/ 13 Empowering youth for positive, productive engagement Palestine refugees in Gaza are overwhelming young: 57% of the 1.2 million registered refugees are under age 24. Approximately 243,000 are youth age 1524. The overwhelming majority of youth in Gaza are educated, peaceful and seek productive employment opportunities that will enable them to financially assist their families and prepare to start their own families. However, with the blockade on Gaza now in its fourth year, frustration and unemployment are high (33%19) and opportunities for positive, productive engagement are low. The World Bank estimates that the youth unemployment rate is approximately 10 percentage points higher than the general rate and that labour force participation for youth is negatively correlated with education levels. The more educated a youth is, the more likely they are to drop out of the labour force.20 Families with a youth out of the labour force are also more likely to be in poverty. When asked, youth in Gaza identify employment as their primary desire, and families and communities state they want to “inspire youth not to give into despair.” In response, UNRWA is working to keep open the windows of opportunity for productive, positive engagement of youth in Gaza. It is doing 19 Unemployment rate for January-June 2011. 20 The World Bank defines youth as aged 18-34. Participation among adults age 35 and over shows a positive correlation between age and education, indicating that youth without skills and older adults with more experience are most able to find jobs, respectively. World Bank Report No. 61293 - GZ, July 2011. this by increasing targeted employment and training opportunities, such as: • Over-Age Apprenticeships, providing young people with vocational training and job placements • Young Women Leaders Program, which advances young female graduates’ personal and professional skills and provides work placements • Trainings in computer, management, statistical analysis, financial management, evaluation and reporting, and English skills by the Small and Micro-Enterprise Training Programme, where over 30% of participants are youth. • Support to re-build the private sector in Gaza by underwriting the cost of some 6,500 jobs over three years for identified businesses; at least 350 jobs will be earmarked for young graduates. Recognizing the overwhelming need in Gaza, UNRWA is examining how to expand these efforts and further increase its support for youth to achieve their goal of being productive and positively engaged. The initiative will contribute to UNWRA’s HDG 3 A decent standard of living. More specifically to strategic objective 9 and 10: • • Offer inclusive financial services and increased access to credit and saving facilities, especially for vulnerable groups such as women, youth and the poor. Improve employability. © Isabel de la Cruz/ UNRWA archives