On 4-5 June 2010 the Tällberg Foundation and the International Labour Organization organised a High-Level Policy Dialogue on Youth Employment. The Dialogue was part of the annual Global YES Summit. This summit, entitled “Rework the World” focuses on 100 carefully selected initiatives from around the world, which could provide the jobs of tomorrow and help build a more socially, financially and ecologically sustainable world. The summit asks one fundamental question: how can we turn these emerging entrepreneurial efforts into transformative forces of change? This question has implications for business strategies, financial markets, global policy making and our mental models.

Simon White was commissioned to prepare resource material for the dialogue and to document its outcomes.

The documented cases of policy interventions form around the world had two characteristics in common: they provide avenues for scalable, cost effective impact on jobs (i.e., the short term imperative) and they indicate ways to effectively merge the jobs agenda with particular environmental concerns (i.e., the long term imperative).

The cases varied widely in geography and thematic focus, with some examples addressing policy interventions at a national or regional level, and others representing initiatives at a community level.  Each case highlighted some limited answers to the overarching challenge. The intention is that more generic lessons for how to think about policy interventions in a globally integrated world will arise out of the diversity of cases on display.

June 2010

Southern African IDEAS