Governments in the Arabian Gulf must provide more attractive jobs for young people, or face a disaffected generation with little faith in its rulers, according to Mohamed Abdel Ahad, regional director for the Arab States at the United Nations Population Fund.
The most important task ahead for Gulf governments, said Mr Abdel Ahad on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s Summit on the Global Agenda in Abu Dhabi, is “to engage young people in attractive jobs, and to promote civic participation and political participation in young people”.
"When I talk to government officials in the Gulf, they always say that young people are not very attracted to the kind of jobs that they offer. So they must invest now in that type of work – in private sector work, and entrepreneurship," he said.
“The new generation is different to the older generation, but most government positions are occupied by senior staff. That gap exists. We need to bridge that gap, and encourage dialogue between the generations.”
Governments also need to invest in “reproductive rights – the right for couples and individuals to choose the number, timing and spacing of their children”, Mr Abdel Ahad said, adding that this allows families to plan effectively, and to increase their savings.
Political unrest is the cost of inaction, Mr Abdel Ahad said. The Arab Spring was the result of “the lack opportunities for young people, the lack of civic engagement, participation, marginalisation, and the lack of social inclusion”.
High fertility rates and declining mortality rates mean that the Arab world now has a very young population. Thirty per cent of the region’s population is between the age of 15 and 29, and 64 per cent of the region’s population is aged between 18 and 64, the working age. This means that the Middle East has a low dependency ratio – the ratio of people of working age to those outside it.
This surfeit of young people creates an “demographic window of opportunity” for Gulf states, Mr Abdel Ahad said. Welfare states become less costly to administer when the dependency ratio is low – as it is in the Gulf.
But for these benefits to be reaped, governments must help to foster jobs that young people actually want.
“There is now a high level of exposure among young people to developments, advancements in the world, to social models in the rest of the world,” Mr Abdel Ahad said.
“So expectations are very high.”
abouyamourn@thenational.ae
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