Social Emotional Skills

This Knowledge Brief highlights examples of music enterprises in Africa and the types of opportunities they offer for youth in the broad music ecosystem.  The Brief also suggests some strategies for translating music into economic and social benefits: 1) Access to finance to support music enterprises, 2) Targeted music-friendly policies, 3) Support for networks and enabling infrastructure, 4) Enhanced participation of women and artists from marginalized communities, and 5) Human capital development through skills, training, and innovation.

This report highlights the importance of emotional resilience to cope with the rapidly changing nature of work.

Sport for Development

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.

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.

Despite growing interest in this topic, however, there is no clear consensus about which soft skills are likely to produce the most significant benefit to youth and to what extent these skills are similar or different across key outcome areas. This report identifies the core soft skills that would create positive outcomes across important areas of youth’s lives, including workforce success, violence prevention, and sexual and reproductive health (SRH).

The tool includes training, assessment, and digital learning tools for companies to strengthen employees' soft skills. This tool focuses on a set of  10 soft skills deemed essential in the world of work‒ communication, higher-order thinking, collaboration, positive self-concept, adaptability, interdisciplinarity, resilience, entrepreneurial thinking, empathy, inclusiveness. 

This report outlines a framework for the soft skills young entrepreneurs need now and in the future to better navigate the challenges of a rapidly changing job market. This research report literature review and interviews with expert, youth-focused organizations around the world. 

This report summarizes emerging evidence on the formation of cognitive, behavioral and technical skills. What does this mean for Vietnam’s education and training system? This report proposes a holistic skills strategy for Vietnam which looks at today’s workforce as much as the future workforce.