Regional High-Level Meeting on Young People's Learning, Skilling and Transition to Decent Work

The Regional Meeting is co-organized by four UN agencies: ILO, UNDP, UNFPA and UNICEF, under the umbrella of the Issue-based Coalition on Youth and Adolescents. It is being held in partnership with the Ministry of Labour in Jordan on 23 and 24 May 2022.

• Policymakers in the Middle East and North Africa region who are working in the sphere of learning to earning. This includes learning and skilling, the creation of jobs for young people and the linking of young people with decent work opportunities.
• The private sector, to forge partnerships necessary for job creation for young people, introducing technical and life skills to young people and moving them from learning and education to earning and becoming the impactful citizens this region needs.
• Young people themselves, to showcase not only the challenges and concerns they have but also their skills, and achievements and how those can be utilized across the region towards realizing a full potential.
• UN agencies ,civil society and workers unions.

• Exchange of good practices in the transition from learning to earning for young people.
• Provide a platform for constructive engagement of young people in discussions with policymakers and stakeholders, including governments, the private sector, UN agencies, the civil society including NGOs.
• For the main stakeholders (policy makers, private sector and young people) to come with a set of commitments and action points from the different countries to further an agenda that prioritizes youth, their aspirations, needs and most importantly the creation of the space for fostering work opportunities for young people.

The young people participating in this meeting were selected from working groups and other activities engaged in the networks of the organizing agencies who have been working on projects in support of learning and young people. For diversity and wider impact, the selection was based on a number of criteria including gender, geographic location, socioeconomic background, their engagement in their communities and with their peers, refugees and host communities, and socioeconomic groups.

Youth are the core and the beating heart of this event. The role of youth is two folds:

• Youth advisory group: young people who were part of the preparation of the event. Leading up to this event, we had three youth-led round tables: (1) education, (2) social protection, and (3) The Arab Forum for Sustainable Development. These were entirely led by youth, in which they engaged with stakeholders from governments, UN and private sector on these different topics. The outcomes of these round tables are feeding into the different sessions in the high-level meeting which in turn will formulate recommendations and action points to the Global Transforming Education Summit, an initiative of the UN Secretary-General, that will take place in September.
• Young people as part of the official national delegations which also includes government officials and the private sector, supported by a UN representative. These young people will be actively engaged throughout the two days and will feed into the different discussions and most importantly to the action plan and recommendations.

Eighteen countries are participating in the event with national delegations. These are: Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, The State of Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen.

While the physical participation is limited to the invited delegations, the event will be streamed online. You can follow the event, ask questions and take part in discussions on the links provided on this webpage.