Further to the release of our recent report, “Nurturing Human Capital: the Missing Piece of MENA’s Entrepreneurship Puzzle”, we hosted a webinar which was chaired by Tony Bury, Mowgli’s Founder and Chairman. Tony shared our thoughts and insights from the report and created an active dialogue around this key missing piece of the puzzle.
The MENA region has been undergoing a tremendous amount of turmoil over the past few years. Unemployment levels in the region continue to be the highest in the world at 11.7% with youth unemployment rising beyond this at 28.2% and 30.5% across the Middle East and North Africa respectively. Continuous political and economic instability has created major challenges in the form of staggering unemployment rates as well as falling education and literacy levels amongst youth and women, leading to a growing income inequality gap and a leadership vacuum. In addition, public sectors in the region cannot continue carrying the load of employing more and more people with their declining budgets.
Adding to these challenges, the mass migration of over one million refugees from war-torn countries into Europe has also spread the unemployment challenges across Europe, with youth unemployment levels reaching 20% in two thirds of European countries. Whilst many migrants fled their countries because of armed conflicts, many also left due to economic hardship. For European countries, the future does not look promising as the potential numbers in the coming years are extremely alarming and worrying, adding to the current unemployment and economic situation of some countries.
Insisting that entrepreneurship is still the answer and solves the problems
Linking the journey with the need of mentoring at different phases
Third point:
Entrepreneurs are created through nurture and if today’s entrepreneurs who have been through primary, secondary and tertiary education are to create the employment the region requires, mentoring provides true nurturing to take on this challenge
Third point:
Entrepreneurs are created through nurture and if today’s entrepreneurs who have been through primary, secondary and tertiary education are to create the employment the region requires, mentoring provides true nurturing to take on this challenge