Youth Employment and Urban Renewal

1
Youth Employment and Urban Renewal

• UN-HABITAT Discussion paper for Expert Group
  meeting

2
Youth Employment and Urban Renewal

• UN Millennium Declaration to have achieved by
  2020, a significant improvement in the lives of
  at least 100 million slum dwellers.
• Youth issues are central to solving urbanization
  problems of the developing world
• highest rate of unemployment
• most vulnerable to social depredations

3
Challenges to Youth Employment

• Uncertain/declining economies
• Lack of skills among youth
• Diminished capacity of public sector to cater to
  youth employment
• Sustainability in self-employment in the youth
  sector
• Lack of recognition of youth as a resource

4
Opportunities for youth employment

• Public Sector
• hire youth in public administration or for public
  works
• providing vital social services already active
  in CSOs
• Globalization and world market expansion
  Municipalities can be pro-active in attracting
  global industries
• Informal sector expansion

5
Opportunities for youth employment

• Inter-sectoral Partnerships
• incentives to private sector to hire youth
• engage with CSOs on strategies to address urban
  youth unemployment
• linkages between civil society and the private
  sector in commercial ventures eg. communication
  services

6
UN-Habitat Urban Renewal

• Strategic vision 2003
• The city as an organizing agent for national
  development
• urban poverty slums not just about local
  improvement but of region-wide and national
  development policy
• YEN priorities directly address mandate
• to improve the lives of the urban poor, to
  foster sustainable urban development

7
UN-Habitat Urban Renewal

• New UN-HABITAT youth strategy
• mainstreaming youth in all of the Agencys
  programmes
• enhancing engagement of youth in national and
  local governance processes
• inclusion of a youth focus in urban renewal,
  including urban youth employment

8
An Employment Strategy for Urban Youth

• Local Authority Capacity Development
• ensure appreciation of urgency to address urban
  youth unemployment in planning urban development
• training programmes improve knowledge, skills
  and attitudes of local government civil society
  for slum dwellers
• Youth entrepreneurship
• Build marketable skills to tap natural creativity
  and innovation of young people

9
An Employment Strategy for Urban Youth

• Develop partnerships and linkages
• Partners involvement of youth in mainstream
  economic activity
• linkages between the formal and informal sector
• partnering to encourage and enable employment of
  young graduates
• provide models of attachment/internship
  strategies to encourage national and municipal
  levels

10
An Employment Strategy for Urban Youth

• Promote Information and Communication
  Technologies
• ICT revolution has by-passed the poorer urban
  population
• Promote ICT access in slums as a win-win strategy
  for youth employment
• increased social awareness, educational
  opportunities, access to employment information
• high quality jobs within the slums themselves

11
An Employment Strategy for Urban Youth

• Youth employment support services
• identify pilot initiatives to support governments
  in urban youth employment endeavours
• One-stop youth information resource centres An
  Employment Strategy for Urban Youth
• best practices database of youth employment
  initiatives at the local, national, regional and
  global levels