“I am sorry, I am so very sorry, I did not mean to be disrespectful,” the young man says as soon as he has blurted his story out. He fidgets nervously with his little notepad. He is young, but the deep lines that crease his face reveal the hard life he has led. This is his story: “Do you know what it is like to wake up feeling ashamed every morning, feeling deeply ashamed that I cannot help support my aging parents,” he says, “that I cannot go and buy a bit of fruit for my little sister since I do not have a single coin in my pocket? I went to school, I did well, I went to university, I did even better but what was it good for? Nothing! Here I am, I cannot afford to get married. I cannot even look my mother in the eyes as I spend the nights in the street drowning my sorrows.” The young man lifts his head, his eyes welling up with tears. “I have been stripped of my manhood, or maybe I should say, I was never even allowed to become a man.” He lowers his voice as it begins to crack up. “I am 29 years old and I literally feel like I am slowly dying. Dying.”
The five other young people around the table silently nod, and as we have all been moved by his heartfelt honesty, we decide to take a short break. I go into another room to compose myself and reflect for a couple of minutes. The young man’s words came from a place of pain, frustration, and despair. I have met many young people across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region expressing these sentiments, and it takes a toll to see these young, intelligent people with enormous potential simply wither away because they are not given a chance to become productive citizens. I take a deep breath and return to the table, but the young man has already left.
I decide to wrap up the consultation with the remaining participants, and together we discuss the challenging issue of youth unemployment. We say our farewells and as they leave, a quiet girl with beautiful almond-shaped eyes looked at me and says: “Ma’am, even if we acquire the right skills, even if new jobs are created, what does it matter if I do not carry the ‘right’ family name? My less talented classmate with better connections will end up landing the job anyway.”
This episode provides the human story behind the statistics of long-term youth unemployment in the Middle East. As suggested in the forthcoming flagship report on jobs in MENA, youth need to succeed in a “double transition”: first, they need to obtain relevant skills and credentials that make them employable, and second, they have to find a job in a notoriously non-meritocratic labor market.
So far, the impediments can be attributed to low-quality education, irrelevant skills, and inequity based on class, privilege and family connections as opposed to ability, talent and achievement. In addition, there is also an issue of expectations mismatch between a graduate’s skill and the reality of the labor market.
The recent paper prepared in support of the development of the MENA Social Protection Strategy presents a dilemma many youth face as they queue for public sector jobs while resorting to informal employment to support themselves. Unfortunately, this reality prolongs their exclusion from the formal labor market. It also distorts skills formation, as the young study to acquire specializations that are not in line with private sector demand but serve the coveted public sector instead.
At the same time, labor regulations in the region contribute to the protection of labor market insiders, i.e. those who already hold a good job, such as prime age male workers in formal employment. This protection comes at the expense of new entrants to the labor market, such as women and youth.
Unfortunately, there are no easy or quick solutions. However, our team used face-to-face consultations to take the pulse on the region’s views on the issue of youth unemployment. Participants emphasized the need to discuss both practical and cultural constraints to female labor market participation. They also discussed the need to provide the youth with skills (entrepreneurial and other) relevant to the region and the rest of the world.
The following were some views from government, academia, and civil society representatives in Beirut and Tunis:
“Look how the youth used the internet (social media) to make a change, they are so much more creative and connected than the preceding generation. If they can also acquire business skills they can channel this creativity and inter-connectedness into businesses and help the economy boom”
“As soon as the young women get married they have children and give up work for many years to come, probably because they are expected to stay home but even if they want to work, there is no good childcare”
“We have many youth and new jobs are not created. We need to find our countries’ comparative advantages and invest in those industries, whether its tourism or outsourced call centers, while providing the youth with skills within the emerging markets.”
“The Arab world is facing a very serious problem with the quality of education both at the tertiary level and higher education and…because of this...we have problems with employment and employability.”
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Great points made and great ambitions for looking at strategy in this well thought out post. Some problems that remain in current economic productivity thinking relate to measurability: can we measure the issues that matter and if we are missing some, how do we account for them? For starters, youth in MENA need income and a fair chance in the (skilled) labor market. However, participation and empowerment... do not stop here, in fact, they start at this precise point. Appreciating that working towards achieving the first two goals you outline in this post is going to be a tremendous achievement, how do you think this can be realized while retaining a focus on productivity, rather than a larger, culture-wide appreciation of less easy to change (and less easy measureable) issues of national identity and cultural biases?
