60th Session of the Commission for Social Development: virtual side event on youth

Virtual side event on the margins of the Commission

"The role of youth in tackling poverty and hunger at local, regional and international level"

Statement by FAO

by Maximo Torero, FAO Chief Economist

Thank you very much for the kind invitation.

Excellencies, it is a pleasure to be here.

At present, almost 88 percent of the world's 1.2 billion youth live in developing countries, and globally, young people account for approximately 24 percent of the working poor. Let me repeat: 24 percent of the working poor.

In 2019, before the pandemic, around one-fifth of the world's youth were not in employed, they do not have access to education or training, with young women outnumbering young men two to one.

Furthermore, youth unemployment rates were three times as high as those of adults.

The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated this already alarming situation, and intensified youth unemployment rates, the labour market vulnerabilities, and, of course, exacerbates even more the levels of inequality we have.

So, my dear friends, you are a consequence of our policy failure. We have failed, and we need to change this.

But you are at the same time an opportunity and the future energy of growth. With most young people living in developing countries, where agriculture is providing the main source of income, it is vital that they stay connected with the sector.

Youth are already involved but there is room for a lot more.

As recently noted by a report of the Committee on World Food Security, youth are on the frontlines to build the food systems of the future.

As I said before, they play a crucial role in rural sectors, and in the agricultural sector.

But this is not to transfer to you the responsibility. You should not be alone, and you are not alone.

We need to work together. And we need to help you to resolve our policy failure.

We need to assess the path, we need to look at what mistakes were done, and we need to look at where we worked well, where we had successes, and not let yourselves involve in the our exisiting bureaucracies.

Keep your flexibility, and always work based on evidence-based recommendations.

That is central: to have evidence on what you propose, on what you do, and try to bring science as much as possible to the decision and the way you want to move forward.

The challenges now are enormous.

I don't want to bring all the numbers of food insecurity that we have today.

But we clearly need innovation, we need thinking out of the box, we need to be disruptive to the traditional systems which have not worked.

And we need to transform, by all these means, our existing agri-food systems, which, no matter how resilient they have shown to be during the COVID-19 crisis, still we are not able to move people out of hunger and poverty as we should be doing.

What distinguishes this new generation of youth in youth and agriculture is the use of technology and innovation.

New perspectives and an eagerness to learn and apply the knowledge to foster change in their communities.

But we also need to help to build the skills that are required.

The world is evolving very fast. The digitalization and automation are moving very fast.

And the challenge we are facing now because of the closures of the schools across all developing countries is tremendous.

So, we need to work together to build those skillsets so we can have the human capital that is needed.

FAO is highly committed to support young people and jointly work with them to place them at the center of the rural transformation.

In 2019, we created the "Youth Committee", which I have the honor to chair, to tap into the potential of young employees and finding new and innovative ways of connecting young and youthful colleagues inside FAO. It is youth and youthfulness, so not necessarily you have to be young in age.

Last year, FAO also introduced "youth" as a cross cutting theme in its 2022-31 Strategic Framework to promote more systematic mainstreaming and operationalization of the youth-related issues in all the Organization's Programme Priority Areas.

And finally, in 2021, we also facilitated the launch of the movement that we call "World Food Forum", to foster youth-led engagement and action in support of agri-food systems transformation. And I really invite you to joint this movement. It is a movement of change, where we all work together.

Investing further in young people can yield substantial results in terms of poverty reduction, employment generation, food and nutrition security, and overall rural transformation, helping achieve the transformation to more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable agri-food systems for better production, better nutrition, better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind.

I look forward to hearing your ideas today, and let's please move forward and work together to achieve the 2030 Agenda.

A big change is needed, and youthfulness and youth need to be at the core of this. So, let's work together to achieve this.

Thank you.