By Shahd Alhamdan
Saudi Gazette
AMMAN — The MENA region must create 60 million jobs by 2020 for young generations that will be looking to enter the workforce, according to experts at the ongoing AMWAJ 2016 forum in Amman, Jordan.
Amwaj, “waves” in Arabic, focuses on offering socially innovative ideas, sharing best practices, and finding practical solutions to build inclusive societies for a sustainable future in the MENA region.
The forum brings together leaders in environmental sustainability, social entrepreneurs and media to create a socially responsible community, both in water and energy conservation as well as social innovation.
During AMWAJ, which is an international sustainability and entrepreneurship forum organized by PepsiCo and Revolve Media, the UN Secretary General Envoy for Youth, Ahmad Al Hindawi, said that the challenges that people face in the region revolve primarily around peace and security, education, employment, and participation. He said the region continues to have the lowest percentage of youth participation in formal political process and one of the highest rates of protesting youth in the world.
"I always say that for this region to unlock the power of the youth has to do few simple things. 60 million jobs can't be created by year 2020 by governments right? I think even this public private partnership cannot generate this number of jobs, so what we are telling people is to stop writing CVs and start writing business plans. Stop looking for jobs and start inventing jobs," Al Hindawi said.
He added that young people want to align themselves to companies that do things for society, while others do not want to work at companies anymore.
He mentioned that one of the biggest challenges for companies in the future would be attracting young talents, because most of them want to start their own business and be an entrepreneur.
"Today we have the largest generation of youth in history in this region. A little bit over 1 million, so the good news when it comes to sustainability is the generation are trying to work hard to find solutions to tackle over some of these challenges. When it comes to creating jobs for example there are a community of Arab young entrepreneurs," he said.
Director of the Brookings Doha Center, Tarik Yousef, who was speaking about the future of the political, social and economic Landscape in the region, said, "we are now fighting for our existence as societies."
He said the region’s economic recession was the largest issue, and will affect what a person is able to do.
