DOHA YOUNG Arab entrepreneurs need more intervention programmes in order to maximise their potentials, Abdullah al Ali al Nuaim, chairman and president of Arab Urban Development Institute has said.
Speaking at the opening of Silatech’s annual regional conference on ‘Arab Youth and Entrepreneurship’ on Saturday, Nuaim said unemployment rate among Arab youth continued to grow due to inadequate intervention programmes that create real solutions to their needs.
“Many countries in Arab region are undergoing hard times as a result of the economic recession. For a very long time, the region has been witnessing high rates of unemployment among its youth, especially university graduates, which has increased after the recent Arab Spring.
“The intervention programmes that were developed over the past decade may have benefited individual participants, they have not created a tangible change in the overall situation. Hence, there is urgent need to look for innovative ways to create entrepreneurship opportunities,” he said.
The three-day conference titled ‘Holistic Approaches to Nurturing Local Ecosystems’ is being organised by Silatech in partnership with the Arab Urban Development Institute (AUDI), Global Partnership for Youth Employment (GPYE), the World Bank and the Doha Municipality.
The meet aims to identify ways of improving local systems to increase entrepreneurial opportunities for youngsters in the region.
Revealing the result of the recent unemployment study conducted in Tunisia, Aleppo, and Tripoli in Lebanon, Osman Nour of MENA Child and Youth initiative said, “The study showed that 25 percent of youth are unemployed, which is considered one of the highest rates in the world. The study also revealed that these areas lacked proper education, training and career services.
“More than 50 percent of youth found their jobs through relatives, which means that a lot of them end up working in the field not related to their areas of study.” Fadi Ghandour, founder and vice-chairman of Aramex and Ruwwad for Development, stressed the need for collaboration among the private and public sectors on building entrepreneurship and empowering individuals.
“I challenge the public sector to be more proactive on youth empowerment and the private sector to go beyond maximising profit and participate in the development of our societies,” he explained.
He also highlighted the need for a better education system to produce real entrepreneurs as well as opportunities.
“Starting with education; entrepreneurship is learned, if we do not have an adequate system that creates well educated and intelligent generations, we cannot solve the problem,” he added.
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