(GB. 349/POL/1: Review of progress made regarding the follow-up of the Youth Employment Action Plan (YEAP) for the period of 2020-30, 6th November 2023)

1. Thank you Chair. I am speaking on behalf of ASPAG.
2. ASPAG appreciates the work of the Office in preparing the document as the reference of our discussion today.
3. Youth is the hope and the future of the world. Youth employment is of great significance for global growth and recovery after COVID-19, especially in ASPAG with the largest youth population in the world. ASPAG countries have been attaching great importance to and keeping a close watch on youth employment.
4. The effects of COVID-19 on young people in the labour market persist. Young people were disproportionately affected by the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, while the pace of recovery in terms of youth employment is lagging behind in many regions of the world. The divergence in recovery pathways contributes to global inequalities in opportunities for young people, with potential negative spill-over effects on labour migration, well-being of young people and social cohesion.
5. Against these backdrops, ASPAG welcomes the follow-up Youth Employment Action Plan (YEAP) for the period 2020-30, and it is well acknowledged within ASPAG that youth employment is one of the policy priorities.
6. We take note that YEAP has achieved fruitful outcomes globally so far, especially in ASPAG through a wide array of initiatives and programmes in the cluster of technical assistance and capacity-building.
7. We call on the Office to strengthen youth employment research and experience sharing among member states, which did not receive enough investment in the past and could gain more attention in the future.
8. We support youth employment to be one of the key tasks under the Global Coalition for Social Justice.
9. We are of the view that enhanced synergy and cooperation with other relevant international organizations and multilateral fora including the most efficient ones on youth employment should be further promoted. In this regard ASPAG urges ILO to create enabling environment and help strengthening governments ability to remove obstacles and external barriers in youth empowerment.
10. We agree that resource mobilization on youth employment should be a priority for the ILO.
11. We welcome that the programme and budget for 2024-25 will include a new output, “Output 3.5 Increased capacity of Member States to promote decent employment for youth”.
12. We support further strengthening investment in budget and human resources for youth employment in the ILO, and integrating youth employment into the next biennial and future P&B.
13. As many youth-related initiatives are undergoing in different projects of the ILO, we propose that the Office strengthens coordination among the resources related to youth employment programmes, so that the youth-related initiatives would be coherent and consistent.
14. We support that more regular budget would be distributed for the implementation of the follow-up plan in future, and also extrabudgetary resources would be mobilized for YEAP.
15. To convey our inputs on the implementation of YEAP, we propose to conduct evaluation on the implementation of YEAP and report the outcome to the GB regularly. We are looking forward to the independent mid-term evaluation of YEAP.
16. In conclusion, ASPAG supports the Decision Point.
17. I thank you, Chair.