Pacific Summit and Policy Dialogue on Youth Entrepreneurship

Unemployment is the most critical challenge that young people globally confront today. The challenge is particularly acute in the pacific region where jobs in the organised sector are few and far between, while those in the informal sector are often unstable, unsafe and poorly paid. Youth unemployment in the pacific stands at an alarming 23% (SPC, 2011) with young people 4.5-6 times (ILO, 2015) less likely to secure decent jobs relative to older people. The isolation and remoteness of pacific island economies, slow economic growth and stagnant government budgets contribute to low job creation and labour market mismatch. The Young Employment Advocacy (YEA) initiative, led by PYC resulted in the pacific leaders call for more investment in youth employment via the 2011 Forum Leaders communique.

Consequently, the SPC led Pacific Youth Development Framework (PYDF), endorsed by the youth ministers in 2013 highlights youth employment as the first priority, with youth entrepreneurship as one of 3 outcomes under youth employment priority. It is imperative therefore for governments in Pacific to identify and promote alternative pathways to sustainable livelihoods if they are to fulfil the aspirations and potential of their young people. Empowering young people to consider entrepreneurship as their vocation has to be a critical component of such a strategy. The Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE), a World Bank-led multi-stakeholder coalition launched in 2014, analysed in its 2015 baseline report the relative effectiveness of 105 youth employment interventions implemented cross the world since 1990, and found that entrepreneurship-promotion interventions show the largest positive effects on employment outcomes and earnings.

Over the years, key development partners in the region have made concerted efforts to encourage youth entrepreneurship as a pragmatic strategy to address spiralling youth unemployment and to positively harness young people’s potential. This has included supporting entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurship training and business development services aimed at putting more young people into employment. In order to build on this momentum, the Commonwealth, ILO, SPC and PYC intends to convene a 3-day regional Summit on Youth Entrepreneurship that will focus identifying specific national and regional policy responses to promote youth entrepreneurship, share national policy analysis identifying best practice and gaps and establish a regional young entrepreneurs council.