With the global youth population reaching a historical high of 1.5 billion, economies world-wide are increasingly unable to provide young people with jobs. The situation has reached critical proportions in developing countries where 1.3 billion youth reside. As youth employment grew by only 0.2 percent over the past decade while the global youth population grew at a rate of 10.5 percent, the world is experiencing a youth employment crisis and the challenges surrounding youth livelihoods have become increasingly complex. Innovative and sustainable approaches are therefore necessary to ensure these young people are able to lead healthy and productive lives that contribute to socio-economic development in their communities.
With this backdrop, Making Cents International will convene practitioners, donors, educators, youth, members of the private sector, representatives of governments, and other partners in youth enterprise, entrepreneurship, and livelihood development for the Global Youth Enterprise Conference.
These conference participants are part of a growing community committed to investing in young people, and the innovations necessary to ensure programs and policies achieve greater impact, sustainability, and scale. Making Cents supports this community regularly meeting to share lessons learned, promising practices, and new ideas that create economic opportunities for young people.
This year's conference themes are: * Market-Driven Approaches
* Effective Methodologies and Practices for Monitoring, Evaluating, and Conducting Impact Assessments
Contributed by Anuradha Bhattacharjee, 21 Apr 2008