Launch of the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth
1 February 2016 - The Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth (DJ4Y) was launched today in New York, under the auspices of the ECOSOC Youth Forum 2016, with more than twenty Ministers of Youth and over 500 youth delegates in attendance. FAO has actively contributed to the development of such Initiative, which includes a focus on promoting decent employment opportunities for young people in agriculture and in the rural economy. DJ4Y had been previously endorsed by UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) in November 2015.
Led by the ILO, the Initiative is the first ever UN system-wide effort to scale up action in support of youth employment, involving in its development 19 entities of the United Nations, among which: FAO, UNIDO, UNICEF, UNESCO, UNDESA, World Bank, as well as the Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth. FAO has fully endorsed the Initiative, considering it an example of how support for youth employment and poverty reduction could be pushed to scale in a coordinated and coherent manner.
FAO is also part of the DJ4Y kick-off team and will be leading one of the eight thematic areas of the implementation strategy, namely the one on Youth in the Rural Economy, while contributing to others.
More specifically, the Initiative will be operationalized in the following ways:
- A strategic multi-stakeholder alliance – engaging stakeholders and world leaders in high-level policy action on youth employment;
- Expanded and scaled up regional and country level action on decent jobs for youth;
- Knowledge facility on decent jobs for youth – pooling existing expertise and enhancing knowledge development and dissemination of what works for youth employment;
- Funding modalities and resource mobilization – leveraging resources from existing facilities and mobilizing additional resources.
DJ4Y is extremely timely, youth unemployment representing one of the biggest global challenges, with two in five (42.6 per cent) youth being unemployed or working, yet living in poverty. Given its mandate on rural poverty reduction, FAO is committed to creating decent employment opportunities for youth in rural areas and considers this a key aspect of addressing, directly or indirectly, interconnected global issues like food and nutrition security, migration, sustainability of food systems, climate change adaptation and mitigation, etc.
In particular, FAO has developed a specific Rural Youth Employment programme of work to foster a strong enabling environment in which young people can thrive and seize current and future decent rural employment opportunities through policy assistance, awareness-raising and operations in countries.
Related Resources:
> Draft Strategy for Global initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth
> Programme of the ECOSOC Youth Forum 2016
> Video: The Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth
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