Government officials from UN-ESCWA member countries, including heads of national youth councils entrusted with national youth strategies and programmes, met in Abu-Dhabi to discuss better integrating youth in the development agenda. Discussions were held under the umbrella of the expert group meeting on "Reinforcing Social Equity: Integrating Youth into the Development Process" co-organized by UN-ESCWA and the Family Development Foundation in the United Arab Emirates on 29-31 March 2009.
The meeting also brought together noted experts in the fields of social sciences and economics, researchers from national and regional centres specializing in population and development, and experts from non-governmental organizations working on youth policies and issues. Although member countries have committed themselves to international resolutions related to formulating youth policies and to supporting youth to reach their full potentials, they still lag behind compared to the East Asian and Southeast Asian countries.
This can be attributed to certain political, economic and technical factors, including the absence of a favourable national and regional context for identifying the needs and priorities of youth at all levels (rural, urban and local); and the absence of a contemporary vision, in which the role of youth in the society could be specified. Youth Bulge The meeting aimed at achieving long-term as well as timely objectives, considering youth as a distinct socio-demographic group that has specific needs and that sometimes faces unique challenges.
''Youth population in the age group of 15-24 years in the Arab World is set to rise to 79 million by 2015", UN-ESCWA Executive Secretary Bader Omar AlDafa said in the meeting. This will pose a big challenge to Arab governments, which will have to re-examine their development strategies. The meeting recommended that these governments adopt a new approach to youth issues and a national youth strategy based on citizenship, rights and obligations and centered around the human element in development.
