Dear colleagues,
Concerns are mounting about the human toll the increased flows of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean is taking. Conflict and persistent political instability in the Middle East and parts of Northern Africa are only one push factor. There are at least as many who try to escape economic distress, risking their lives in search for a better future. Much of Africa’s youth sees migration as the only way out. This will be like this unless we find better ways to give them a future at home. Some practical solutions are offered in a recent publication:
FAO-IFAD-CTA, Youth and Agriculture: Key Challenges and Concrete Solutions (August 2014) (http://www.fao.org/3/a-i3947e.pdf)
Some more to the broader background in the piece below. It would be good for this forum to engage in a discussion about these solutions and the feasibility and desirability to scale them up. It’s time to look ahead from “recovery with a human face” to “suatainable development with a human face”. Today’s youth should be at the centre.
Rob
Rob Vos
Coordinator Strategic Programme on Rural Poverty Reduction (SO3) and
Director Social Protection Division (ESP)
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
Room C-328
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla -- 00153 Rome, Italy
email: rob.vos@fao.org
Website: http://www.fao.org/economic/social-protection/en/
Concerns are mounting about the human toll the increased flows of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean is taking. Conflict and persistent political instability in the Middle East and parts of Northern Africa are only one push factor. There are at least as many who try to escape economic distress, risking their lives in search for a better future. Much of Africa’s youth sees migration as the only way out. This will be like this unless we find better ways to give them a future at home. Some practical solutions are offered in a recent publication:
FAO-IFAD-CTA, Youth and Agriculture: Key Challenges and Concrete Solutions (August 2014) (http://www.fao.org/3/a-i3947e.pdf)
Some more to the broader background in the piece below. It would be good for this forum to engage in a discussion about these solutions and the feasibility and desirability to scale them up. It’s time to look ahead from “recovery with a human face” to “suatainable development with a human face”. Today’s youth should be at the centre.
Rob
Rob Vos
Coordinator Strategic Programme on Rural Poverty Reduction (SO3) and
Director Social Protection Division (ESP)
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
Room C-328
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla -- 00153 Rome, Italy
email: rob.vos@fao.org
Website: http://www.fao.org/economic/social-protection/en/
