Welcome Remarks
Vice President Mamta Murthi opened with the event’s focus on helping young people thrive in a rapidly changing world. She emphasized that jobs for young people are a top priority, underscoring that they need skills to get onto the ladder of opportunity and need to keep building new skills to navigate a dynamic world of work. Young people must be prepared to shift their jobs and livelihoods to take advantage of new opportunities, and they must be ready to work in new ways such as across borders and with people from diverse backgrounds. Ms. Murthi then introduced the two session themes, noting that the gender lens on youth skills is part of the World Bank’s first Accelerate Equality Day at the Annual Meetings.
First Session: Youth Skills for a Fast-Changing World
Rukmini Banerji shared how her organization, Pratham Education Foundation, focuses on the continued importance of investing in foundational literacy and numeracy. In a survey of Indian youth ages 14 to 18 last year, Pratham found that youth with weak reading and math skills could not complete basic life tasks. These youth might struggle in the workplace and with tasks to help their families such as administering medicine or making a large purchase. She also reflected on digital literacy, explaining that Pratham’s research suggests while young people learn how to use their devices for greater access to data and entertainment purposes, they lack digital skills for practical purposes. Middle and high school are critical times to ensure that young women and men can build deeper skills, apply these skills to real situations, and develop flexible mindsets to succeed in complex work environments.
Brent Roberts spoke about research on social, emotional, and behavioral skills in the workplace and beyond. He described these tools as essential skills, since people cannot use the foundational and technical skills they learn in school without them. We can group social, emotional, and behavioral skills into how you understand and manage your own emotions; how you act with other people such as leadership and teamwork; and your work style such as self-regulation and the ability to work in a creative space. People can learn these skills at any age with sufficient time and institutional support, and young adulthood is a prime period to develop and practice these skills.
Mossadeck Bally stressed that employers need workers with both technical skills and abilities such as problem-solving, adaptability, and communication. Based on his experience founding and leading Azalaï Hotels, he brought up the need for young people to have skills to succeed as entrepreneurs and to work across cultures in the services industry. While he has invested in developing these skills for his employees, he advocated for government investments in basic education and TVET to ensure that more youth enter the job market with the right skills. He further proposed that public-private partnerships can drive economic growth by reinforcing young people’s skills with practical experience and connecting them to jobs.
Deputy Minister Guntsadze from Georgia highlighted that youth skills are a vital resource in a relatively small country, noting challenges such as young people with more education opting for jobs abroad and youth lacking skills that match available jobs. She also raised the question of the future of education reform to keep pace with fast-changing economies and to develop people’s skills across their lifetimes.
Minister Kaba brought in the experience of Côte d'Ivoire. She underscored partnerships with the World Bank that finance education and skills training to empower young women and men, including programs to promote women’s economic independence and reduce gender-based violence. Collaboration between the public and private sector can expand these types of training opportunities and strengthen technical and vocational training.
Second Session: Boosting Young Women’s Opportunities and Leadership
Esther Waititu contributed the story of her journey to a leadership role in the telecommunications company Safaricom. She found strong women role models, mentorship, and networks critical to her success. She encouraged young women to leverage these types of opportunities to advance their careers. Safaricom has launched public-private partnerships at different levels of education for student internships to help prepare young people for the job market, as well as initiatives with the Ministry of Education on financial and digital literacy. Governments can foster the transformative power of mobile money and other digital tools, and public investment is also critical to ensure education and digital infrastructure that expands economic opportunities for women.
Roya Mahboob spoke about her experience growing up in Afghanistan, noting that the hurdles she faced as a woman are similar to broader patterns of exclusion in Afghanistan, South Asia, and beyond. She realized that women need quality education and support to realize their potential as leaders, causing her to start Digital Citizen Fund. The organization trains women in digital and financial literacy, uses digital tools to provide continued secondary education, and supports women’s entrepreneurship. Digital and financial skills open the door to larger opportunities that benefit women and their communities and are an entry point to build skills such as leadership, confidence, and resilience. She concluded that if a small organization can equip women with digital skills to be leaders in modern economies, governments can support transformative change and jobs by supporting large-scale initiatives.
Managing Director of Operations Anna Bjerde emphasized the urgency to bridge the gap between young women and men in access to opportunities, recognizing issues such as stagnant rates of women’s labor force participation, pay inequality for equal work, and limited private sector leadership roles. The World Bank is raising its ambition on gender equality with its new strategy and commitments. These commitments by 2030 are to enable 300 million more women to use broadband, support 250 million women with social protection programs, and provide 80 million more women and women-led businesses with capital. She pointed out that investments in gender equality should start from early childhood and encompass nutrition, enrollment and continued attendance in school, and comprehensive health services for both girls and boys. As women make the transition from school to work and higher levels of leadership, we can support them by helping to shift social norms and providing services such as financial and digital inclusion, transportation, childcare, and elderly care. She also celebrated progress in the private sector and in many countries on policies to promote gender equality.
Deputy Prime Minister Prasad from Fiji provided context that the country is missing out on some of its most productive workers because women’s progress in educational achievements is not translating into increased participation in the workforce. Fiji is responding with its national development plan and efforts to improve women’s health outcomes and provide quality education at all levels based on a strong foundation from early childhood. In his experience, government programs and policies to advance women’s leadership, economic opportunities, and fair wages are all vital to accelerating lasting change for women.
Minister Al-Ibrahim shared initiatives in Saudi Arabia to encourage gender equality in the labor market, with achievements that include exceeding its Vision 2030 target for women’s labor force participation of 30%. Corporate cultural norms still need to catch up with new policies to further gender equality. Mandatory wage transparency, childcare, and maternity leave policies can all support women’s long-term career growth, particularly in critical STEM and climate industries. He also posed a question on how to align private sector incentives globally with human capital development goals to ensure women’s access to opportunities and leadership.
Closing Summary
Vice President Mamta Murthi reflected that the event highlighted the importance of foundational skills, digital fluency, and social, emotional, and behavioral skills for young people. The speakers helped to identify how to develop the broad set of skills for youth that are necessary to succeed in the -changing world of works and the strengths that women can bring through their skills and potential as leaders and entrepreneurs. Many countries face gaps in the quality and breadth of skills that should be taught in primary and secondary schools and need to build partnerships with employers to improve labor market linkages with secondary and higher education. She also recognized that social, emotional, and behavioral skills can be built both in and outside of school as demonstrated by the examples in the hospitality and telecommunications industries. She concluded by thanking the speakers and inviting participants to join a reception held by the World Bank’s gender and human capital teams.
