About Youth Directory

According to the findings of the World Bank’s “World Development Report of 2007”, the time has never been better to invest in young people living in developing countries. The Arab region is witnessing a population bonus with youth between the ages of 15 and 24 years old representing nearly 20% or exceeding this number in some countries; like Syria and Yemen.  Demographic indicators show that year 2030 will unveil a world overtaken by “ageism” where most of its inhabitants are over the age of 45. This predicament will be true to all the world’s regions, except the Arab Region where the average age will be 18 in Yemen and 41 in the UAE. Several promising steps have been accomplished towards youth empowerment in the Arab region. Starting from a regional average of 67% literacy among youth aged 15 to 24 in 1990, 77% of the region’s youngsters were literate by 2000. Youth parliaments were established in countries like Jordan and Morocco; national youth strategies were developed in Bahrain and Lebanon for example. Moreover, world leaders have committed at the UN summit in September 2000 to achieve the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by year 2015; ranging from reducing world poverty by half to achieving universal primary education, with youth being a crosscutting issue. Still around 10 million Arab youth between the ages of 18 and 25 are unemployed and deaths of youth aging 15 to 24 in ESCWA countries have showed little and in some cases no changes since the 1990s. According to ESCWA’ statistical report on youth in 2005, the highest youth death rates, as of 2004, are found in Palestine at 1.0 death per 1000 population, and the lowest in Kuwait at 0.5 deaths per 1000 population.

The Youth Directory is a friendly-user tool that contains a range of youth related documents distributed along different drivers. While the first driver, Youth in KSA, provides the users with up-to-date data on the status of youth in Saudi Arabia; the second, Youth and MDGs, streamlines the role of youth in reaching the MDGs. Youth in the UN and Leadership provide the youngsters with link to global youth opportunities in the UN and development agencies. Furthermore, the directory includes information on global; regional; and national youth organizations, studies, reports, and projects along practice areas. Finally and most importantly, the website includes an interactive “Youth Forum” through which young people can contribute with their opinions on a specific topic of interest.

For further information, please contact Miss Thuraya Ismail Or Miss Sara Al Shoura.