‘Empower Youth in the Era of AI’ Thematic Forum on Digital Development of the 2024 World Youth Development Forum Successfully Held in Chongqing

Chongqing (ILO News) -- On 15 August 2024, the Thematic Forum on Digital Development of the 2024 World Youth Development Forum (WYDF) was successfully held in Chongqing, China. This Thematic Forum was co-hosted by All-China Youth Federation (ACYF) and International Labour Organization (ILO). More than 200 participants, including senior representatives of the ILO, ACYF, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and Chongqing Municipal Government, international and national experts and youth leaders joined the Forum to share their insights and experience on skilling and industrial development in the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

In the opening remarks, Assistant Director-General for Jobs and Social Protection of ILO, Mia SEPPO shared a global landscape of youth employment based on the new ILO Global Employment Trends for Youth 2024. To ensure young people to reap the benefits of fast-changing digitalization and have access to decent jobs, she called for joint efforts to promote skills development, enhance job creation in the digital economy, and foster youth rights and voices.

Let us foster public policies that encourage job-rich growth in the digital economy, facilitate an enabling environment for young digital entrepreneurs, and secure access to technology, digital information and the internet.

Let us also work with employers in the digital economy and beyond, strengthening human resources policies that recognize digital skills and retain young talent.

Mia SEPPO, Assistant Director-General for Jobs and Social Protection of ILO

Director of ILO Country Office for China and Mongolia, Changhee LEE emphasized that the acceleration in digital technologies, especially the rise of AI, is revolutionizing industries and redefining the nature of work profoundly. Promoting a human-centric approach, the ILO is working with various stakeholders and youth organizations for equipping youth with core skills, supporting government policies on youth employment, and organizing capacity building to foster digital entrepreneurship and innovation for quality job creation.

In the era of digital transformation, upskilling and reskilling throughout the life cycles is critical to help all, particularly youth today.

Changhee LEE, Director of ILO Country Office for China and Mongolia

In the keynote speech, the Skills and Employability Specialist of ILO Decent Work Technical Support Team for East and South-East Asia and the Pacific, Mary KENT presented ‘Generative AI and the world of work’. She illustrated the impact of Generative AI on the labour market based on the latest ILO research and pointed out that 427 million jobs worldwide have the potential to be augmented by Generative AI. To prepare for a transition driven by AI, narrowing the digital divide, reducing gender imbalances, improving lifelong learning systems and promoting youth engagement will be important measures.

During the Forum, youth leaders showcased their best practices leveraging digitalization and technology-based solutions in the fields of AI, skills development and industry upgrading. The Forum was concluded with the release of the outcome from the Youth Digital Leaders Campus co-organized by ACYF and the ILO in July, further emphasizing the active role of youth in driving innovation in digital development.

The ILO is a major UN partner of the World Youth Development Forum (WYDF) and its thematic events. Since 2023, the ILO worked with ACYF to co-host the Thematic Forum on Digital Development and jointly launched the Youth Digital Leadership Programme. This year, the first activity of the Programme ‘Youth Digital Leaders Campus’ was successfully held in Guangzhou. The ILO also supported the WYDF ‘Youth Pre-meeting for the Summit of the Future’ on 13 August in Beijing to facilitate in-depth discussions among youth ministers and young leaders from nearly 100 countries for providing recommendations to the outcome document of the UN Summit of the Future.