Doha, October 26 (QNA) - HE Undersecretary of the Ministry of Sports and Youth Engineer Yasser bin Abdullah Al Jamal has asserted that investing in young people, who represent the core elements needed to achieve overall economic growth, is quite important.

Those young people need to internalize essential skills and have opportunities to tap into labor markets, unlock their potential, and showcase their special ventures to ultimately achieve that growth, HE Al Jamal underlined, noting that offering them these opportunities requires powerful partnerships between the public and private sectors, alongside educational enterprises and international organizations.

The Undersecretary was speaking during a session at the 9th World Investment Forum (WIF) in Doha that drilled down on investment in talent and entrepreneurship. He suggested that the primary challenge facing young people in numerous countries around the world has little to do with a dearth of talent and capabilities, but rather with the limited opportunities available to them.

Building a better future for those young people requires putting the appropriate environment in place to help them advance their skills and turn ideas into productive ventures and initiatives, HE Al Jamal outlined.

He highlighted that 257 million young people worldwide remain outside employment, education, and training systems, while youth unemployment in the Arab region stands at 26.2 percent.

This comes despite the Middle East and North Africa being home to more than 140 million people under the age of 30, underscoring the sheer scale of the region's human capital and the criticality of expanding opportunities for them to leverage their capabilities and turn their potential into meaningful economic and social contributions, HE the Undersecretary pointed out.

  HE Al Jamal recalled that the Ministry is executing a combination of programs and initiatives by leveraging youth centers and various partnerships in pursuit of enhancing young people's abilities to enter labor markets and the business world.

He placed particular emphasis on honing their skills in collective action, responsibility, and adaptability as the foremost values for girding young people for taking the helm of future missions and ventures and thinking outside the box.

The Ministry is working to facilitate their transition from education to working life by devising post-graduation programs for secondary-school students, preparing them for college education, and helping them opt for appropriate academic specializations, HE Al Jamal said.

HE the Undersecretary noted that, in collaboration with partners, the Ministry is striving to provide training opportunities to ensure that young people wield practical expertise, emphasizing that more than 1,500 participants benefited from these programs over the past year.

On entrepreneurship, HE the Undersecretary said the Small Business Development Center provides young people with access to an integrated ecosystem encompassing investors, business-support entities, universities, and public- and private-sector institutions to help young entrepreneurs refine their ideas and translate them into viable projects with the potential to scale and grow.

He added that the center had benefited more than 13,000 participants over the past two years through more than 200 training courses and workshops. Its activities also align with eight of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), underscoring the center's substantive role in fostering entrepreneurship, bolstering youth-led initiatives, and turbocharging opportunities for young people to turn their ambitions into concrete outcomes.

  What has been accomplished in youth empowerment has primarily been an outgrowth of collective work and combined efforts among domestic and international partners, the Undersecretary recalled, elaborating that this accomplishment was not achieved by any one entity or institution.

HE Al Jamal stressed that youth empowerment is a shared responsibility requiring combined efforts to put the conditions in place for young people to succeed. He clarified that the most effective partnerships are those that help all parties engage in designing programs and initiatives through continuous communication between young people and labor sectors, while ensuring that their developmental needs are met and, in tandem, responding to the demands of the public and private sectors and the broader economy.

He noted that the Ministry's pursuit of supporting youth-led small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) encompasses more than 150 entities. He added that Qatar's National Youth Policy had been developed with the participation of 66 relevant entities, including government bodies, public and quasi-public sector entities, youth centers, and international organizations, alongside thousands of Qatari young people who contributed to shaping its key pillars.

This thoroughgoing approach helps ensure that the policy reflects young people's aspirations and gives them a substantive role in setting its priorities, HE Al Jamal said, adding that the most consequential partnerships are those that view young people as active partners in charting the future, rather than merely as potential employees.

He underscored that talent exists everywhere, but opportunities are not distributed equally, and that partnerships provide a means of making those opportunities more equitable.

  The Undersecretary further emphasized that imbuing young people with the essential skills, confidence, professional networks, and resources bolsters their ability not only to secure employment but also to establish businesses, create jobs for others, and contribute positively to society.

Concluding his remarks, HE Al Jamal reemphasized that coordinating education, employment sectors, and entrepreneurship support around a shared objective can unlock young people's potential and turn it into inclusive economic growth.

 He stressed that he looks forward to steadfastly working in lockstep with partners and stakeholders to build a better, more prosperous future for young people, encouraging them to trust their gut while pursuing their ambitions. (QNA)