The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation has partnered with Qatar-based Silatech to announce the launch of two initiatives for ensuring the capacity building of young Arabs towards the overall development of the region.

Silatech is an innovative initiative engaging the private, public and civil society sectors to promote large-scale training, job placement, and entrepreneurship for young people.

As one of the first outcomes of a three-year agreement signed between the Foundation and the Silatech in 2008, the initiative will focus on ‘Leadership Development’ of young Arab entrepreneurs for incubating and growing successful and sustainable SMEs in the region.

The second will prioritise the translation and adaptation of content for Silatech’s skills development and training services across the Middle East and North Africa region.

Adel Al Shared, vice-chairman and managing director, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, said: 'The Foundation and Silatech share common values and pursue similar objectives for promoting youth employment, entrepreneurship and enterprise development programmes.'

'These common goals have led the two organisations to identify a number of operational initiatives for joint programme development and cooperation.'

'Comprehensive in nature and aimed at capacity building in the Arab world, the initiatives will open up niche opportunities and access to high-quality content and resources, as well as financing to deserving youth keen on making a difference in their communities,' Al Shared noted.

'Moving forward, we are confident of accomplishing several challenging milestones for the benefit of the region,' he added.

The first initiative, focusing on leadership development, will focus on young Arabs who will be selected to participate for a specially designed module that is modelled on similar global programmes but adapted to the unique needs of successful young entrepreneurs and owners/operators of SMEs in the region.

The second programme focuses on developing a pan-Arab network of highly skilled, certified trainers to provide large scale training for young people in specific skills, required across a wide range of sectors in order to provide specific international competency qualification to young people.

Rick Little, CEO of Silatech, pointed out that this was a great opportunity for young people in the Mena region to benefit from the collaboration of two major initiatives created to help change the realities they confront on a daily basis.

'We believe that the enhancement of skills and building the leadership capacity of young Arabs is a necessary step in the journey towards reaching their full potential and contribution to the economic life of society at large,' Little added.

In June 2008, the Foundation and Silatech signed a MoU indicating their mutual intention to cooperate in a number of areas  that will empower the youth in the Arab world to play more significant roles in the social, political and economic landscape.

Over the past 10 months, both organizations have further defined their respective strategies and priorities, offering wider scope for extending their co-operation to ensure the progress of young people in the Arab world.-TradeArabia News Service