The world’s global plastics waste crisis demands policy coordination and technological solutions to improve waste management systems, and organizations worldwide have created momentum around the concept of a circular economy. This paper advances a holistic, inclusive circular economy framework that aims to empower waste pickers with the following basic pillars: (1) build collaborative networks of stakeholders to enable inclusion of waste pickers; (2) establish cooperative enterprise models to integrate waste pickers into the formal economy; (3) build waste pickers’ technical skills and capacity for entrepreneurship; and (4) provide access to technologies and markets that enable waste pickers to manufacture upcycled products.
Despite recent progress in promoting gender equality in the cultural and creative industries, as well as the renewed attention generated by the both the pandemic and the #MeToo movement, much work remains if we are to achieve gender equality in this sector. Impediments to gender equality in the cultural and creative sectors are numerous, and include unequal access to decent employment, fair remuneration, and leadership positions, as well as barriers to seniority. Opportunities for women to participate fully in the cultural sectors and benefit from the creative economy, notably in the digital environment, require increased support. Gender equality is fundamental to ensuring a genuine diversity of cultural content and equal opportunities in artistic work and cultural employment. It is high time that the culture sector grasps the extent of these inequalities and the structural issues that remain to be addressed. Culture and creativity are unfortunately not immune to gender inequality. This report comes at an opportune moment, as we celebrate the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development. For a truly inclusive and prosperous creative economy to take shape, we must step up our efforts to promote gender equality in this sector. The UNESCO 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and the 1980 Recommendation concerning the Status of the Artist both call for such a commitment and can serve as inspiration for States to embark on this path.
This report presents the findings of a survey of young people—the survey aimed at understanding the attitudes of youth towards the future of work. The results show that young people are agents of change, ready to stand up for their future and the planet.
The Global Youth Energy Outlook (GYEO) is the first youth-led research project of its kind organized by Student Energy to engage over 40,000 young people ages 18 to 30 and share their perspectives on the energy transition. The research highlights that most young people want their countries to take immediate and drastic climate action. At the same time, public and private sector leaders are called upon to actively create opportunities for young people and meaningfully engage youth in decision-making spaces. Additionally, the report highlights regional differences between young people from developing and emerging economies and those from high-income countries.
In partnership with IBM, the OECD recently conducted a social media poll, asking young people how well prepared they feel about joining the world of work, how confident they are about their future paths, and what concerns them about education and jobs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode, the OECD and IBM discuss insights from the poll and why career guidance and real-world work experiences are more important for young people than ever.
This note illustrates how AI can support post-secondary learning across the entire tertiary and vocational education sector in emerging markets.
EY Ripples and JA Worldwide teams surveyed nearly 6,000 Gen Z youth and found they are ready to reframe how business and education operate. This report presents the survey results, which yielded an understanding of a generation that is largely optimistic about 2030 and is ready to get started with gaining work experience so that they can tackle global challenges.
The authors of this article combined data collected from various sources to build a data-driven assessment of the number of such online workers (also known as online freelancers) globally. Their headline estimate is that there are 163 million freelancer profiles registered on online labour platforms globally.
Mobile phone network coverage has increased worldwide over the past two decades. In advanced and emerging economies alike, young people are much more digitally connected than older generations. Digital technologies offer an opportunity to communicate with youth and collect data at a low-cost. Using digital methods like SMS has become more relevant to obtain timely data and information, especially with the current COVID-19 crisis. This note highlights the six steps taken by the Mexico Youth Labor Market Inclusion (MYLMI) project to design a successful short message system (SMS) outreach strategy to incorporate youth voice in their project.
This note highlights how the Mexico Youth Labor Market Inclusion (MYLMI) project used four strategies to incorporate youth voice in the design of their program. The project focuses on generating evidence on interventions that promote the labor inclusion of low-income youth into formal quality jobs in strategic productive sectors. The project is being implemented by the World Bank and the Government of Mexico in the state of San Luis Potosi.
An innovation of IFC, Vitae helps higher education institutions understand how well they’re preparing students for the workforce. It’s a data-driven approach for public and private institutions to evaluate themselves against a global benchmark of good practices. Vitae identifies employability gaps and proposes practical interventions to equip an institution to chart a path to transformation.
This report presents a first diagnostic of Africa’s gender gap in financing early-stage ventures in the digital economy (start-ups). The report’s findings indicate that since 2013, only 3 percent of total funding for Africa’s tech start-ups went to all-female founding teams, compared with 76 percent of funding for all-male teams. The report’s analysis shows that female founders are underrepresented in the sectors that attract the most financing; however, even those all-female teams that are working in sectors with high investor interest remain less likely to receive financing than all-male teams, and they receive smaller amounts if they do. Male and female entrepreneurs in the report’s sample also followed different financing paths: female founders were less likely to pitch for equity investments; conversely, they were more likely to apply for bank loans, or to prefer growth from retained earnings.
This publication draws lessons and good practices from entrepreneurship development models and incubation centres designed for the youth in Indonesia. It explores the incubation centres in the country's three public higher education institutions and an entrepreneurship training model facilitated by a Swiss–Indonesian start-up accelerator program. Recommendations focus on strengthening similar programs in other universities, such as management and resources, financial sustainability, mentorship and training, business services and facilities, graduation and post-incubation, and documentation and evaluation.
This research considers how various countries around the world are meeting the challenge of ensuring decent work for interns, and what more needs to be done to realize that objective, including the possible development of a new international labor standard on this issue.
This note provides an overview of labor markets and job outcomes in the Horn of Africa. It provides an overview of issues related to jobs in the five countries of the region, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. It first discusses labor market characteristics, notably labor force participation, unemployment and underemployment,as well as demographics of the labor force. Secondly, it compares employment patterns, focusing on the type and sector of employment. Finally, it looks at the limited information available on jobs outcomes – notably, wage levels.
This report aims to inspire and inform a conversation about how we might reimagine and intentionally design a truly just and sustainable fashion system. The circular fashion industry offers environmental benefits, but also has the potential to negatively impact jobs. While some jobs might disappear due to automation, new opportunities will emerge in areas like repair and resale. These new jobs will require different skillsets compared to traditional garment industry jobs.
This is an article about leveling up the economy through circular economy jobs. It discusses the benefits of a circular economy, which focuses on reusing and recycling products. The circular economy can create jobs in repair,remanufacturing, reuse, and recycling. These jobs could be spread throughout the UK and could help to address regional unemployment. The government can support the circular economy by setting ambitious targets and providing financial incentives.
This report examines the scope, potential benefits, and challenges of digital platforms in Asia and the Pacific. It proposes measures and policies to help maximize social and economic gains while alleviating adverse effects.
This technical brief shares lessons learnt and practical examples from Ecuador, Rwanda, Vietnam and Zambia on how to scale up innovations in education for implementation in different contexts and then sustain the shifts in practice, policy, and each setting structures.
The cultural sector has been severely and persistently affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with museums particularly hard hit: the 2020 UNESCO report estimated that nearly 90%, or an estimated 85,000 institutions, had been closed for varying lengths of time. The role of museums in society is essential, as they are responsible not only for preserving heritage for future generations but also as central actors for promoting lifelong learning and equal access to culture and the dissemination of values on which humanity is based. In this particularly difficult context, UNESCO has launched a 2021 study to reassess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on museum attendance, budgets and activities in order to analyze the threats to the sector and its evolution in the next few years.
