Entrepreneurial mindset helping MENA youth conquer today’s challenges

As an organization, we believe that we have a responsibility to keep upskilling our youth. However, every year universities are graduating students that are looking for jobs that don’t exist.

They are not exposed to the real work job-market and the different career opportunities in each industry.

The fact is, our young people must be educated not just to understand the future but to re-invent it.

Even though the Middle East and North Africa have made enormous progress in the past half-century, there is so much more we can do by empowering young people.

We can be more entrepreneurial, more inclusive and more broadly educated. And when challenges are imposed on our people, we can use their skills to help them recover from these setbacks and build a new future.

I can say with confidence that out of our work with students, partners and educational institutions, we see a widespread interest from our youth in becoming more entrepreneurial.

This was proved in a survey we conducted with the consultancy Wyman in 2019, where 84 percent of MENA youth said they aspire to start an entrepreneurial venture in their country.

Fast forward to the latest Arab Youth Survey, which reported that from 2019 to 2023 the percentage of young people who want to work for themselves or their family rose from 16 percent to 25 percent, while those who prefer the private sector rose from 28 percent to 33 percent. Meanwhile the proportion who want to work for the government fell from 49 percent to 30 percent.

So the ambition to strike out into the business world is there and has been for years.

There are, however, challenges – job market competitiveness, a preference for expats, youth unemployment, economic headwinds in some countries and, in the Levant, geopolitical tensions – that require more attention when it comes to youth.

On the first point, job market competitiveness appears to be increasing, and demands from the private sector for skilling, reskilling and upskilling have become key in our vision for an empowered youth.

This is creating a shift to an employers’ market, which can reduce options for young people as they enter the workforce. In turn, this can lead to dissatisfaction for new joiners.

The recruitment consultancy Robert Half reported this year that while 16 percent of workers were looking to leave their jobs in the first quarter of 2024, the figure rose sharply to 27 percent for workers aged under age 24.

And they are doing this even though MENA’s youth unemployment rate – covering those aged 15 to 24 – stubbornly stands at 26 percent, according to World Bank figures from last year.

Of course, there is an alternate path to depending on employers. The more entrepreneurial our young people are, the more able they are to make their own jobs.

Today, the region’s decision-makers have an opportunity to respond to economic and social challenges in a way that empowers youth communities.

Entrepreneurship is the most powerful and effective tool for achieving that. Entrepreneurship can give young people opportunities to exercise creative freedom, raise self-esteem and feel a greater sense of control over their lives.

But to engage young minds in entrepreneurship, you have to support the right kind of education. Offering them practical resources and experiences enables them to develop the skills and knowledge needed to create entrepreneurial opportunities.

• Akef Aqrabawi is president and CEO, INJAZ Al-Arab.