Facilitating youth entrepreneurship. An analysis of awareness and promotion programmes in formal and non-formal education

Having reduced youth unemployment to half by 2015 is one of the goals that Heads of State of all member countries of the United Nations adopted in the Millenium Declaration. The ILO is exploring ways to increase youth employment which will help end the vicious cycle of poverty and social exclusion.
The present Working Paper addresses education for entrepreneurship as one of the strategies to reduce youth unemployment. It takes up one of the recommendations of the High Level Panel, set-up by the UN Secretary General (working group on Entrepreneurship), stipulating that 'the education system must recognize the need for developing the skills and attitudes that make up an entrepreneurial mindset such as lateral thinking, questioning, independence and self-reliance. This education should continue through vocational training, business incubation and the start-up phase for young entrepreneurs'.
The review presented in Part I analyses awareness and promotion programmes in formal and non-formal education from around the world. Part II contains an extensive directory with short descriptions of 166 current and recently completed programmes for entrepreneurship education. Together, they constitute a rich source of information for use by planners and decision-makers on youth employment and education policies. In addition, the wealth of details and references on the implementation of such policies may inspire and guide the many practitioners of youth training and job creation programmes.