Doha, Qatar: Dr. Pawan Patil the Chief Executive of the World Bank Global Partnership for Youth Investment and Senior Economist announced today that the Global Partnership would support Silatech, an initiative of Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Al Missned of Qatar that focuses on youth employment and entreprise development across the Arab World through two of Silatech's strategic pillars - Thought Leadership and Investment. The Global Public-Private Partnership for Youth Investment, co-founded by the
World Bank Group and the ImagineNations Group, seeks to test new approaches, catalyze, incubate, and support the development and implementation of cutting edge and innovative interventions to expand the set of economic opportunities available to young people.
"We will offer financial products and business development service support to encourage financial intermediaries to invest in what we believe is a high-growth niche youth micro enterprise market across the region," said Patil at the Doha Summit co-hosted by Silatech and the Financial Times.
Emerging evidence from the Global Partnership's action oriented research agenda in youth microfinance confirms that financial intermediaries are discriminating against youth led micro, small and medium sized enterprises purely based on the young age of the owner-operator. "Better understanding this bias through solid research such as randomized experiments and correcting for it could support financial access to what is estimated as 300 million eligible, but largely excluded young entrepreneurs across the planet" said Patil.
Rick Little, Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Board Executive Committee of Silatech, said, "as a founding partner of Silatech, the World Bank's Global Partnership for Youth Investment will play a catalytic role with Silatech in broadening and deepening country driven engagement in support of youth employment, enterprise development and investment based on global best practices."
Alan H. Fleischmann, Managing Director of ImagineNations Group, said, "Bringing together the World Bank Global Partnership with Silatech allows for a robust opportunity to leverage and scale-up effective on-the-ground initiatives and would reach more enterprises and entrepreneurs if only these young people had the access to capital and business coaching to help drive their growth and increase their impact in the marketplace."
The Global Partnership will also assist Silatech to reach across the World Bank Group (the Bank, IFC, MIGA) to support youth investment across the Arab World and participate in country-level missions and strategy development that could lead to co-financed and scaled projects and knowledge products based on global best practices.
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The Global Public-Private Partnership for Youth Investment, founded by the World Bank Group and ImagineNations Group seeks to support the development and implementation of innovative interventions to expand the set of economic opportunities available to young people (with a special emphasis on disadvantaged youth -- adolescent girls, young women, and the poor) in developing countries while actively measuring, evaluating, disseminating and learning from results and in partnership with others.
Silatech is an innovative initiative of Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, with broad support from other leaders and organizations, both regionally and globally, including Cisco, the ILO, and the World Bank Global Partnership for Youth Investment, and the ImagineNations Group, among others. Silatech supports country-by-country led strategies within the Arab World to connect young people to employment opportunities, provide business development services, and promote the creation of small and medium-sized enterprises.
© Press Release 2008
