GCRF COMPASS

Research in Action Conference

“Azerbaijani youth in transition: Challenges in reducing
vulnerability and building resilience of youth communities”

Abbas Babayev, ADA University

April 1, 2022
Presentation Outline
• Youth and Global Development Agenda
• Who are the youth in transition?
• Why are the youth in transition considered as particularly
vulnerable?
• Why and how to build the resilience of youth in transition?
• Features of the Azerbaijani youth in transition
• What are the challenges in reducing the vulnerability and
strengthening the resilience of the Azerbaijani youth?
• Consequences of the existing challenges
• How to deal with current challenges? - Takeaways for the society
and the government
Youth and Global Development Agenda
• Today, we live in a world
populated by the largest
generation of the youth – 16 % of
the global population in 2018
• Youth are recognized as one of the
major stakeholders for the SDGs
• There are 20 youth-specific targets
(out of total 169) spread over six
key SDGs: Goal 2 (hunger), Goal
4 (education), Goal 5 (gender
equality), Goal 8 (decent work)
• More than one third of SDG
targets reference youth explicitly
or implicitly, with a focus on
empowerment, participation
and/or well-being.
Who are the youth in transition?

• Young people, predominantly aged 15-24 years, making their transition

from full-time education/training to full-time employment
(Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016)
• Young people identify transitions as successful if they are able to access
meaningful and stable employment, have their own home, establish
family and parenthood (but, it may vary depending on an individual’s
gender, social class and other characteristics) (Barry, 2005)
Why are the youth in transition considered as
particularly vulnerable?

• Personal goals and ambitions, expectations of family and community

members, and various hardships and frustrations associated with
transition periods make young people particularly pressured and
vulnerable (Barry, 2005)

• Young people at this stage don’t have established social networks and
have limited capacity to mitigate the risks that they encounter (OECD,
2020)
Why and how to build the resilience of youth in
transition?
• If young people, especially the ones with poor education, are not supported during this stage, they
may seek alternative “support” mechanisms and become vulnerable to recruitment by gang
associations, organized crime and extremist groups, and resort to violence, drug abuse and engage in
other adverse behaviors (ILO, 2018)
• Lengthy and troubled transitions negatively affect other aspects of young people’s lives (mental
health, life quality, housing, marriage and etc.)
• To make them capable of adapting to changing circumstances and recovering from hardships
• According to the UN global youth strategy (2018), supporting youngsters during their transition
should be one of the priority areas in order to ensure economic empowerment of youth communities
• Education- and training-linked activities constitute the core of transition interventions (Lundahl &
Olofsson, 2014)
• The primary goal is to make education and training attractive and accessible to all young people as
the educational disadvantage has been widely acknowledged to be one of the most fundamental
reasons for troubled and lengthy transitions (ETF, 2019)
• Forms of transition interventions: career counselling, VET, skills development trainings,
apprenticeship programs, subsidized employment programs and etc.
 Features of the Azerbaijani youth in transition
• Youth, defined as individuals between 14 and 29 years of age, comprise 25.8 % of the country’s
population in 2020
• Large share of youth without any skills and specializations – out of the 2.8 million workforce with
only secondary education, around 1.4 million people are aged 15-34 years (Valiyev, 2020)
• They end up in low-paid, poor quality jobs and mostly in the informal economy (Valiyev, 2020)
• One of the countries with the highest percentage of 15-25-years-olds not in employment, education or
training (NEET youth), 23% in 2017 (ADB, 2019)
• Shortage of qualified labor force, particularly among the graduates of higher education institutions –
most employers are not satisfied with the knowledge and skills provided by the educational
institutions (Rutkowski, 2015)
• Special vulnerability of young women, especially in rural areas – their early disengagement from
schools (European Training Foundation, 2020)
• Other vulnerable youth groups include, among others, disabled youth, drug abusers, youth from low-
income families, young people who lost their parents and deprived of parental care, youth released
from penitentiary institutions and others (The Law on Youth Policy, 2002)
The NEET challenge is relevant also for
Azerbaijan’s neighbors (ETF, 2019)
30
28.5 27.9
25

20 23
22.4
19.7
15 18.3

10

5 8.2

0
Azerbaijan Armenia Belarus Georgia Moldova Ukraine Globally

Young people aged 15-24, who are not in employment, education or training (NEET), %
 № Institutional impediments External impediments
1 The existence of multiple policy actors “Structural constraints” – there
(employment, education, social protection are limits upon the scope of
agencies, local executive powers, NGOs, youth options available to policy actors
centers) with poor communication and (education system, economic
What are the coordination, which leads to isolated actions environment)
2 Broad policy language without precise Young people’s poor ownership
challenges in information on how stated goals would be of their future – poor
reducing the achieved commitment to development

vulnerability and 3 Poor quality of youth-related data that

complicates outreach to all youth groups,
strengthening the especially vulnerable ones
4 Inadequate policy monitoring and evaluation
resilience of the mechanisms

Azerbaijani 5 Lack of professional youth workers

youth? 6 No sustainable education, training, and labor

market programs specifically designed for
(Babayev, 2020) vulnerable youth (e.g. those, who enter the
labor force without any skills and
specialization (mainly early-school leavers))
7 Lack of adequate funding for youth programs
Consequences of the existing challenges

• Diminished life quality and mental health of young people, which further

marginalize and exclude them (delaying marriage age, increasing divorce,

crime and drug abuse rates);

• Shortage of qualified labor force

• Business inefficiency and low productivity

• Rising migration (internal and external) of both high-skilled and low-

skilled labor force

How to deal with current challenges? - Takeaways for
the society and the government

For the society For the government

Strengthening communication and coordination among the

Taking better ownership of future
stakeholders

Setting precise policy goals and clearly defining roles and

responsibilities of each policy actor

Improving the quality of youth-related data

Developing monitoring and evaluation frameworks

 Thank you very much for
your time and attention!

If you have any comments, suggestions and/or questions

regarding this research, please do not hesitate to contact me:
abbabayev2018@ada.edu.az