In this ongoing of UNESCO-UNEVOC’s virtual conferences, we are discussing youth entrepreneurship in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). The conference is taking place from 18 to 29 July 2016 on the UNESCO-UNEVOC TVeT Forum.

Background

Statistical forecasts paint a challenging picture for today’s youth. The World Bank estimates that the global economy needs 600 million new jobs over the next ten years just to keep employment rates constant, while the International Labour Organization (ILO) reports almost 36% of the world’s unemployed—nearly 73.3 million people—are young people, and adding under-employed youth to this account trebles the total (ILO, 2015). Furthermore, over 169 million youth earn less than US$2 per day, representing more than one third of the working poor in developing countries.

Clearly, in today and tomorrow’s economy, being young and looking for employment is not an easy task.

In this context, youth entrepreneurship can play an important part in facilitating economic development and job creation. While young people often turn to self-employment because they cannot find jobs elsewhere, entrepreneurship can provide them with valuable skills such as critical thinking, decision-making, leadership, teamwork and innovation—all of which remain relevant for the rest of their lives. In general, they gain expertise in areas not incorporated in traditional education, constructing unique careers that resonate outside the typical economic model by pulling in talent from their peers and fostering positive community development.

Considering youth’s enormous entrepreneurial potential, governments, practitioners, and policymakers need to focus more on the challenges that young people face when starting and growing successful businesses while at the same time concentrating on policies and programmes that have the ability of unleashing the potential of young entrepreneurs. It is interesting to note that ‘Fostering youth employment and entrepreneurship’ is one of the three priority areas in UNESCO’s Strategy for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (2016-2021).

Virtual conference

In this virtual conference we aim to explore some of the key challenges young entrepreneurs face and the skills they require in order to develop successful ventures, as well as the role that technical and vocational education and training (TVET) can play in helping develop some of these skills.

With this in mind, the virtual conference will address the following questions:

• What are some of the key challenges that young entrepreneurs, in different markets and from different backgrounds, face? And how can programmes or policies help them address those challenges?
• What are the key skills that young entrepreneurs need to develop in order to be able to run prosperous ventures? And what role can TVET play in helping develop some of those skills?
• What are some key best practices that we can identify when implementing youth entrepreneurship skills development programmes?

To get started, please read the background note, available in English, Spanish and French.

About the moderator

Claudia Pompa

Claudia is a specialist on workforce and skills development, with a particular experience in youth entrepreneurship, vocational training, and small and medium sized enterprise development. She has twelve years of experience as an international development consultant and technical adviser and has worked extensively in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America, and the Arab States. Her work involved designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating complex development programmes, particularly focused on entrepreneurship and business development strategies and programmes, across a number of government and non-government organizations.