Mennonite Weekly Review

Mennonite Economic Development Associates has launched a program to boost employment for an exploding global youth population.

Young people in Morocco attend a focus group session to discuss their need for financial services. — Photo provided by MEDA

Called YouthInvest, the job and business training program aims to train 50,000 young people in Morocco and Egypt.

“The global population of young people is soaring, but job prospects lag far behind,” said Kim Pityn, MEDA’s vice president of international operations.

She cites United Nations data showing 46 percent of the world’s population is under the age of 25. In the last three years this segment grew 10.5 percent, but youth employment grew only one-fifth of one percent.

“This growing gap poses some grim prospects as long-term joblessness erodes hope and increases susceptibility to recruitment by extremist groups,” Pityn said.

YouthInvest aims to boost financial literacy and entrepreneurship among Moroccan and Egyptian young people by providing business training and smoothing the way for them to gain access to financial services that have been out of their reach.

It will also help local microfinance institutions devise youth-centered financial services and work with banks to encourage youth-oriented savings accounts.

The goal is to prepare youth for entrepreneurship and employment by furnishing them with meaningful skills and work opportunities.

The five-year $5 million program, sponsored primarily by the MasterCard Foundation, got under way late in 2009, based in Casablanca.

While MEDA’s program currently targets 50,000 youth, Pityn predicts that in the next three years an additional 150,000 can be reached with greater access to savings and credit, increased incomes and wider skill sets.

A second phase is being set up in Egypt and could be replicated in countries like Jordan, Sudan and Yemen.

Pityn sees a potential peace dividend in these programs, because long-term joblessness contributes to social unrest and susceptibility to recruitment by extremist groups.

“We believe these trends can be stemmed, even reversed, by providing young people with viable options for the future,” she said.