“The Secretary-General strongly condemns the appalling attack,” a spokesperson for the UN chief said in a statement.

“It is truly shocking and distressing to see so many young people dedicated to pursuing their education in the midst of strife lose their life to senseless violence,” the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, said in a news release.

Two explosions ripped through the university, Syria’s oldest institution of science and technology, on Tuesday, reportedly killing at least 82 people and wounding more than 160 others. According to reports, the bombs went off as students were taking exams, and it remains unclear who was responsible for the attacks.

“Deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian targets constitutes a war crime. Such heinous attacks are unacceptable and must stop immediately,” Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said. “All combating parties in Syria must abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law.”

Both Ms. Bokova and Mr. Ban expressed their condolences over the attack, with the UNESCO chief calling on “all those involved in the fighting to respect the right to education” and the Secretary-General believing that “this latest atrocity should be promptly and fully investigated.”

“He also calls for a reflection by all Syrians about the degradation of a conflict that is tearing their nation apart, and stresses the urgent need for a peaceful political solution that ends the violence and meets the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people,” Mr. Ban’s spokesperson added.

More than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syria and hundreds of thousands more have been displaced since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in early 2011. Recent months have witnessed an escalation in the conflict, which is now in its 23rd month.

Meanwhile, the UN agency tasked with assisting Palestinian refugees called on all sides in the conflict in Syria to refrain from taking up positions in or conducting the conflict in civilian areas.

In a statement, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA) appealed to the parties “to ensure the protection of Palestine refugees, other civilians and their property and to comply with their obligations under international law.”

The UNRWA statement also called for respect for “the sanctity of human life,” noting that there was a “duty to avoid arbitrary displacement of civilians.”

The UN agency is particularly concerned about the conflict’s impact on Palestinian refugees in all areas of Syria, including those living in Damascus, Rif Damascus, Dera’a, Aleppo, Latakia, Hama and Homs. UNRWA noted that its concerns are deepening with reports of serious incidents which continue to occur, including in areas under the control of armed opposition elements.

In mid-December 2012, the conflict saw intense armed engagements inside Yarmouk, a suburb south of Damascus, which housed more than 150,000 Palestine refugees. This was followed by the incursion of armed opposition elements into Yarmouk and their taking up of positions in this civilian residential area, in turn attracting a military response more intense than previously seen.

“This has brought new highs of suffering to Palestinian and Syrian residents of Yarmouk who had already endured, since July 2012, the trauma of protracted conflict in their neighbourhood,” UNRWA said in a news release. “Since mid-December 2012, the Yarmouk experience has been played out sequentially in other areas of Rif Damascus.”

The UN estimates that the overall number of people in need of humanitarian assistance inside Syria quadrupled between March 2012 and December 2012, from one million to four million. UN humanitarian aid planning estimates that up to a million Syrian refugees will need help during the first half of 2013, with most of these located in Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt.

“Ironically, only in developed economies are youth unemployment rates expected to fall in the coming years, but this follows the largest increase in youth unemployment among all regions since the start of the crisis,” said Ekkehard Ernst, the lead author of the UN International Labour Organization (ILO)’s paper, entitled Global Employment Outlook: Bleak Labour Market Prospects for Youth.

The paper forecasts the youth unemployment rate in developed economies dropping gradually, from 17.5 per cent this year to 15.6 per cent in 2017 – far higher than the rate of 12.5 per cent registered in 2007, before the crisis struck.

Much of the projected decline in the jobless rate is not due to improvements in the labour market, but rather to large numbers of young people dropping out of the labour force altogether due to discouragement, ILO noted in a news release, adding that these discouraged youth are not counted among the unemployed.

According to ILO, young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults, and over 75 million youth worldwide are looking for work. The labour agency has previously warned of a “scarred” generation of young workers facing a dangerous mix of high unemployment, increased inactivity and precarious work in developed countries, as well as persistently high working poverty in the developing world.

The ILO paper notes that the global youth unemployment rate will reach 12.9 per cent by 2017 – up 0.2 percentage points from forecasts for 2012. Youth unemployment is projected to be highest in North Africa and the Middle East, with a 25 per cent rate forecast over the next years.

The labour agency notes that even in countries with early signs of a jobs recovery and where new vacancies are opening up, many unemployed youth still find it difficult to land a job. For example, a construction worker whose job was lost during the housing bust might not have the skills needed in sectors that are hiring.

“This leads to discouragement and rising NEET rates (“neither in employment, education or training”) among young people,” said Mr. Ernst, who also heads ILO’s Employment Trends Unit. “Schemes using employment guarantees and an emphasis on training could help get jobseekers off the street and into useful activities, providing a safeguard against further economic stress.”

