Empty cultural places, drastically reduced mobility and tourism blockade as an effect of COVID-19 confinement measures not only generate an evident economic damage to cultural institutions, companies and workers but also create a strong economic and social discomfort at city level. Although many EU member states are now entering into a de-confinement phase, many cultural places remain closed or subject to stringent physical-distancing measures. In these new circumstances, one main condition for the sustainability of most cultural and creative sectors (CCS) has been almost entirely disrupted: the possibility to have a public ‘live’ as a source of revenues to meet operating costs, putting more than seven million jobs at risk in Europe. Using cultural jobs statistics from Eurostat and the JRC’s Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor, this report identifies highly vulnerable cultural jobs and creative cities. Despite the unprecedented challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic, some cities are already experimenting new event formats to better reach local inhabitants and nearby communities, while ensuring the financial sustainability of cultural activities. Both national and city governments have issued a wide range of policy measures (from compensatory grants to tax reliefs) to maintain alive Europe’s cultural capital, while giving cultural institutions, companies and workers the time to get prepared to post-COVID times. Proximity tourism could indeed help compensate losses from international tourism, while new cultural services that meet societal needs (educational, health, environmental...) would help restore the European social fabric and people’s well-being.
This report refers to four fundamental tensions holding back education in the MENA region: Credentials and skills, discipline and inquiry, control and autonomy, and tradition and modernity. If not addressed, MENA will continue to operate below its potential. Addressing these tensions and unleashing the potential of education requires a new framework with a three-pronged approach: A concerted push for learning that starts early for all children regardless of background, with qualified and motivated educators that leverages technology and uses modern approaches and monitors learning. It also requires a stronger pull for skills by all stakeholders in the labor market and society and involves coordinated multi-system reforms within and outside the education system. Finally, it requires a new pact for education at a national level with a unified vision, shared responsibilities and accountabilities.
This report brings together the voices and experiences of over 14,000 girls across many continents. It aims at uncovering and understanding their experiences being online: what platforms they use, what is their experience of harassment, who are the perpetrators and the impact of harassment on them.
This report, produced with the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, is the result of research carried out before the current health crisis. Nevertheless, it reveals flaws in artistic freedom that this crisis will only exacerbate, and progress that may be built upon. While legislative efforts are still needed for better protection of artistic freedom, recent years have seen the emergence of a body of case law from which States can draw, as well as a diversification of mechanisms for the protection of artists at risk. Despite the increased awareness of the specificities of artistic work in terms of social protection, equitable remuneration and taxation observed throughout the world, it is clear that the calls for an integrated approach to legislation on the status of the artist have not yet been heard by a majority of States. In the governments' responses to the profound repercussions of the global pandemic on employment, the rights of artists to be seen as workers with their own specificities must not be overlooked. May this report serve to show that in the absence of appropriate legal frameworks, the culture sector will not be better equipped than it is today to respond to future crises.
The blog highlights the World Bank's strategy aims at creating economic opportunities for MENA’s youth by opening-up business environments for young entrepreneurs to compete in free and fair markets for the provision of goods and services.
This OECD Short Note explores the connection between consumption patterns, behavior, and gender in achieving a circular economy. It highlights that different consumption habits between men and women can influence the effectiveness of sustainability efforts. The report emphasizes the need for a gender-sensitive approach to encourage behaviors that promote a more circular economy and achieve environmental goals.
Young women in Africa are less likely to be employed than young men, as a result of gaps in access to resources such as skills, time, and capital, and due to underlying social norms. Adolescence is a particularly critical time to intervene, as teenage pregnancy or dropping out of school can have severe impacts on future employment and earnings with significant consequences on their lives. At the macroeconomic level, investing in adolescent girls is also crucial for Sub-Saharan Africa`s demographic dividend.
The ILO's "Global Employment Trends for Youth" report examines challenges and opportunities for young workers in today's job market. It emphasizes the need for policies promoting full employment, decent work, and a smooth school-to-work transition, particularly in light of technological advancements impacting job creation, training, and the global economic slowdown. The report highlights the missed target of reducing youth unemployment and urges renewed efforts to create decent jobs for the next generation.
The research reviews the entrepreneurial ecosystem to assess the capacity to foster young green entrepreneurship and address social and environmental challenges. The report considers from the perspective of key stakeholders, primarily those providing business development services and experts in the field of youth and social entrepreneurship and government representatives and entrepreneurs themselves.
