Arab youth: the promise and the challenges

• Last Updated: October 11. 2008 8:17PM UAE / October 11. 2008 4:17PM GMT

Starting today, The National will run a series of features looking at Arab youth, their dreams and fears, their changing lifestyles and the social and economic checks that constrain them. What will strike our readers most are the human stories that illustrate this struggle with modernity and change. They portray impressive women crossing borders to grow personally and professionally, sons who seek to make up for the lack of parental guidance, and concerned youth who volunteer to remedy the shortcomings of the state.

It is never too soon to grasp the complex challenges and immense opportunities represented by the Arab youth bulge. If mishandled, it can wreak havoc in a region facing serious economic and social prospects. If properly nurtured, it has the potential to change the face and future of the region for the best. The promise of youth is undeniable, and yet from education and employment to marriage and integration, the challenges are massive.

The numbers are telling: some 100 million people – more than 30 per cent of the Arab world’s population – are aged between 15 and 29; more than 25 per cent of Arabs between 15 and 24 are unemployed; youth unemployment costs the region’s economies more than US$25 billion every year. It costs more to go to college, get married, and rent or buy a home.

At the heart of any viable strategy to integrate and empower Arab youth are better, reformed educational systems. Some progress is already visible on this front. Arab governments are spending more in terms of GDP to educate their youth; classroom topics include more sciences and humanities and less religious studies; curriculums are being adapted to respond to the needs of the labour market; teachers are urged to promote critical thinking rather than memorisation. But often the transition from school to college and from college to work still exposes too many gaps in the educational system. Many youth fall into these fissures, losing faith in themselves and the system and becoming a burden to their societies and families.

This is why Arab governments have another responsibility, that of creating jobs and providing adequate labour frameworks in parallel with promoting competitiveness and entrepreneurship. In fact, the region’s growth is creating hundreds of thousands of jobs but this immediate need cannot be filled internally for the moment. Cash-strapped governments too often see government work as a convenient way to ease employment tensions and to secure loyalty. But efforts to ease employment tensions by doling out benefits and subsidies can also play a negative role by feather-bedding the problems.

The Arab world must also deal with its social customs. Women are proving to be outstanding workers; boys and girls come of age before getting married. Acknowledging and harnessing this change will prove critical. The relative progress of the past few years should not be cause for satisfaction but for increased focus on this generational undertaking. The sons and daughters of our region deserve our very best.