With all health and safety measures meticulously in place, the Forum brought together the representatives of public and private sectors, and civil society.

Following the opening remarks delivered by the representatives of Turkey and UNDP Turkey, psychologist and author Gündüz Vassaf spoke on hope, treating individual, societal and environmental factors that called for approaching life and work with hope. A short animation film “Petunia” shown following the opening remarks highlighted the problems of youth neither in employment nor in education or training. Then, two panels consisting of academicians, journalists, social entrepreneurs and representatives of civil society first discussed how to increase decent job opportunities under the circumstances of technological transformation, and build a world of work that provides protection and opportunities for quality education as well as that is flexible.

The second panel treated access to opportunities, issue of inequalities and labour with a focus on the world of work. At the closing of the Forum, the Declaration on Hope for Youth was announced which summarized the requests voiced by the youth in the series of workshops in the past six months held jointly by ILO and UNDP. The common wish was that the Declaration would be a source of motivation for the youth while it would be a basis for policies on the part of social partners.

All activities are carried out by and under two projects, namely the “COVID-19 Resilience and Response Project” implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with funding from the Government of Japan, and the Project “Decent Work Opportunities for Refugees and Host Communities in Turkey” implemented by the International Labour Organization (ILO) with funding from the US Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (USPRM).