It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. - U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall, June 5, 1947
After September 11, like many Americans, I felt thrust into a world I was unfamiliar with. The airwaves were flooded with talk of a "clash of civilizations" and questions like "Why do they hate us?" And also, like many Americans, I wanted to do something -- to have some kind of positive impact -- so I quickly sought to learn about areas of the world of which, previously, I had only a passing knowledge.
In all the talk after September 11, I noted how little was made of the economic situation in much of the Islamic world, and how often it was not mentioned in the same breath as political, cultural, and religious "problems." In the five years since that black day, we have heard much about a "spring" of change in the region, of military, cultural, and political efforts to quell political authoritarianism and so-called "Islamo-fascism."
During the 1990s, in my previous life as an entrepreneur, I spent time in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It always struck me how the Northern Ireland peace process was in large measure a consequence of a radical improvement in the economic circumstances there.
The notion that economic opportunity is a precondition to regional stability is not a new idea. It was the basis of the Truman Doctrine nearly 60 years ago -- and part of my own thinking behind founding a nonprofit charity organization, the Education For Employment (EFE) Foundation, in 2002 to create not just jobs but promising careers for unemployed, educated youth in Muslim-majority countries.
And yet still here in the United States, the urgent need for economic development in the Islamic world goes largely unnoted, especially the massive problem of youth unemployment: Millions of educated young people have no hope of developing a career. As my friend Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, noted in his study marking the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks:
A key, but oft-ignored, political fact of the region is its youth. ... Between 2000 and 2050, the population within this region is predicted to roughly double, with a great rate of roughly 130 percent. ... Just to stay at the current level of stagnancy, Muslim majority states will have to create 100 million new jobs over the next 15-20 years.
Needless to say, this is a recipe for disaster. Unless the international community is able to help launch an ambitious program of capacity building and quality improvement in their education and employment systems, a significant proportion of the coming generation will face conditions that political economist Omer Taspinar describes as an al-Qa'ida recruiter's dream.
Surprisingly, as yet, there has been no launch of an "ambitious program of capacity building and quality improvement in their education and employment systems." True, government agencies like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and multilaterals like the United Nations Development Programme (both of which have funded EFE's programs) and The World Bank are taking vital steps. But, thus far, a large multi-national coordinated plan has not been put forward. Governments of the Islamic world are beginning to address the problem, and it is not surprising that international consultancy firms are doing a brisk business across the Middle East conducting studies of educational systems for governments from Rabat to Abu Dhabi. However, the best hope for resolving the issue of youth unemployment is the private sector.
The gap between skills that students acquire in state education systems and employers' actual needs is not unique to the Islamic world. Here in the U.S., this skill gap has spawned an entire industry of career colleges seeking to fill that gap. We at the Education For Employment Foundation envision a similar network for Muslim-majority countries. By working in partnership with leading regional philanthropists and business leaders, we have tailored vocational training programs to meet employers' needs, and our partners actually guarantee jobs to our graduates. Our programs in the Palestinian territories and Jordan have graduated their first classes, and new classes are beginning. Projects in Egypt, Indonesia, and Morocco are under development.
Our partners understand the need and that it is in everyone's interests to provide stable careers for young people. In lieu of the public sector addressing the problem of youth unemployment, the private sector must take up the mantle. At the moment, the jobs we create are just a drop in the ocean, but as we have seen with the example of career colleges in the U.S., we are creating replicable models that can quickly expand across the region.
The dedication, encouragement, and enthusiasm demonstrated by our students and academic, donor, and private-sector partners is remarkable; naturally, no one is more keen to work to improve a grave economic situation than those who experience it every day. In each nation there are leaders ready to step up and help move the entire region forward.
However, we in the U.S. must do more to show that we are reaching out to help them. And this is not charity, but partnership. Just as Europeans drafted much of the Marshall Plan, based on their own plan for reconstruction and it was funded by the United States, so now must wealthier nations reach out again to help those in the Islamic world who so deeply want to improve their societies and are looking for individuals and nations to partner with to create economic and social opportunity for their children. We must remember that there was a time when the face of America to the rest of the world was one of generosity, and we must again let this be our face to the world.