Khalid El Ouhichi,
Director of the department of population policy and migration of the League of Arab States
It’s a pleasure to welcome Arab and European young leaders active in their respective fields including arts and culture, media, and civil society to the third League of Arab States youth Forum. This year’s meeting, which attracts participants from 74 countries from the Arab world and Europe, discusses a very crucial topic which affects states and individuals dealing with migration issues.
In a recent study conducted by the department of population policy and migration of the League of Arab States on a sample of 1500 youth in the Arab world, about 70% hoped the migration process would be as smoothly as possible. More interesting, 84% of the participants would like to migrate to study; exchange experiences, and develop their capacity building, whereas, only 16% showed intentions to migrate for job opportunities.
The northern Moroccan city, Asilah was chosen to host this forum because of its long experience in local development, and I think it will be a real platform for discussions, consultations and sharing expertise in the field of youth migration. And we hope that the participants of this forum will be able to come out with innovative and practical development projects to tackle this issue.
This youth oriented forum prepared by youth for youth will be marked by several development and human rights based approach activities and workshops. My call to the participants in this special forum is to issue a pragmatic appeal which will be a voice for and meets the expectations of youth and which shall get the buy-in of decision makers in Europe and the Arab world.
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