Policies and Strategies for Youth Employment

1. Trade Union Training on Youth Employment for Leaders of Youth Committees in Asia and the Pacific region Bangkok May 13, 2004 Sara Spant Associate Expert on Employment Promotion ILO Subregional Office for East Asia

2. Policies and Strategies for Youth Employment Promoting Entrepreneurship

3. Reasons for Promoting Youth Entrepreneurship Why promote entrepreneurship?

4. Reasons for Promoting Youth Entrepreneurship • Creates employment, both for the entrepreneur and employees. • Helps young people develop skills and experiences that can also be useful later in life. • Provides valuable goods and services for the economy. • Promotes innovation and development. • Promotes cultural identity, and sense of community. • Gives young people a sense of meaning and belonging.

5. Promote Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development by: • Creating awareness through media and the education and training system of entrepreneurship and self-employment as viable and rewarding career options. • Providing information on market opportunities, training in business skills, access to capital, mentoring by qualified persons and other business support services tailored to the needs of small firms and young entrepreneurs. (Corporate Social Responsibility)

6. Promote Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development by: • Supporting youth entrepreneurship in areas such as design, technology and marketing where young people could help link traditional small firm activities in developing countries to international markets. • Promoting and facilitate the formation of inter-firm networks and self-help associations among young entrepreneurs to exchange experience and undertake initiatives such as participating jointly in trade fairs, sharing infrastructure, ICT and incubation facilities.

7. Promote Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development by: • Promoting youth entrepreneurship in the social sector, for example, providing community services and/or addressing local environmental and health issues. • Promoting mentoring arrangements between existing enterprises and young people. (Corporate Social Responsibility)

8. Integrate entrepreneurship into mainstream education system and foster an entrepreneurial culture by: • Examine education systems to see the extent to which they promote entrepreneurship and self-employment as viable and rewarding career options. • Integrate entrepreneurship education into academic curricula such as ILO’s Know about Business. • Provide business start-up training and support for graduates who want to start their own business such as the ILO’s Start Your Business (SYB) and Improve Your Business (IYB) programmes.

9. Promote access to credit and support for young entrepreneurs: • Encourage finance institutions to provide credit to young people. • Combine access to credit with business development services. • Foster partnership with employers and workers: • Sponsor, run and judge youth enterprise competitions. • Provide mentoring and advisory services. • Do business with young entrepreneurs.