Islamic Development Bank President, Dr. Bandar Hajjar, has revealed that the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation, OIC, countries include 73 million unemployed youth. His remarks came during a reception organisaed by the IsDB as part of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers Meeting held in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

Dr. Hajjar said that of the 1.75 billion youth population, 500 million, the equivalent of 28.5 percent, live in OIC member states. He called on OIC member states to cooperate in tackling poverty and youth unemployment.

The IsDB President discussed ways to enhance the role of young people, especially through the development of social programmes to facilitate opportunities for economic empowerment, enhancing the quality of education, and setting up business incubators to assist young people's entrepreneurship ideas. He also encourage member countries to facilitate SME financing, and improve the overall business environment to integrate the youth in the development of states.

He highlighted the Islamic Development Bank's role in implementing several initiatives for youth development, including the Youth Employment Support Programme, the Employment for Education, E4E, Programme, and the Vocational Literacy Programme.