Youth Employment Network Timeline

• 2009

  • YEN's Competitive Grant Scheme for Youth Lead Organiziations - Inaugural round of grants launched in Mano River Union (Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire).
  • Launch of Revised Lead Country Process. Lead countries asked to renew their commitments.

• 2008

  • 3rd Lead Country Meeting is held in Geneva on “Establishing Benchmarks for successful Youth Employment Policies/Programs”, supported by the UK government. Participants include representatives of the Ministries of Labour and technicians playing a key role in designing and implementing National Action Plans (NAPs) and employment and evaluation specialists from the World Bank and International Labour Organization (ILO).
  • Mid-term evaluation of the YEN is conducted by the Centre for International Development & Training (CIDT), University of Wolverhampton. The review finds that the comparative advantage of the YEN lies in being a forerunner of the Paris Declaration; joining three significant agencies through a common platform. It recommends the continuation of the YEN mandate for a further five years.
  • The UK government renews it financial support to YEN-WA for a third year.
  • The Report of the status of NAPs in YEN Lead Countries is updated; 7 countries are in the development stage; 1 has drafted the NAP, 6 are at the implementation phase and 1 country is in the process of evaluating their NAP.  (4 countries have no current activity in this area).

• 2007

• YENs Youth Consultative Group (YCG) launches “Joining Forces with Young People: A Practical Guide to Collaboration for Youth Employment”, a tool to facilitate young peoples’ participation in youth employment policy-making, at the UN General Assembly.
  
  

• 2006

• Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) renews its support to the work of the secretariat for a further three years.
• The YEN secretariat expands, opening an office to address youth employment issues in West Africa (YEN-WA). The office is hosted by United Nations Office for West Africa in Dakar (UNOWA), Senegal and is supported by UK funding.
• YEN’s High Level Panel fulfils its mandate.
• Two more countries join the YEN: Georgia, Turkey
  
  

• 2005

• A High-Level Dialogue with Partners of the YEN on "Bringing Youth Employment into the International Development Agenda" is held in Geneva, with funding from the World Bank. YEN core partners, Ministers of Labour from YEN Lead Countries and other interested countries, social partners, youth representatives and YEN partner organizations share experiences on how the YEN has played a role in strengthening policies and scaling up projects and programmes for youth employment. Following this initiative five countries join the YEN.
• 2nd YEN Lead Country Meeting, hosted by Jamaica, is held in New York during the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The focus of the meeting is to discuss progress in formulating and implementing National Action Plans, identifying political, technical, and financial keys to overcome youth employment challenges. 
• The YEN increases to 17 Lead Countries.  D R Congo, Ecuador, Jamaica, Syria, Uganda and UK join.
  
  

• 2004

• The YCG is launched to act as an advisory body to the YEN. It comprises 13 representatives of international and regional youth organizations and is working to represent the concerns of young people on the function, direction and priorities of the YEN. It interacts with the HLP and provides input into decision making processes. It also serves as a catalyst and resource to support youth participation in the development, implementation and review of National Action Plans on Youth Employment.
• 1st YEN Lead Country Meeting is held in Lübeck, Germany. The topic of discussion: “Youth Employment, Empowerment and Participation: Securing the Future”. It is supported by the Dräger Foundation and German Technical Cooperation (GTZ).
• Iran, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda join the YEN.
• YEN receives support from German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to coordinate NAP development in two Lead countries – Senegal and Sri Lanka and conduct a global inventory of good practices on youth employment.
  
  

• 2003

• First YEN Newsletter produced.
• The number of Lead countries increases to seven: Azerbaijan, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Namibia, Senegal and Sri Lanka.

• 2002

• YEN secretariat is established, hosted by the ILO (Geneva). The Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) provides funding to support the work of the secretariat.
• Three countries volunteer to become YEN Lead Countries: Indonesia, Namibia and Sri Lanka.

• 2001

• Kofi Annan appoints a High-Level Panel of twelve experts and practitioners on youth employment to advise on youth employment policy and mobilize support for youth employment worldwide.
• The High Level Panel produces a set of policy recommendations focusing on four global priorities for youth employment: Employability, Equal opportunities, Entrepreneurship, and Employment creation (the 4 Es); youth participation; the promotion of Lead countries, and the preparation of national action plans on youth employment
• The UN General Assembly adopts a resolution on promoting youth employment which translates the strategic vision of the High-Level Panel into a strong and focused intergovernmental mandate. This resolution encourages all UN Member States to prepare national action plans on youth employment and invites the YEN to prepare a global analysis and evaluation of these action plans.

• 2000

• UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, first proposes the Youth Employment Network:

“Together with the heads of the World Bank and the International Labour Organization, I am convening a High-Level Policy Network on youth employment drawing on the most creative leaders in private industry, civil society and economic policy to explore imaginative approaches to this difficult challenge. I will ask this policy network to propose a set of recommendations that I can convey to world leaders within a year.”

• Following the Secretary-General’s initiative, Heads of State and Government, meeting at the Millennium Summit resolve to "develop and implement strategies that give young people everywhere a real chance to find decent and productive work."  The Youth Employment Network becomes a vehicle for mobilizing action around the Millennium Commitment on decent and productive work for young people. The ILO agrees to host the secretariat of the YEN.