Unemployment among young adults was cited as a key issue during recent political upheavals.

“In driving unemployment in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region, there are two dimensions that need to be looked at,” Abdullateef Bello, IDB’s director for data resources and statistics and coordinator of the event, told Arab News.

Bello added: "First, we have a huge population across member countries with a massive youth dependency ratio and this requires a need by governments and institutions to address the growing youth base and, second, we must match the education system with the students' aspirations to ensure that they gain a place in the job market."

He said the meeting was convened to highlight challenges in the education system and their link to employers' needs.

Bello also called for more efforts to provide career development support to students to guide them to lucrative jobs.

The director said the meeting's main objective was also to learn from best practices adopted in other developed countries and then move forward by analyzing ways of eliminating unemployment through educational reforms.

“The only way to deal with the issue is to work together,” Bello said.

Ralph Chami, division chief, regional study division, Middle East and Central Asia department, International Monetary Fund, spoke about growth and the labor market responsiveness in the MENA region.

He explained that slow growth in the MENA region over the past three decades could be partly traced to under-performance by the financial sector.

Ali Mohamed Mothana, deputy minister of finance, Yemen, presented a report at the meeting that highlighted the negative impact of the global crisis on the job market in the region including Saudi Arabia from 2008 through 2011.

It stressed the need for the private sector to generate large numbers of jobs that appeal to educated citizens.

The report said the private sector's ability to create attractive jobs in adequate numbers for young citizens could be a challenge as past efforts to Saudize the labor force had produced only limited results. Mega projects, undertaken by top firms, failed to create enough job opportunities for Saudi nationals, it pointed out.

On Tuesday, experts from Turkey, Denmark, Lebanon, Jordan and the Philippines will speak about public-private partnerships (PPPs) and the role of SMEs and microfinance in generating employment opportunities.