Read more Read lessThank you for sharing this, I was very moved, especially as this could have been my own brother. I am happy that we can continue the discussion we started with your first blog. As a Middle Easterner studying in the US I would like to again point out that although there are certainly many good things with our education back home - two things need to change right away. 1. We need to be more encouraged... to think critically, to question and come up with our own theories -- (matter a fact I wish that the US educational system would also become better at encouraging critical thinking also, although that is not the topic here..). To only learn by heart and repeat will not help us push the Middle East region forward. The young have many solutions and ideas, let us explore those, the older person should not automatically be asumed to have the right answers. 2. I love the fact that in the US you can do an internship one semester and gain practical experience, and get a better idea what field you want to be in. You can learn about how the job place works. I strongly encourage the World Bank to work with our governments in the field of internship experiences. Home we can not get credit to do this, we will just be considered wasting time. If these two points are addressed we will have young people that are more ready for work. Thank you for listening to our views. Zineb
Read more Read lessThe gentleman's story in the beginning is a mirror where most young men in the Middle East will see themselves at. In my Country, Egypt, these same words and feelings are shared among young Egyptians especially men. The issue of connections, favoritism is also very common as part of the lack of governance and integrity we suffer from. As precisely said by the young girl in your consultation, most of... the times, connections work much better than skills, potentials and academic merits. There is a shocking landmark incident in Egypt we all recall, a young bright man, graduated first of his class in the Faculty of Economy and Political Science in Egypt. He applied to be a Diplomat in the Ministry of External Affairs and smartly passed all written and oral exams. However, he was rejected eventually with a bold discriminatory justification “socially unsuitable" because his father is a doorman. The graduate gentleman committed suicide. As finely and fairly elaborated in your blog, the challenge of unemployment is inter weaved and complicated. Solving it requires solving lots of other challenges such as integrity, role of law, governance, skills relevance etc etc . I believe you are already doing great consulting with the mass common people of the Middle East; a great smart step to go, Good luck with this and effort is appreciated deeply.
Read more Read lessDear Amina, Great article! I share your passion on this issue and, as has been said already, there's more to youth development then jobs. On one side, youth in the MENA region will definitely benefit from skills training programs in order to find a job. In your article, you keep mentioning "they need to.." forgetting to take the responsibility of the governments, universities and businesses into account.... "They need to", on the other side, get the freedom/ right of their environment to enjoy their civil responsibilities to take ownership of their own country and future. Authoritarian countries, such as in the Middle East, tend to perceive its population as mere recipients of whatever the government is prepared to "give". So how will you make sure that the government let youth have a say in their own future as well(instead of treating them as recipients of different programs that will run out of money some day)? Lets keep this discussion alive and I'm confident that the road to success in this is by working slowly but together (great first step forward).
Read more Read lessI am writing to present the views of young people with disabilities in the Middle East region. It is true that youth in the Middle East suffer in general because of their lack of inclusion in the economic sphere (and elsewhere) but imagine the additional challenges us with disabilities have to go through. International organizations, such as the World Bank, speak much about inclusive development, social... inclusion, and socio economic rights. Unfortunately we recently found out that the topic of ‘disability mainstreaming’ had been dropped from a World Bank concept note paper on Youth Employment in the MENA region. Given that the World Bank leadership is actually beginning to address issues of social accountability and taking steps in this direction, the fact that this topic was dropped is very unfortunate. On behalf of 10-20 percent of MENA youth cohort, I would like to say that the right of disabled youth to employment is refused in its totality if we are ignored at the first stage of the very papers that are supposed to influence our governments in regards to –inclusive- youth unemployment. • We urge the Bank leadership to take necessary measure to abide by its policy toward social accountability, and maybe expand to issues of economic accountability through recognizing necessary standards for ensuring an accessible labor market that would grant disabled youth an equal opportunity to employment and participation in the economic development of their countries. • We urge the World Bank to when working on policy programs with our governments, that you try to stress the need for allocating sufficient resources for inclusive vocational rehabilitation for this group of marginalized young women and men, so that they can find their way through the labor market. Thank you.
