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WASHINGTON, August 12, 2015—To mark International Youth Day,the Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE) coalition is launching an ambitious five-year strategy that will tackle major challenges of youth employment worldwide.
S4YE is a global coalition of civil society actors, government officials, foundations, private sector entities, international organizations, and young people that seeks to fill the gap in youth employment. The initiative was launched in October 2014.
The strategy – first of three to be developed during the 15-year initiative – has a bold target: to support 150 million youth across the world by 2030.
S4YE will enable innovative solutions at scale through practical research and active engagement with public and private stakeholders. The coalition combines a pragmatic approach to identifying solutions for youth employment with an evidence-based advocacy platform to increase access to productive work for young people.
While the youth employment challenge has a global scope, S4YE will focus its work its interventions where the youth employment challenge is a national priority, including the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia.
Unemployment figures are staggering. Over the next decade, a billion more people will enter the labour market and five million new jobs will need to be created each month to absorb them. 600 million youth globally are unemployed and not in school or receiving training. Youth are also three times more likely to be unemployed than adults.
"The World Bank Group’s twin goals are to eliminate extreme poverty and to boost shared prosperity for the bottom 40 percent of the population by 2030.Access to productive employment is the most effective way to share the growth dividend and escape poverty. Investing in employability for youth - especially the most disadvantaged - is an essential part of this process,” says Arup Banerji, World Bank’s Senior Director for Social Protection and Labor, and S4YE Board Member.
“We support this multi-stakeholder coalition which aims to provide leadership and catalytic action to mobilize efforts to increase the number of young people engaged in productive work."
The strategy also calls for increased attention for vulnerable youth and gender equality.
“The urgent and complex challenge of increasing youth employment cannot be solved without paying particular attention to inclusion of vulnerable youth, particularly young women” says Nigel Chapman, CEO of Plan International and S4YE Board member.
“Investing in and increasing their potential to enter into decent work contributes to economic development and overall social stability. Governments, civil society and the private sector need to work together to better identify the barriers against young girls’ preparation for, and entry into the workforce and address them with effective solutions. S4YE coalition will be one of the critical spaces to promote this work.”
Said Jill Huntley, managing director of Global Corporate Citizenship at Accenture, and S4YE Board Member, “We believe that tackling the youth employment and entrepreneurship challenges of our time requires cross-sector collaborations, which is why we are a founding private sector partner of S4YE. This strategy is ambitious and focused on action, investing in proven solutions that build the capabilities of young people and equip them with the skills they need to succeed.”
S4YE’s unique approach and framework for action will enable global coordination for local impact and an evidence-based use of resources. It calls on public, private, and civil sector actors to work together to integrate young people into the world of employment and share their expertise.
You can download the strategy here.
For more information about the coalition, please visit: www.s4ye.org
Join the conversation online at #jobs4youth
Media contacts:
Plan International (UK)
Davinder Kumar – Global Media Manager
Tel: +44(0)1483 733211
Mobile: +44(0)7773633835
Email:davinder.kumar@plan-international.org
For World Bank (Washington, U.S.)
Mohamad Al-Arief, +1-202-458-0119, malarief@worldbankgroup.org
Rama George-Alleyne, +1-202-458-2295, rgeorgealleyne@worldbankgroup.org
