The world is facing a global crisis in many respects. At the same time, the world is also facing a new dawn. While millions of people worldwide, especially young people, are facing unemployment and the challenges of a changing labour market, the current global situation offers governments and leaders a unique opportunity to bring about positive change.

Within the European Union, the European Commission’s new work programme aims to strengthen the existing Youth Guarantee, the commitment of Member States to ensure employment, education and training for all European citizens under the age of 25. To this end, the Commission has invited civil society to participate in a strategic dialogue on this topic. The Youth Guarantee is seen as an important part of realising the objectives of the Green Deal.

In response, the World Future Council, in collaboration with the YESclima project (under the European Climate Initiative “EUKI”) and the GRÆDUCATION project funded by the BMBF, proposed a strong focus on sustainable and green jobs in the strengthening of the Youth Guarantee with a view to the European Green Deal. In this way, the Youth Guarantee would enable young people to gain work experience and develop skills that are particularly relevant both for a green and digital transition and for promoting their employability in the green economy.

This objective can be achieved with the Youth Guarantee, for example:

by improving vocational training, which should be closely linked to professional practice;

by teaching green skills and relevant soft skills;

by creating and supporting jobs and services related to renewable energy, circular economy and sustainable development; and

by providing quality education and ‘education for sustainable development’.

With this proposal, the World Future Council also highlighted the exemplary performance of Wales and Scotland, whose youth employment policies were shortlisted and partially recognised in the 2019 Future Policy Award. The focus of the Future Policy Award 2019 was on empowering young people to enter decent, sustainable and green jobs, and in particular on the creation of green jobs for a green, decarbonised transformation of economies, as well as civic and political participation for sustainable development and peace. In addition to these policies from Scotland and Wales, other sustainable policies can be found on futurepolicy.org.

You can download the proposal to the European Commission in English, Greek and Spanish.