Bill Reese, Veronica Colondam Talk Youth Unemployment: 'It's A Huge Problem'

'It's Not Business vs. Government'

Bill Reese, President and Chief Executive Officer of the International Youth Foundation, and Veronica Colondam, founder and Chief Executive Officer of the YCAB Foundation, joined HuffPost Live at Davos to talk about youth unemployment.

"It's a huge problem," Reese said. "There needs to be huge job growth, but that requires economic growth."

Reese said it will take faith in both government and business to make an impact on youth unemployment.

"We need governments that function well," Reese said. "It's not business versus government. We need to have faith in both."

Reese said "we need the school systems breeding the right types of people" to work and grow the economy.

"We want to prepare young people who have the ability and desire to start a business and be successful, but I'll make the case that every young person needs to be entrepreneurial," Reese said.

As for those living in poverty, Reese said it's difficult to think of the conditions they're surrounded by.

"There are still 2 billion people out there that aren't in this working and middle class, that live on a dollar or two a day," Reese said. "How do you really live, when we spend a dollar on a bottle of water?"

Colondam agreed, adding that a person's surroundings can affect their sense of entrepreneurship.

"I think the mentality part is also connected to their ability or self-worthiness," Colondam said.

"When you live in the slum, all you see is just neighbors with the same type of house... food vendors, and their aspiration is just, 'I'm going to go work there,'" Colondam said.

She said the YCAB Foundation is working to show people in that situation a world outside of their own, even just by taking them to visit a new city or go to a movie.

Watch them on HuffPost Live above, and see updates from Davos below:

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