Spain Asks UN To Declare International Youth Employment Decade
The Government of Spain gave a boost on Wednesday to the International Campaign: Youth Employment Decade, which was presented at the Institute for Young People (Spanish acronym: INJUVE) and which seeks for the United Nations General Assembly to declare this period as official and generate a movement for reflection, thought, debate and action on the important of fostering stable employment for young people around the world.
The main aim is to call on Member States to highlight youth employment as a priority of their public policies and to commit to attaining a series of goals on this matter. This campaign, which was originally promoted by the Novia Salcedo Foundation, has been signed up to by 361 organizations from 49 countries: 84% from Europe, 7% from Latin America and the Caribbean, 7% from Africa and 2% from Asia.
This presentation coincides with the celebration of International Youth Day. In order to give a renewed boost to the campaign, INJUVE is preparing an official visit to Spain in October by Admad Adhlendawi, the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on Youth.
According to the statements made by the Director General of INJUVE, Rubén Urosa Sánchez, communication and awareness-raising actions will be the priorities under the campaign: maintaining the webpage www.youthemploymentdecade.org; the creation of an online center to promote communication between countries on issues such as education, entrepreneurship and gender equality; offering visibility to good practices carried out by different countries and organizations; and creating centers for debate on the role of youth employment on issues such as the eradication of poverty and economic growth.
Moreover, the road map of the campaign, which is still subject to modification, underlined the importance of research in opening up dialogue based on evidence, to which end research will be actively promoted, including identifying factors for success, analyzing educational systems, studying policies to drive job creation and providing methodological support for those countries that need this.
The campaign committee, which is headed up by the Ministers of Health, Social Services and Equality, and of Employment and Social Security (or delegates thereof with the rank of state secretary), met for the first time on 28 July with the participation of more than 30 representatives, including from the Government, Juan Pablo Riesgo Figuerola-Ferreti, State Secretary for Employment; Susana Camarero Benitez, State Secretary for Social Services and Equality, and Rubén Urosa Sánchez, Director-General of INJUVE, among others.
At this meeting, business organizations and the self-employed were also urged to work in favor of quality jobs and permanent employment contracts.
The Government of Spain is aware of the importance of tackling problems of integration in the labor market for ensuring a better future for young people. In February 2013, the Entrepreneurship and Youth Employment Strategy was set up. This contains 100 measures to alleviate the serious problem of youth unemployment in Spain. To date, this has benefited 430,000 young people, plus those who have benefited through the actions implemented by the regional governments and other bodies that have signed up to the strategy.