This brief highlights different ways in which youth employment projects in S4YE’s community of practice, the Impact Portfolio, are adapting their strategies and delivery models in response to COVID‒19. Based on recent and ongoing discussions with our partners, we see six main trends that programs are using to maintain operational and programmatic continuity. These include scaling of virtual operations, crowdsourcing ideas from youth, accelerating remote learning, encouraging youth voice, increased support for micro, small and medium enterprises, and leveraging new growth opportunities. Overall, we see a deepening and widening of the ways our partners are using digital technology to be effective and to reach more youth in these challenging times.
This paper explores the "Scholas Occurrentes" pedagogical approach to addressing dropouts. "Scholas" focuses on the voice of students. It seeks to act positively on their motivation by listening to them, creating spaces for discussion, and strengthening soft skills and civic engagement. This paper presents "Scholas" work with three examples from Paraguay, Haiti, and Argentina. It analyzes the positive impacts that the "Scholas" intervention had on the participants. Then, it focuses on future challenges regarding the scalability and involvement of the institutions in the formulation of new public policies. The approach highlights the participatory nature of education and the importance of all actors' engagement.
This brief discusses the importance of incorporating youth voice in the design of youth employment programs and the factors organizations must consider when utilizing radio, short message service (SMS) text, and social media platforms. It also features how technology platforms have been used by S4YE’s Partners and the World Bank, to incorporate youth voice in projects. The Note highlights practical insights, challenges, and solutions that can help youth practitioners.
Humans in the Loop uses the AI annotation market to create livelihoods opportunities for conflict-affected people and communities. This report summarizes how Humans in the Loop is impacting conflict-affected communities by connecting them to digital work programs and training during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Information and communication technologies have long been predicted to spread economic opportunities to rural areas. However, the actual trend in the 21st century has been the opposite. Knowledge spillovers have fueled urbanization and pulled job-seekers into large cities, increasing the gap with rural areas. In this article, the authors argue that new assemblages of technologies and social practices, so-called ‘online labour platforms’, have recently started to counter this trend.
This toolkit highlights recent innovations and suggests strategies for strengthening apprenticeships in the fast-changing world of work. Considering technological advances, digitalization, and the growing importance of digital skills, it offers over 20 digital tools that can play an integral part in delivering, monitoring, and evaluating apprenticeship programs.
This report places the notion of social inclusion in an analysis of Africa’s achievements and challenges. Its interdisciplinary approach uses evidence to bring empirical weight to issues that are often debated through advocacy and contestation. It also contributes to the priority areas of a new regional strategy for the Africa region of the World Bank by focusing on women’s empowerment, digital technology, fragility, and climate change, among others.
This report presents an analysis of the implementation and results of the SWITCH Africa Green programme in the integrated waste management (IWM) sector focusing on the participating countries: Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, South Africa and Uganda. It covers the strategic interventions in the waste sector notably municipal solid waste management, e-waste management, waste to energy (e.g. biogas production and briquette production), as well as industrial symbiosis (IS). It analyses the results realised, cross cutting issues, challenges, lessons learnt and presents a set of recommendations.
This policy brief highlights the main results from a GIZ-supported study of the evolving employment dynamics in SSA’s agricultural value chains by Michigan State University. Three main pathways are described that provide job opportunities in agricultural value chains and in the non-farm sectors. Further, the study summarises key entry points for investment and policy actions to promote inclusive, competitive and productive agri-food systems generating employment opportunities and contributing to economic growth and transformation.
Through the lens of three focus areas—skills, quality of work and inclusivity—this report provides an overview of how current labour market issues apply to the circular economy transition, the opportunities that circularity presents for the labour market and the challenges that need to be overcome to achieve a future labour market that enables people and the planet to thrive.
This Jobs Solutions Note identifies practical solutions for development practitioners to proactively integrate gender inclusion in digital jobs programs. Based on curated knowledge and evidence for a specific topic and relevant to jobs, the Jobs Solutions Notes are not intended to be exhaustive; they provide key lessons, solutions and approaches synthesized from the experiences of the World Bank Group and partners. This Note draws from S4YE’s 2018 annual report, Digital Jobs for Youth: Young Women in the Digital Economy, highlighting new and emerging strategies to designing gender-inclusive digital jobs interventions for youth. The Note employs a nuanced definition of “digital jobs” to enable practitioners and policy makers to develop a range of interventions tailored to specific contexts and target groups, to improve young women’s employment outcomes from digital jobs programs.
