Jobless youth seen as Mena region’s primary challenge

Rola Dashti, the former Kuwait minister of state planning, attributes youth unemployment to a dysfunctional education system, inherent skill mismatches, labour market rigidities and a growing labour force.

Persistent youth unemployment is identified as the number one regional challenge facing the Middle East and North Africa by WEF experts.

The issue features ahead of concerns about the political and social fall-out from the changes in the region over the past four years.

"Mena is the region of superlatives: though its workforce has grown at the fastest annual rate in the world [2.7 per cent in the past 10 years], youth unemployment is also the highest, at around 25 per cent of the population," Rola Dashti, the former Kuwait minister of state planning, told the WEF.

“The latter is a persistent problem, and has been identified as the biggest challenge Mena faces.”

Ms Dashti attributes youth unemployment to a dysfunctional education system, inherent skill mismatches, labour market rigidities and a growing labour force. “Unfortunately, this demographic asset has become a demographic burden,” she says.

“We need to start working on lowering that growth rate because it’s not going to be affordable — not only in terms of job creation but also in terms of the quality of life.”

Another issue of concern for the region is comparatively high levels of financial and business corruption, the WEF says.

“Unstable security situations, violence and armed conflicts have facilitated the spread of illicit flows and corrupt practices, many countries in the region have politically and financially invested in dealing with the imminent security threats rather than pour more resources in fighting corruption effectively,” says Ghada Zughayar, the Middle East director for Transparency International.

Both Ms Dashti and Ms Zughayer will be in something of a minority at the WEF event: among the 2,500 participants at the world’s most prestigious gathering of political and business leaders, just 17 per cent will be women, about the same as in the past two years, according to WEF estimates. The lack of progress shows the challenge facing organisers, who have advocated the forum as a place to give women a voice, according to Bloomberg.

“Women make up the majority of high-skilled talent,” says Saadia Zahidi, the head of the WEF women leaders and gender parity programme. “But everyone is struggling with how to get this right.”

Female participants will be highest among representatives of China and North America, with women making up more than 20 per cent of delegates. Media and academia have the highest female representation, at about a quarter, while less than 10 per cent of private investors and energy industry leaders are women.

“The World Economic Forum statistics are not an exception; they reflect this broader social problem,” says Kim Samuel- Johnson, the director of The Samuel Group of companies and a professor at McGill University in Canada. “But, I’ve been encouraged to see a lot more women here over the years in their own capacity as leaders and from a wide range of sectors.”

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