Middle East and North Africa Regional Meeting

Youth Leadership:

            Challenges:

·         Lack of youth awareness for sustainable development

·         No vision/agenda for empowering youth from the governments

·         A severe education problem in Arab Countries.

Opportunities:

·         Rebrain-drain: existence of youth human capital in Arab countries.

·         Regeneration of decision makers.

·         Strong networking and link among Arabs.

Recommendations:

·         Reforming the education system.

·         Youth being decision makers rather than decision takers.

·         Supporting and facilitating youth led projects/initiatives.

Health and Environment:

            Challenges:

·         Air pollution coming from Car Gas emissions (Cairo being the most polluted city in the Arab World) and financial institutions facilitate the process of acquiring a car (as in Algeria).

·         Foreign investments on projects often harm the environment (as in Morocco).

·         Desertification (the sand of the Sahara is moving to the north creating an imbalance in the ecosystems) which is going on in Algeria and Morocco.

·         The lack of environmental educational programs in schools.

·         The immense lack of awareness of AIDS.

Recommendations:

·         To allocate a part of the health and environment ministries to support the successful youth projects as well as raising awareness campaigns towards health and environment in associations, organizations and youth initiatives.

·         To put end to the governmental bureaucracy (for instance, delivering accreditations to organizations and youth initiatives in order to hold the environmental and health raising awareness campaigns in schools).

·         To intensify the teaching of environmental programs in schools in the framework of the educational system in the field of environment and health (non-formal education).

·         To mentor and supervise the multinational companies operating in the fields of cleaning in order to perform their work the best way as well as imposing a rate of the profits of these companies in order to fund and support environmental and health issues led by youth in the Arab countries.

·         Not only to hear the youth but rather putting their ideas into action.

Peace and Intercultural Dialogue

            Challenges:

·         Lack of government action towards ending of segregation to secure and protect their positions for economic and politic reasons.

·         The negative effect of Media which plays a large role in forming the general opinions.

Opportunities:

·         Freedom of expression.

·         Encouraging more exchange programs so they can share their knowledge.

·         Hosting more youth conferences.

Recommendations:

·         Encouraging the learning of the languages in a single country.

·         Increase youth assemblies and encouraging the uncensored public opinion.

The Three Main Recommendations:

1. Opportunities for inter-youth communication and understanding through:
   1. Increased exchange programs
   2. Establishing pen-pal curriculum in schools.
   3. Increase second language learning including other national languages.

2. Encourage youth to change public images and prejudices through:
   1. Youth led media.
   2. Increased youth assemblies with public opinion which is voiced and taken into consideration by government (local + national).

3. To allocate a part of the health and environment ministries to support the successful youth projects as well as raising awareness campaigns towards health and environment in associations, organization and youth initiatives.