"Young and Out of Work in the Middle East: With 25 Percent Unemployed Youth, Dubai's Harvard Affiliate Reaches Out"

ABC News did a recent article about a new Brookings (Wolfensohn Center) / Dubai School of Government initiative called the "Middle East Youth Initiative" - and which is on the web at http://www.shababinclusion.org

Why Shabab? "Shabab" is a popular word in Arabic which means youth. The MEYI effort seeks "to better understand and respond to the changing needs of young people in the Middle East. " The key sponsor of the initiative, James Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank, has written that:

No task is more urgent than providing hope to the 100 million young people between the ages of 15 and 29 in the Middle East. If we provide them with the opportunity to lead constructive lives, they will build an exciting area of prosperity, stability and hope. If they are frustrated and are unable to find work and build their families, there will be unrest, dissension and very possibly violence.

We see some great opportunities to use the web to help the MEYI reach and engage with key audiences around these issues both in the Middle East and elsewhere. We're working with the initiative with its web efforts at http://www.shababinclusion.org

Brookings is also hosting an event in Washington DC on the issue of youth in the Middle East, entitled, "From Oil Boom to Youth Boon: Tapping the Middle East Demographic Gift", Monday, January 07, 2008, 2:30 PM to 5:00 PM. Info and registration.

The recent ABC news coverage goes into some detail about the issue and views on it. Some excerpts:

Youth unemployment in the region is 25 percent — the highest for any part of the world, and well above the global average of 14 percent. In Egypt today, it means 1.15 million young people out of work; in Iran, there are 1.3 million.

Whether there is a direct link from youth employment to political violence is a matter of ongoing debate. Even so, the prospect of 100 million idle or marginalized people between the ages of 15 and 29 — 30 percent of the Middle East population — is of major concern to those watching and living in the region.

Instead of progressing into adulthood, many Middle Easterners find themselves in what the DSG calls "waithood," an idle holding pattern in which teens and twentysomethings continue to live with their parents. Though highly educated, they lack a productive, professional outlet for their energies. As a result, alternatives ranging from migration to the West to engagement in extremist activity, become relatively more appealing.

The DSG (Dubai School of Government) in partnership with the Washington-based Brookings Institution, created the Middle East Youth Initiative to generate ideas and advise governments on a practical action plan to expand opportunity for the young. They launched a Web site, shababinclusion.org ("shabab" meaning "youth" in Arabic), specifically to connect with the target demographic.

Such regional problem solving could not come at a better time, says Marcus Noland, an economist, unaffiliated with the program. Noland, author of "Arab Economies in a Changing World," and formerly on the President's Council of Economic Advisors, said the economic future of the Middle East is in a position to go either very right or very wrong in the next generation. The outcome depends on whether Arab governments can create new youth-oriented opportunities in the years ahead.

"If they get it right and are able to productively absorb all that young labor, you're going to hit a period in which the Middle East will look a lot like East Asia in the 1970s — you'll have a big bulge if the labor force is going to be in its prime working years," Noland said.

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