The 43 member states of the Union for the Mediterranean – from the European Union and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean – met in Portugal to give a new impulse to the economic integration efforts in the Euro-Mediterranean region.
The World Economic Forum’s Human Capital Index indicates that the region currently captures only 62% of its full human capital potential, which means that there is lots of work to be done.
Following on from employment and labour ministerial conferences organised in 2008, 2010 and 2016, the ministers, in their 2019 Declaration, highlighted the challenges facing the region, in particular informal employment, unemployment and underemployment, particularly affecting vulnerable groups such as young people and women, low job creation, skills mismatches, difficult school-to-work transitions, low investment in vocational education and training, insufficient skills development for young people and adults, high levels of informality, and important flows of refugees and migrants.
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