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YES Azerbaijan 2008
On 24-27 September 2008, the Fourth Global Youth Employment Summit (YES) assembled in Baku, Azerbaijan, to reaffirm the essential message articulated in the previous YES summits held in Egypt (2002), Mexico (2004) and Kenya (2006) and to begin preparing for the new initiatives of the 2010 YES Summit in Sweden. Between now and 2010, YES hopes to empower its networks to attain its ambitious goal of creating 2 million employment opportunities by 2012.
The Summit was hosted by the Republic of Azerbaijan through the Ministry of Youth and Sport in partnership with Youth Employment Systems (YES). In attendance, were roughly 600 delegates (including 30 government delegations) from nearly 75 countries.
A UNESCO-UNEVOC representative made a substantive contribution to the Summit and presented the work of the Centre to aid UNESCO Member States in improving employability and citizenship.
In addition, UNESCO-UNEVOC was invited to present a keynote address at a Ministers’ Forum that took place in the context of the Summit. The address covered the following issues:
Improving the employability and skills of youth is an integral component to both the work of UNESCO and to the UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre. Youth represent a vital force with the potential to initiate change. Their full participation in our societies is crucial to shaping the future of our world. According to the 2007 United National World Youth Report, youth (or those aged 15-24) constitute approximately 18 per cent of the world’s population. By 2025, the number of youth is estimated to grow by a staggering 72 million, making this generation the largest in history.
UNESCO's objective is to help empower youth by reaching out and responding to their expectations in order to foster useful and long-lasting skills. In order to ensure this objective, UNESCO supports the following initiatives:
The UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre is also geared to promoting the development of life skills and to empowering participation in the world of work for youth. In particular, UNESCO-UNEVOC seeks to provide technical advice on integrating skills development in basic education programmes, particularly within the context of EFA; promotes a competency-based approach to education and training; trains teachers and trainers to adopt a life skills-based approach in the classroom; and develops training packages on cross-cutting skills such as entrepreneurship.
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