“Given the right circumstances, the entrepreneurial spirit can be sparked within any society – bringing a spirit of internal empowerment.” - Transforming the Development Landscape, The Brookings Institution, 2006

“The situation of young people today presents the world with an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate growth and reduce poverty.” - Development and the Next Generation, World Development Report 2007, The World Bank

SUMMARY
The global challenge of youth unemployment is significant, and given recent economic events, is likely to increase, however given the current ‘youth bulge’, we are at a time of unprecedented opportunity and at a time when youth enterprise and entrepreneurship can provide a substantial part of the solution.

The number of unemployed young people around the world is growing faster than the number of new jobs and presents a multifaceted challenge which cannot be met by one single solution. The opportunities presented by youth enterprise can offer a high potential solution as part of a portfolio of activities. Within the development landscape, youth enterprise can be particularly powerful given its ability to generate employment opportunities directly and indirectly, its ability to position young people as positive roles models within their communities and the effect of reducing the continuing cycle of unemployment.

To truly achieve scalable and replicable youth enterprise activities requires collaboration and partnership however and will involve all sectors in all regions to maximise success. Public, private and third sector organisations all have their part to play in helping to increase youth employment and each bring distinctive, complementary capabilities. Private sector ingenuity, the reach and scale of governments and the ability of the third sector to reach young people can combine to tackle youth employment, which is of concern to all three.

The Global Forum for Youth Entrepreneurship to be held in Edinburgh in November 2008 will act as a springboard to identify opportunities for collaboration and to progress these opportunities. Leaders from industry, governments and the third sector will come together to examine their role and how they can work together to foster a global spirit of youth enterprise both on a regional and global basis.

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Fostering a Global Spirit of Youth Enterprise by Kirsty Baker
Preparatory Briefing Paper for Delegates of the Global Forum on Youth Entrepreneurship
November 2008

The Prince’s Youth Business International
The Prince’s Charities, PO Box 50473
London W8 9DN, UK

About Youth Business International
www.youth-business.org
The Prince’s Youth Business International (YBI) is an international network of programmes that help disadvantaged young people to become entrepreneurs by providing business mentoring and loan funds. The network comprises 38 locally based, independent initiatives that adopt the YBI model to meet national needs and conditions.

Each local programme operates on three common principles: they support young people, typically aged between 18-35, who have a good business idea but who cannot obtain help elsewhere; they provide access to start-up funds in the form of a loan without the need for guarantees or collateral; and they provide the young entrepreneur with a volunteer business mentor and access to business networks.

YBI’s goal is to build the size and the capabilities of the network to enable the programmes to help more young entrepreneurs start their own business.

The YBI network has helped to start over 90,000 successful new businesses which in turn have provided employment to hundreds of thousands of others. In 2007 the YBI network helped over 6,300 new entrepreneurs, achieving a three-year annual growth rate of 37%.

YBI is part of The Prince’s Charities, a group of 20 not-for-profit organisations of which HRH The Prince of Wales is President. YBI was founded in 1999 and became an independent organisation in 2008.

About the Author
Kirsty Baker is a manager with Accenture, with responsibility for Corporate Citizenship in Scotland. With a background in financial services consulting, and an interest in both organisational behaviour and the connections between organisations and the communities in which they operate, Kirsty has recently completed a strategic analysis for Prince’s Scottish Youth Business Trust on the relationship between youth enterprise and local government policy agendas.

Kirsty has a strong interest in youth enterprise and in the ways in which this can help to address current social and economic challenges. She is also a firm believer in collaboration to maximise the value of activities and promotes a culture of collaboration in her corporate citizenship work.

Kirsty has a Masters in Organisational Behaviour from Birkbeck College, University of London and a Bachelor Degree from the University of Durham. Kirsty is a Chartered Banker and a member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland.

Kirsty is married to Jamie with a daughter Scarlet and lives in the Scottish Borders. In her spare time she enjoys horse riding, creative arts and gardening.

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