EFE’s Sarah Little Speaks with Kofi Annan and One Young World Youth Ambassadors About Youth Unemployment

On June 20th, EFE’s Sarah Little spoke with former UN Secretary-General and Nobel laureate Kofi Annan and various One Young World Youth Ambassadors about youth unemployment. The event was part of the series Kofi Annan Dialogues, a collection of interactive video conferences convened by Mr. Annan’s foundation, the KofiAnnan Foundation.

Sarah, a program associate at EFE, spoke from Jordan, and described multiple facets of EFE’s work in response to Mr. Annan’s request to hear about organizations around the world that are implementing solutions to youth unemployment. Sarah highlighted the importance of partnerships involving the public, private and nonprofit sectors, citing examples from EFE’s work contacting private sector companies as well as local governments and educational systems.

Mr. Annan expressed particular interest in the mindset and expectations of youth with university degrees versus those with less schooling, and the ways that EFE must respond to this distinction. Ultimately, he concluded that EFE’s work could be a successful model for combating youth unemployment in the MENA region.

One Young World is a London-based organization that gathers together 18-30 year olds from around the world, in order to create positive change.