Conference on:

Children, Youth and Development: A Future Strategy

Under the auspices of

Aleppo Municipality

Arab Urban Development Institute (AUDI),  

MENA Child Protection Initiative (MENA CPI), World Bank (WB)

Islamic Development Bank (ISDB), International Youth Foundation (IYF)

June 21-22, 2010 | Aleppo, Syria

Introduction

Since the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) in 2000, the Arab region achieved high progress in several fields such as health and education. Yet, and despite the efforts exerted by the Arab countries, there is very limited achievements in the less developed ones, to the extent that it will be difficult for them to achieve most of the intended goals by the year 2015. Moreover, the rate of poverty in the Arab countries is still high (reaching 40%). This means nearly 140 million persons in the Arab World live below the poverty line. Also unemployment rate (especially among youth) in the Arab countries reached very high levels; being the highest in the world. This is a major cause of poverty.

Countries of the MENA region are experiencing high level of urbanization. More and more people are living in urban centers, and with these urban settlements come problems of unemployment and poverty. There is a lot that need to be done at the local urban level in these countries.

Most of the efforts to tackle issues of poverty, employment opportunities, schooling,…etc are made at the national level by mainly the central governments, or by dedicated governmental organizations or agencies. There is an immense need for the Arab Countries to use a more bottom up approach to deal with issues, problems, and even opportunities that exist at the local level in order to complement (not substitute) the national level efforts. In fact, this could be one of the best approaches given the experience of other countries and the need for innovative ways to deal with these issues.

The Arab Urban Development Institute (AUDI)/ MENA Child Protection Initiative (MENA CPI), being the technical and scientific arm of the Arab Towns Organization, with more than 450 cities as members has a unique role to play in this respect.  Audi works mainly at the local and city level and therefore promote the local involvement through its activities. Based on a local and participatory approach, AUDI/MENA CPI organizes this  conference on “Children, Youth and Development: A Future Strategy” in Aleppo, Syria aiming to develop a framework for an integrated executive plan at the Aleppo City level, that includes applicable initiatives, development projects and recommendations that can help design appropriate programs for children, youth employment and poverty alleviation in the city.  This is hoped to be achieved through enhancement of education, health, and social and economic conditions, and via active partnership between public and private sectors, and the civil community. The ultimate goal is for all stakeholders to play a developmental role and become real partners to achieve the intended objectives through setting executive development plans.

The participation of other cities’ officials, city council members, and mayors of different Syrian and regional cities is going to raise the level of awareness of all participants of their roles, capabilities,  and responsibilities for children and youth issues and the complementary role they may pay to national authorities.

Main Objective

Preliminary studies on youth employment and recruitment have been conducted in five Arab cities including Aleppo. Also other studies are made on the perception of mayors on youth employment and recruitment for the five cities. The results of these studies will be presented and discussed as part of the inputs needed to develop the executive plan to be made at the end of this conference. Two pockets of poverty areas in Aleppo were studied; Hayderiya and Sheikh Khidr, and the results of these studies will be presented and discussed along with the proposed and implemented programs to alleviate poverty in these two areas in Aleppo.

Since the last conference of July 2009 Aleppo city has embarked on the concept of “child friendly city” with technical support from MENA CPI.  The results of this experience are going to be demonstrated and evaluated in this conference.

The conference also aims to introduce the “social safety network” in Aleppo, a concept that has been introduced by MENA CPI recently in Tripoli, Lebanon.  This is to shed light on its goals, ambitions and methodology of work, learn from the so far limited experience of Tripoli, and also to encourage the different stakeholders working in the sector of children and youth to join the network.

The conference will concentrate on the major problems facing children and youth, such as school dropout, child labor, youth employment, urban poverty, and the negative impacts they all have at all the city’s areas.

What is even more important is the participation of mayors of different cities, and this help achieve the  awareness raising objective of this conference.  Selected mayors and city officials are expected to join the conference under the leadership of the Syrian Minster of Local Administration.  In addition to their participation in activities of the conference, there will be half a day session in which these city officials will review the experience of Aleppo and Tripoli and other cities and discuss the cities’ role in children and youth issues along with challenges and obstacles facing them to address these issues, and how to overcome these obstacles. 

On top of that, and in partnership with the International Youth Foundation (IYF), some capacity building activities for the NGOs and other partners of Aleppo city will be conducted following the two day conference.

It is expected of this conference to propose an executive integrated work plan for children and youth, with specific objectives and a time frame . The roles will be defined with participation of all partners.

Activities

This conference will constitute specialized workshops on youth employment, child labor and school dropout, and poverty alleviation. This will be an opportunity for participants to exchange experiences, activities and publications that would help participation, reaction, cooperation and networking.

The related associations will participate in this conference to present their studies and expertise on the prevailing problems and suggest solutions and bases for the future plans. The conference will rely on a participatory approach through specialized workshops that will contribute in illustrating the various aspects of problems and the suggested solutions.

Partners

-          Syrian Ministry of Local Administration

-          Aleppo Municipality

-          World Bank

-          Islamic Development Bank

-          AUDI / MENA Child Protection Initiative (CPI)

-          International Youth Foundation (IYF)

-          Experts and activists in the civil society

Venue

Sheraton Hotel, Aleppo. Special arrangements are made with hotel for discounted room rates.

Hotel Information