The State of Youth in the OIC Member States 2020 report has been prepared by SESRIC in cooperation with the Islamic Cooperation Youth Forum (ICYF) as mandated by the 4^th Session of the Islamic Conference of Youth and Sports Ministers, held in Baku in April 2018. This report examines the state of youth in the OIC Member States with a view to identify key challenges faced by them, understand prospects that could help the development of youth, and come up with a set of policy recommendations at the national and intra-OIC cooperation level by focusing on key areas of concern for sustainable development.

A distinguishing feature of this report is the use of primary data from 22 OIC Member States collected through the OIC Youth Survey 2019. Using a combination of primary and secondary data, Part I of this report examines the state of youth in OIC Member States in four key areas: Educations and Skills Development; Employment and Entrepreneurship; Health and Well-being; and Social Participation.

Young people in the OIC Member States are at a disadvantage in all of these key areas evident from low youth literacy rates (82.3% compared to 91.4% in the world), high youth unemployment (13.9% compared to 11.8% in the world), prevalence of health risks associated with addictions, lack of awareness on diseases such as HIV/AIDS, low social participation rates, and more. These complexities result from a combination of social, economic, and cultural factors that limit young people’s participation in the socio-economic development of their societies.

Part II of this report focuses on enhancing the economic participation of Youth in OIC Member States. This is important because the youth inactivity rate in OIC Member States was at 61.3% in 2019 – much higher than the global average (58.6%). The thematic discussion in this part aims to understand the importance of economic participation of youth for development and to identify the underlying factors that lead relatively to low economic participation of youth in the OIC Member States.

The thematic discussion in Part II is complemented by selected success stories from the OIC Member States in addressing the major root causes of low economic productivity of youth and enhancing economic participation of youth as well as providing a set of policy recommendations for the consideration of policy makers at both at the national and OIC cooperation level.

This report has come at a time when the current global economic environment amid the COVID-19 pandemic has grievous impacts on young people around the world. As it so happens, over 338 million of these young people (aged 15 – 24) currently live in OIC Member States and are experiencing unprecedented levels of uncertainty about their futures. This report can contribute to addressing the impacts of COVID-19 on youth in OIC Member States in critical areas of concern.

Online Electronic Version

• State of Youth in OIC Member States 2020 (English) (Arabic) (French)