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The Middle East Youth Initiative is a program at the Wolfensohn Center for Development, housed in the Global Economy and Development program at the
Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in ec ...
. It was launched in July 2006 as a joint effort between the Wolfensohn Center and the
Dubai School of Government
The Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government, previously known as Dubai School of Government, is a research and teaching institution in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which focuses on public policy in the Arab world. The school was established in ...
.
The Initiative performs vigorous research on issues pertaining to regional youth (ages 15–24) on the topics of Youth Exclusion, education, employment, marriage, housing, and credit, and on the ways in which all of these elements are linked during young people’s experience of
waithood
Waithood (a portmanteau of "wait" and "adulthood") is a period of stagnation in the lives of young unemployed college graduates in various industrializing and developing nations or regions, primarily in the Middle East, North Africa (MENA) and Ind ...
. In addition to research and policy recommendation, the Initiative serves as a hub for networking between policymakers, regional actors in development, government officials, representatives from the private sector, and youth.
Current fellows with the Initiative include
Djavad Salehi-Isfahani
Djavad Salehi-Isfahani is a professor of economics at Virginia Tech, and a visiting fellow at the Middle East Youth Initiative at the Wolfensohn Center for Development housed in thGlobal Economy and Developmentprogram at the Brookings Institution. ...