“Breaking new ground: Partnerships for more and better jobs for young people”

The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) organized an Exclusive Event, “Breaking new ground: Partnerships for more and better jobs for young people” on 27 February 2012, from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m., at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

This event served as part of the preparatory process for the ECOSOC’s 2012 Annual Ministerial Review (AMR) on “Promoting productive capacity, employment and decent work to eradicate poverty in the context of inclusive, sustainable and equitable economic growth at all levels for achieving the MDGs”, and was organized by the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Partnerships (UNOP) and the United Nations Global Compact.

The event seeks to strengthen the partnership between governments, the private sector and the philanthropic community in advancing youth employment and decent work. The themes explored included issues affecting policy setting for youth employment and innovations for promoting youth employment. The outcome of the deliberations will be submitted to the United Nations Member States during the Economic and Social Council’s High-level session in July 2012.

The programme consisted of an opening plenary, to be followed by two leadership dialogues on “Innovations in promoting youth employment” and “Building new business models for youth employment”.

The key outcomes of the exclusive event were to provide increased focus to issues central to the achievement of promoting youth employment and decent work for all, through: 

  • broadening of the range of stakeholders involved in the work of ECOSOC, as well as increasing the awareness amongst the philanthropic community on the progress made and the challenges faced in achieving MDG 1;
  • promoting concrete initiatives by the philanthropic community and initiating new partnerships that would accelerate progress in reaching the targets in MDG 1;  and
  • expanding multi-stakeholder engagement in the international community’s efforts to help advance the achievement of the two priority areas mentioned above.

The event has a number of co-convenors dedicated to strengthening multi-stakeholder partnerships in support of youth employment. These include:

United Nations Co-Convenors

Other Co-Convenors