Youth United against Unemployment


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Young people from the territory of the Dayton Quadrangle, aside from former mutual country and language, are bonded by similar life issues. The high unemployment rate, inadequate education system, gap between the quality of professional qualifications and demand for labor, as well as insufficient mobility of labor force are only some of numerous issues facing the youth of the Western Balkans. At the same time, the youth is often criticized for being passive and not sufficiently interested in taking active participation in decision making processes. Luckily, all is not as gloomy as it appears considering that the Igman initiative Youth Forum, with support from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, organized a three-day conference on the aforementioned topic.

 From November 14th till November 16th 2nd , the Forum on new regional policies and the EU integration under the name ‘The issue of youth unemployment in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia – Nordic cooperation model solutions’ was organized within the framework of the Igman Initiative. The Conference, held in Belgrade, was attended by over 60 CSO activists, representatives of competent government institutions, journalists and youth winds of political parties from the four countries.

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By joining forces during panel discussions, the attendees worked on formulating a set of recommendations related aimed at reducing the number of unemployed young people in the region, as well as on outlining a declaration that will be presented to the governments of the four countries in the following period.