Over the next 20 years, 80 million jobs will be needed for the unemployed across the Middle East and North Africa. Masses of jobless young Arabs represent a tragic waste of human potential and threaten regional harmony and security. For too long, government intervention has been seen as the solution. But meaningful employment can only come from real private sector growth. Is it not time to look to business leaders for the practical vision to tackle this crisis?
The recent Dead Sea meeting of the World Economic Forum focused on economic diversification, growth, and peace. There is widespread agreement on the vital role of business leaders in creating employment and new enterprise opportunities in their business activities.
They need to bring their entrepreneurial drive to the task of job creation -- with targets based on the size of their work force.
There is talk of what should be done, and too little practical action building on existing good practices.
Bad news dominates media messages from this region. But there are positive examples of company initiatives that have been creating significant jobs in their value chains and business-focused community outreach.
The challenge is to scale up the good practices and inspire many more business leaders to collaborate.
With leadership, this could deliver a massive boost for sustainable job creation. Of course, alongside this, governments need to loosen up the economies to promote enterprise growth -- particularly to help microbusinesses, which are so critical to the delivery of new jobs. They need to refocus education so that teaching is better fitted to deliver skills employers need. According to a prediction by the Arab Labor Organization, more than 32 million people will be looking for jobs in Arab states by 2010. The UN and World Bank have forecast the jobs needed for the growing numbers of school leavers, alongside the unemployed in the MENA region as 80 million over 20 years! It's a daunting challenge.
But there are many good examples of what can be done in a report published this month by the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) with the support of the Young Arab Leaders, Emirates Environmental Group, Young Entrepreneurs Association, the UN Development Program and a consortium of companies. An analysis of success factors in over 20 private-sector led projects from Morocco and Lebanon to Saudi Arabia and Jordan shows that, with leadership vision, companies can achieve much to create jobs within their core business activities. This not only helps their reputation as good corporate citizens: It also helps their business.
First, businesses can help by offering far more work experience and training to school leavers. This helps fit young people for work -- a key problem in this region, where there is so often a mismatch between the skills delivered by education, and what employers seek. Dubai Aluminum Company organized pre-employment courses in a project that doubled employment of national youngsters, including women.
Secondly, businesses can look around their activities to find ways to stimulate new jobs linked to their activities and distribution chains. Sekem Group in Egypt enabled 2,000 small farmers and their 6,000 dependents to find livelihoods in higher value agricultural production as well as education access.
Abdul Latif Jameel Company has developed a series of community programs committed to promoting annual opportunities for thousands of young Saudi men and women. One involved building a new cadre of local taxi owner-drivers by making easily accessible auto finance loans available. Another, focused on small businesses, with microfinance style loans alongside training to match the required skill sets of the labor market, and particularly targeted at women, will create more than 16,000 new job opportunities this year alone. On a wider scale The Grameen-Jameel Pan Arab initiative has targeted the creation of one million jobs through a microcredit program by 2011. Over 200,000 clients will be reached through guarantees to microcredit institutions by the initiative by the end of 2007.
Thirdly, business can collaborate through education and training partnerships to improve vocational training and linkages. INJAZ works across the region and has mobilized private sector mentoring for over 60,000 students. The Jordan Education Initiative, stimulated by the World Economic Forum, Cisco Systems and others, is delivering curriculum access and Information Technology to schools and over 50,000 students across the nation.
Finally, companies can mount outreach programs to offer skills to sustainable community programs that stimulate new enterprise. Some can train unemployed youngsters for areas of the economy where there are skills shortages -- such as services, information technology and craft skills.
The IBLF's Centennial Fund youth business program in Saudi Arabia, and the soon-to-be launched Youth Careers Initiative in Jordan's hotel sector, are two such platforms for private sector mentoring.
In another initiative, the Sawiris Foundation, supported by Orascom in Egypt, has trained almost one thousand graduates to fill nursing vacancies.
Supporting sustainable economic and enterprise development for young people makes good business sense. Business activities and priorities must be aligned with the enterprise needs of the Middle East. We will make the greatest impact where we move beyond discussion and donations, and apply our business skills and strategic mindset.
And we need to work together, in partnership with other businesses, with government, and with the voluntary sector. Finding 80 million jobs is a daunting challenge -- it requires us all to pool our resources to help. But what greater resource does the business sector have than its spirit of enterprise, adaptability and willingness to learn from models that have been shown to work?
By Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel & Robert Davies
© Arab News 2007