Read more Read lessThanks Amina for sharing. I have been working in youth employment in Yemen in the last 10 Years, especially females. There are some project strategies that i do believe they work beautifully: 1) Youth shouldn't be treated as part of problem but part of solution, they should start to participate in decision making in national strategies that goes beyond just taking their opinion on things. THis could... be through organized youth councils. 2) Self-employment is a key. Most of Young males and females still looking for routine job at government or if they are progressive at private sector but still not have the vision, ambition, courage to open their own business. Hence this should be encouraged through trainings, business incubations , facilitated micro finances with less benefits for start up projects by youth. Youth should be feel less sympathetic and more responsible. 3) Encourage females towards self employment in competitive environment with males. Through our program called "Khadija" - who is the first business muslim women and prophets wife- here women were provided with assistance , yet were put in competitive environments that sharpen their confidence and leadership skills to compete in job market. 4) Internships and i agree with Zenib above. Summer internships for university youth is a great way to bridge gab between education and job market. Thank you.
Read more Read lessThank you for this second blog. We are the same group of Georgetown students with Arab background that were part of the previous discussion. We are excited to read also this beautifully written and very sad blog. The blog emphasizes the many angles to youth unemployment. I will mention a very underlying problem. Let me begin by shareing an Arabic proverb:"A jug can pour forth only what it contains....."And... I can only agree with what Zainab above said: :that the young have many solutions and ideas" that young people need to be given the freedom to think freely, to develop their own thoughts from childhood and onwards throughout their education, both at home and in school. They need to be given the tools to learn to work together in a fair and juste manner, where everyones voice is heard - regardless if you are old or young, regardless of ethnical background or religion. We had a beautiful system of sharing knowledge at the times of the Moores, in Southern Spain - where knowledge aquisition and knwoledge sharing was highly valued. We translated books from all languages and we worked together from all religions, Muslim, Jewsih, Christian. We need to get back to that spirit! It is inside of us and part of our culture, we just put it on the shelf for a while. If we do, we will end up with more creative citizens that will push their communities and nations forward through INNOVATION. Through the revolutions across this part of the world, the young generation have already showed their urge for change.BUT this dilemma is something we have to deal with on our own -- introspection-- it is our own internal struggle that we must and have an obligation to revisit. All societies go through it and it is only by using internal role models that we can achieve substantial change.1) We hope that when the World Bank works in our countries that you recruit and work with local experts, that you harness our own internal knowledge and expertise as much as possible. And more importantly.2) We ask that you do not again become confidantes with the corrupt old men and women of the system -- but that you try to work with the new generation. We are the only ones that can ever achieve substantial change in our countries -- because we are the only ones that truly care.3) Finally: yes thanks to the World Banks tremendous technical expertise and wealth of global knowledge, but no thanks to loans, we are already very indepthed, please do not add to our (the next genersations) burden.Nevertheless: we are happy you are reaching out to us and that you seem to care. I read several negative or rather sceptical comments to the previous blog, and it must feel to you at the World Bank, "damned if you do and damned if you don't"... at least we appreciate this seeming effort to also improve the workings of your own institution, and we do appreciate the World Banks achievements in our region in contributing to protecting the poorest and ensuring education also in remote rural areas.
Read more Read lessFor me i feel interested with the 'women' word mentioned here and there in what i read above....... the frustration among young men is understood, but sometimes i feel it takes a woman to understand what double frustration a young woman can feel even in an era were we have an illusional view that finally women are achieving their rights..... once a professor at my class said : to be a poor class,... christian , woman is one of the worst situations you could be exposed to in egypt, i would say in all arab countries...... i dont wanna drift into policy , but policy project on unemployment issue in egypt ....... baseline if situation in general is difficult for youth regarding employment and chances of making a living, then situation would be worse for at risk groups and minorities, therefore, they should be given the extra mile attention..... youth and market also have to be redirected to jobs long forgotten in egypt, underprivileged jobs and still though highly needed in our society, some for examples but not all are : nurses, farmers, skillful workers such as woodcraft men and so on goes the list. Education measures in our society are only targeting high titled degrees but not highly qualified degrees regardless what title they carry as long as they give out actively productive individuals in the society ... market should also appreciate such jobs and pay it back with what it deserves, society should appreciate them the way it should , and youth should be directed to with no shame , it is not a taboo ...... it is about being cultured and knowledgeable , not only educated... knowing how to think and not simply what to think is the aim that youth, workforce, and society should be directed to ..... my salutations to the great efforts for change, they are never in vain.
