World Youth Forum cancels 5th edition events, redirects budget to development projects

Ahram Online , Saturday 4 Feb 2023

Due to the ongoing global economic crises, the World Youth Forum (WYF) has announced that it is cancelling this year’s edition of the annual event and that its budget will be redirected to supporting five development initiatives.

World Youth Forum

 

The WYF was launched in 2017 under the auspices of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to bring together young people from around the world to promote dialogue and discuss development issues. The forum has since been held annually in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh.

This year’s WYF budget will be used to support “initiatives with direct impact on citizens, and youth in particular, in Egypt and abroad,” Rascha Ragheb, executive director of the WYF, said at a press conference in Cairo on Saturday at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation.

An initiative will be launched to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), helping entrepreneurs start their businesses or expand their activities through business incubators. The initiative will also include funded training programs where technical support is provided to industrial workers in Egypt, especially in villages and towns that fall under the Decent Life presidential initiative.

The initiative will be launched in cooperation with different development partners including the Decent Life Foundation, the Presidential National Initiative for Developing Egyptian Industry (Ebda), the Federation of Egyptian Industries, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, the United Nations Development Programme, and the International Labour Organisation.

The second initiative, dubbed ‘Learning to Earn,’ aims to qualify Egyptian, Arab and African youth for the labour market and empower them to obtain decent jobs. This initiative will be implemented in cooperation with the United Nations Children’s Fund and Egypt’s National Training Academy.

The third initiative addresses food security challenges by offering support programs to develop the capacities of farmers and those in charge of food industries in Egypt and Africa. This program will be carried out in cooperation with Ebda Presidential Initiative, the National Alliance for Civil Development Work, the Decent Life Foundation, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

The WYF will also launch a mental health support program to provide psychological, health, and community care support for refugees, migrants and displaced people and their families. This initiative will be carried out in cooperation with the Egyptian Fahem Foundation for mental health and the World Health Organisation.

The fifth initiative is an international project to support and empower refugees and migrants by helping them integrate into educational systems and ease their access to healthcare services and social protection programmes. The initiative will be carried out in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Egypt, the International Organisation for Migration, and Save the Children.

The budget allocated to sponsor these initiatives has not been revealed.

The WYF also announced that it will launch a platform to promote volunteering culture and support and qualify volunteers to participate in humanitarian and development work, especially in poor and countries affected by conflict or climate change.

The platform will also implement exchange programs of volunteers between different countries, in cooperation with the Foundation for a Decent Life, the National Alliance for Civil Development Work, the Arab Union for Volunteering and the United Nations Volunteers Program. 

Short link: