Towards a parliamentary road map to create job opportunities for young men and women

The Youth and Sports Parliamentary Committee organized yesterday a seminar on the ‘Role of Parliament in Creating Work Opportunities for Lebanese Youth’, in collaboration with UNDP. The seminar was divided into 2 meetings; the first discussed the opinions and recommendations of specialist on how to provide assistance to Lebanon in managing its development files. The meeting, which was attended by Lebanese officials and representatives of international organizations, such as; UNDP, ESCWA, UNESCO, ILO and others, discussed ways of helping in creating new job opportunities to Lebanese youth and halt the process of migration. The second meeting included youth and civil society organisations and representatives from the youth committees of various Lebanese parties. The specialist, Hachem Abu Jawdeh, kicked off the meeting with a detailed report and recommendations on the state of the Lebanese job market, and the role of universities in preparing graduates for entering the market. Furthermore, the meeting considered several actions that the Lebanese government can take to halt youth migration.
The President of the Youth and Sports Committee, MP, Simon Abi Ramya, built on the preliminary vision presented in Abu Jawdeh’s report calling for the development of a road map that will act towards creating new job opportunities for the youth. Abu Ramya pointed out that discussions reviewed the current education curriculum looking at the extent to which it is in line with the needs of the Lebanese job market, also calling for the upgrading of the role of the National Employment Office.
Detailed discussions also focused on the role of private universities and particularly that of the Lebanese public university, which must play a key role in preparing for entry into the job markets and in guiding the youth towards vocational training, thus requiring the provision of social protection to the youth population and its integration into the national social security fund.
Source: Al-Diyar 19 July 2013