Promoting Youth Income Generation Opportunities Through Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

This paper describes how ICT has been used to generate youth employment
opportunities in the Asia Pacific region and elsewhere. To balance the popular optimism
about the benefits of ICT, Curtain emphasises not only many cases of success,
but also the barriers that many developing countries face
in realising the potential that ICT offers.



Curtain provides a series of best practice examples demonstrating how young people have
used ICT to generate employment opportunities. On the low-technology end,
these  include selling telephone based services, working as
"information intermediaries" and engaging in e-commerce based
activities in rural areas. In the middle-technology range, Curtain describes
telecentres and cable television providers run by young people with equipment
such as printers, photo-copiers or satellite dishes.



Curtain describes the barriers young people face in terms of financing,
opportunity and skill sets. He concludes with 11 recommendations for countries looking to develop the potential of ICT for generating employment for young people. These
are summarised below:

1. Encourage young people to participate in ICT-related employment initiatives.
2. Encourage young people to consider self-employment as an option.
3. Develop other complementary skills which will assist in ICT enterprises.
4. Use competitions to generate interest in ICT-related employment initiatives.
5. Institute mentor programmes.
6. Implement youth-friendly credit programmes.
7. Explore public/private partnerships.
8. Develop national and regional networks and partnerships.
9. Create a 'Digital Diaspora Network' to provide links to a nation's professionals and entrepreneurs.
10. Develop business models for public-private enterprises explicitly outlining public good to be achieved.
11. "Monitor, measure and evaluate" knowledge and technology partnerships, as outlined by
    the United Nations ICT taskforce.

Curtain recommends an "integrated strategy delivered by governments and the
private sector with the support of non-government organisations and
international agencies." He argues that a combined focus on infrastructure,
skills, public policy and financial support for new enterprises is required for the types of
best practice initiatives he describes to diffuse more widely.




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