Read more Read lessI would like to thank you all for your thoughtful and thought provoking comments. I wanted to take the time to respond to you the best I can: Dear Mohammed: Thank you very much for your candid and important comment and for bringing up the vital topic of youth living with disabilities in MENA and their additional challenges in accessing the labor market. We agree with you on the importance of working... towards ensuring that people living with disabilities also have access to the labor market. Your request that the World Bank stress the need for inclusive vocational rehabilitation in our interactions with governments was duly noted. Moreover, we thank you for pointing out the need for also us at the World Bank to become better at including the concerns of people with disabilities in our work. We will revisit past papers, but more importantly we will keep it in mind in our future work. Let me take the opportunity to mention a very interesting initiative that we are currently undertaking in this field: we are conducting a region-wide study aimed at acquiring a comprehensive overview over the public services (within the fields of education, health etc.) provided to people living with disabilities in MENA, our intention is to identify the gaps and opportunities and hopefully we will be able to provide some constructive policy recommendations on how public service-delivery can be improved. We also hope you have had an opportunity to look at the World Report on Disability, produced in collaboration with WHO, which has contributed to the international discourse on disability and development (amongst many things the report fills major gaps when it comes to labor ad recommends clear implementable actions). We hope that you continue to contribute to the discussion, your perspectives are important. Dear Hayat: Many thanks for your feed-back and for sharing your pivotal concerns. I fully agree with you on your point that it is certainly not only the responsibility of the young to acquire the right skills etc. Governments, the private sector and universities do as you said have a tremendous responsibility. One way of addressing the concerns you highlighted is to work towards programs that provide students/program beneficiaries with transferrable skills, including soft skills (team work, problem solving, leadership skills etc) – skills that will be relevant today and also 15 years down the line. Skills that will further equip this new and already creative generation with the tools to eventually contribute to sustainable and equitable development from the community level and up. But in addition, we fully agree on the need to strengthen civil liberties and citizen participation (not only in the region, by the way). The winds of change have already begun in the MENA region and we need to make sure that we use this positively. We are engaged in several pilot programs to foster citizen monitoring and co-governance of public services, for example: in Tunisia, a survey in the interior regions through so-called Citizen Score Cards is already underway; in Egypt we are ready to go to the field for a Citizen Score Card pilot in primary health and in Morocco, we have helped design such a pilot for lower secondary education (not implemented yet). These are new approaches and still in their evaluation phase, but we will disseminate the results as soon as available. Dear Raghada: Thank you very much for your feed-back. Yes, this was a tragic story that symbolizes the fate of the unfortunate. As you said, the challenge of unemployment is very complicated because of the many layers to it. We are happy that you appreciate our effort in directly consulting citizens in MENA, in an attempt to better reflect your concerns in our work. Dear Zineb: Thank you for your concrete advice. Your first point touches upon the topic of the need to acquire soft skills (as also highlighted in my response to Zineb above) and the need for teaching that relies on analytical and critical thinking (which will allow students to further develop and use soft skills). I agree fully with your point, and this is something highlighted by private sector employers in the MENA region – who often mention the lack of skills – including soft skills – as one of the main challenges they face when recruiting new employees. Your second point is equally important: the need for internships/on-the-job training. We have duly noted that you encourage the World Bank to -in our interactions with governments- emphasize the need for policies that enable universities and schools to provide students with credits in order to take time off to acquire professional experience. This is indeed also a way to address another main concern of private sector employers in MENA – mainly the lack of work/practical experience when recruiting young people. We are currently undertaking an interesting pilot in Lebanon, where we are attempting to encourage youth volunteering at a national level (we work with universities and NGOs) – as a means for young people to acquire work-skills making them more employable.
Read more Read lessThe story of the gentleman above seems a recurrent theme in Egypt amongst many ladies and gentlemen. Egypt is a country with very volatile economic conditions and thus the labor market is constantly deteriorating. Flexibility is the key to this dilemma. Egypt is a country where no one works with his/hers degree. It is ok to work with your talent or skill. It is ok to teach a language that you are proficient... in. It is ok to work part time or freelance. Changing ones behavior aspiring to constantly develop ones skills is the key in this very challenging Egyptian labor market. It worked for me and I hope it will work for others as well.
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