Decent youth employment can be ensured by rights-based integrated strategy

Bangladesh's youth labour market is narrow and underdeveloped, with about 25 per cent of the working-age population being youths aged between 15-24 years but only 28 per cent of the labour force falling into this category, said a Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) report.

The participation of male and female youth workers is very much low (54.7 per cent and 25.9 per cent respectively) compared with that of the adult workforce (94 per cent and 39 per cent respectively), said the report.

Youth unemployment is considerably high (13 per cent) compared with the national average (4 per cent), while 27 per cent of the youth population is not in education, employment and training, it said.

Even those who are employed are largely engaged in informal activities, with only 9 per cent working in formal jobs, which is about half of the national average of 17 per cent, it added.

An integrated national strategy led by Goal 8, decent work and economic growth, of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a rights-based approach could ensure decent employment for the youth, the report said.

Lack of milestones, missing data and non-reporting of key indicators have weakened the SDG review process, so the government in consultation with the private sector and civil society organisations should set milestones of missing indicators for 2025 and 2030, it said.

The government may consider formulating a national youth budget that will address multidimensional aspects such as youth education, training, decent employment, gender equality and employment for the challenged and marginalised groups, it added.

The report on decent employment for the youth was among 10 such policy briefs presented at a "Conference on VNR 2020 of Bangladesh: Positioning Non-State Actors" at the capital's Lakeshore hotel yesterday.

It was organised by the Citizen's Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh, a civil society/ non-state actor initiative to contribute in the national SDGs process of the country, in association with 11 of its partner organisations.

The initiative is geared to provide inputs to the government's Voluntary National Review (VNR), a periodic exercise that helps countries and SDGs-implementing stakeholders to both review and learn from country experiences and formulate ways for the journey ahead.

The government will submit a VNR, for the second time, at a High-Level Political Forum 2020 in New York coming July.

The platform identified "Youth and Young People" as the cross-cutting theme for preparing the policy briefs.

The remaining nine focus points were: gender equality, empowering girls and young women, rights of youth from marginalised communities, child rights and violence against children, youth and climate action, youth participation and representation in development process, youth extremism and WASH and youth.

Addressing the closing session, Rehman Sobhan, chairman of the CPD, said he was less aware of government reciprocity when it holds its own assessment of implementation of SDGs and whether it recognised the role of the non-state actors (NSAs).

Iftekharuzzaman, core group member of the platform and executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh, said he had questions over how much space was given to NSAs and that Bangladesh was moving towards "development without freedom".

An atmosphere of intimidation existed while core institutions were being turned dysfunctional through the incorporation of party politics, he added.

Shaheen Anam, another core group member and executive director of Manusher Jonno Foundation, gave the welcome remarks.

Mustafizur Rahman, a distinguished fellow of the CPD; Farah Kabir, country director of ActionAid Bangladesh; KM Abdus Salam, director general of NGO Affairs Bureau; and Shamsul ALam, a member of the General Economics Division of the Planning Commission, also spoke.

Debapriya Bhattacharya, the platform's convener and a distinguished fellow of the CPD; Shahriar Alam, state minister for foreign affairs; Sudipto Mukherjee, resident representative of UNDP Bangladesh; and Rasheda K Choudhury, executive director of the Campaign for Popular Education, spoke in the opening session.