This report clearly details the complex challenges facing young people across the Arab world. Among these great challenges is employment — or the lack of it.
The MENA region faces one of the highest rates of youth unemployment and underemployment in the world. Creating the required number of new jobs over the next two decades will be monumentally difficult. Even more young people have been forced into unemployment, low-quality jobs, and living “on the margins” as a result of the weakened global economic climate.
The global economic crisis hits the MENA region at a time when the youth share of the total population is at a high point, with nearly one-third of MENA residents between the ages of 15 and 29.
2. Special thanks to the Global Partnership
for Youth Investment for its support of
and contributions to this report.
TM
Front Cover Photos: Top right, Bottom left and right: courtesy of Elaine Little
Adjacent Page Photo: courtesy of Elaine Little
3. e Silatech Index: Voices of Young Arabs
January 2010
Young People...Enterprise...Employment...
16. “It is important to build on traditional values to
improve attitudes toward various types of work,
gender norms, and family and community support
that accelerate young people’s meaningful
engagement in society and the economy.”
17. Section 1
eory Behind Mindset, Access, and Policy
Young People...Enterprise...Employment...
34. “Widespread perceptions of corruption are
strongly associated with lower Mindset, Access,
and Policy index scores, suggesting a link
between labor productivity and people’s perceived
fairness of a country’s overall system.”