question of national security. An addendum Doc is A/58/229.
The doc emphasizes youth: employability, equal opportunity, entrepreneurship, and employment creation. It also stresses that youth are an asset not a problem, youth should be seen as the solution.
As a result of the resolution, all countries should submit National Action Plans to the secretariat and YEN so that they can be shared on the network. Countries that have submitted so far:
Indonesia, Senegal, Azerbajan, Hungray, Namibia, Sri Lanka
Brazil is thinking about it. Sweden helped fund it.
The NGO Committee on youth’s potential role: Help countries that are writing their youth action plans use youth orgs in their own countries. It’s likely that we may be more easily in touch with youth orgs in these countries than the governments are, and we can get word about the governments need for consultation out to the youth orgs we know there. The deadline to submit the National Youth Action Plan is March 2004, so there is something to aim for. Further, the ILO rep here is open to help us arrange meetings with delegations here in New York to talk with them about the network, and the youth we know, or how they should involve youth.
Countries that attended the meeting or somehow support the initiative: Sweden, Brazil, Italy, Germany, India, Indonesia, Portugal, Trinidad, Finland, Canada
An example of network leverage: a World Bank loan went to Nigerian youth employment hoping to decrease urban violence.
There will be a youth employment part of the Africa Union summit on employment in Ouagadougou in 2004, also one on youth enterprise development in Australia this winter organized by Trinidad. World Bank President James Wolfenson met with young people for a two-day meeting in Paris 2 weeks ago.
Steve Miller also mentioned that youth meet with each other about youth issues in larger youth fora, but they are only talking to themselves and not policy makers. He mentioned said young people must be involved in the processes of these network creation in order to hear their expectations. He emphasized that the Ministry of Labor, or Intl. Affairs, and of Youth, must work together to coordinate the YEN initiative.
It was a good thing Beenash and I were there. We were the only youth that spoke (besides a young looking delegate from Azerbajan), and were 2/3 of the women that spoke (though women were half the meeting). We got contact info for the NY office of the YEN, to help connect youth orgs in with their government’s national action plans, and whatever else may come up. This could be a project for this fall.
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