The Near East, North Africa and Europe Division will organize an interactive panel discussion focused on youth unemployment, underemployment and inactivity in order to share practices, strategies and lessons learned on how to empower rural youth. The challenge is great and urgent: how can 31 million young people3 in the Near East and North Africa subregion and 9 million in the Central and Eastern Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) subregion gain access to decent job opportunities? The panel will discuss how agriculture and agribusiness can be part of the solution and reflect on how to overcome current obstacles ranging from low productivity to market deficiencies, water and land scarcity, inadequate education and gender inequity. The discussion will feature country experiences from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt and Yemen. It will also consider the investments made by the private sector to create jobs and the business environment that has made this possible. Regional integration efforts and the opportunities they create for rural youth will be examined, as will the advocacy role civil society plays in shaping a vision for youth development and empowerment.