ISLAMABAD, Sep 13 (APP):Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Youth Affairs Shaza Fatima on Tuesday urged the Policymakers to ponder upon structural reforms, professional, technical and vocational training programs to help youth ensure a future with provision of decent work opportunities.
“Asia-Pacific is home to 55 percent of world’s youth and three-quarters of NEET (not in education, employment or training) in Asia Pacific region are females,” she said while moderating the Session on Promoting equal Education and Decent work during the Third IPU Asia-Pacific Region Seminar on Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) here.
She said in 2019 around 13.8 percent of the youth in the region was unemployed compared to the global average of 13.6. She said that one out of every four young employees was earning under 3.20$ per day and forced to work under extreme poverty.
Shaza Fatima also apprised the session about increasing trend of Public Private Partnership and Entrepreneurship in Pakistan.
Moreover, reliance on traditional education had created the gap in technological advanced world. A mismatch in skill set and rapidly changing world direly needed attention of policymakers’ in the region.
She said natural disasters like recent floods and Covid-19 outbreak had contributed to worsen the situation in Pakistan. She said that there were multiple factors responsible for prevailing unemployment. Most important a disconnect between skill set and labour market.
“We did not have conducive working environment, especially for women, who were comprising half of the country’s population,” she noted.
Fatima further said that members of Parliaments had important role in achieving SDG goals given our parliamentary functions to legislate, represent and oversee the executive and our right to spend public money.
She was followed by Deputy Speaker National Assembly Zahid Akram Durrani, who further enlightened the session that Goal 4 of the SDGS 2030 demanded for promotion of lifelong learning for everyone along with inclusive and equitable education for everyone.
“We parliamentarians were providing with road map to work on promoting quality education and provision of decent work opportunities as per international development agenda,” said Durrani.
He said youth should be provided with pertinent skill set backed by technical and vocational trainings to compete that labor market standards. Along with working on promoting quality education governments should also needed to come into collaboration to reform labor market as well to fully enforce labor laws and improve social security.
Senior Programme Officer, International Labor Organization Rabia Razzaq also addressed the session. She emphasized upon equal provision of internet access to rural areas so that healthy competition in the market may be promoted.