According to the paper, such youth guarantees can come at very limited cost, less than half a per cent of gross domestic product among European countries.

“In times of constrained public finances, this may seem like a large additional burden, but it will be less than the additional costs that come from young unemployed people permanently losing touch with the labour market,” the paper states.

At its annual conference in June this year, ILO adopted a resolution calling for immediate, targeted and renewed action to tackle the youth employment crisis. The resolution provides a portfolio of tried and tested measures in five areas: macro-economic policies, employability, labour market policies, youth entrepreneurship and rights. It underscores the need for balance, coherence and complementarity across policy measures.

The $3 million project, financed by the Government of Italy, will establish Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools and Community Model Gardens to give women and young people the opportunity to manage their own food production enterprises, FAO said in a news release.

Through the training, participants will learn how to grow food and to raise small animals, and to improve household incomes through the sale of food products.

Training will be provided on how to produce organic fertilizers so households can avoid purchasing expensive fertilizers, as well as on food processing and preservation techniques, household budgeting, record keeping, and food marketing. Microcredit and savings opportunities, better food preparation and consumption practices, and food safety and hygiene will also be covered.

According to health surveys in Egypt, malnutrition is the root cause of over one third of sicknesses affecting children under the age of five.

To tackle this problem, nutrition education and behaviour change communication plans will be developed to promote food diversification, food hygiene, family planning, breast feeding and complementary feeding practices.

Radio dramas and spots, videos and events will also be used to promote better nutrition education. Community kitchens will offer women the chance to meet regularly and use knowledge acquired to prepare healthy meals using fruits and vegetables they produced.

FAO added that national and local government staff and community workers will be trained in food production and nutrition so that they become familiar with nutrition and health issues, approaches to nutrition improvement and knowledge of household food production methods.

The Skills Strategy, to be discussed by Ministers at the OECD Ministerial Meeting in Paris this week, acknowledges that with public finances under pressure, governments have tough budgetary decisions to make. But spending on education and skills is an investment for the future and must be a priority.

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría, said: “Skills have become the global currency of 21st Century economies. They transform lives and drive economies. Governments must invest more effectively in the education and skills that people will need in tomorrow’s workplace. They need to deploy their talent pool more strategically so that these investments translate into better jobs and better lives. Achieving this is everyone’s business, and employers and unions have a central role to play.”

Today, one in five young people leave school in OECD countries without completing upper secondary education. And in many countries, a third of adults lack the minimum core skills needed to engage in further learning and get a good job.

The social and economic costs are huge: OECD analysis shows that people with poor skills are at much greater risk of unemployment, poverty and reliance on social benefits.

The Strategy tailors recommendations to particular needs in individual countries. In the short-run, the focus in most countries should be on helping youth acquire the skills required by the labour market.

The economic crisis has hit the young and low-skilled particularly hard. The youth joblessness rate is in double digit rates in most OECD countries and two to three times that of adults.

Despite today’s high unemployment rate, a lack of skilled workers means many vacancies remain unfilled. Even at the height of the crisis, more than 40% of employers in Australia, Japan, Mexico and The United States said they couldn’t find people with the right skills.

The OECD Skills Strategy provides a framework for countries to analyse their strengths and weaknesses and recommends ways they can develop the skills of their young people and adults.

Among its recommendations are that countries should:

- improve the quality of learning outcomes by putting the premium on skills-oriented learning instead of qualifications-focused education upfront;

- involve employers and trade unions more closely in designing and delivering education and training programmes;

- encourage adults to invest in further learning, especially in small and medium-sized firms. A levy on firms to increase their contribution to staff training that targets particular sectors or regions should be considered;

- facilitate the internal and cross-border mobility of skilled workers;

- calibrate tax and benefit systems to make work pay;

- help employers make more effective use of their employee’s skills;

- help local economies to move up the value-added chain, foster entrepreneurship and stimulate the creation of more high-skilled jobs.

To help countries get a clearer picture of their workforce’s skills and see how they compare to other countries, the OECD is carrying out the most comprehensive international survey of adult skills ever conducted. The first OECD Survey of Adult Skills will test the skills of more than five thousand people aged 16 to 65 in each of the 26 countries taking part. The first results will be published in October 2013 in an OECD Skills Outlook.

The report describes a gloomy situation for the country. According to the report:

“Young people have been hit especially hard by the crisis. Youth unemployment ended at 45% in the third quarter of 2011 (48% in November 2011), twice as high as two years ago. Young people are also contributing especially heavily to the increase in long-term unemployment. In the third quarter of 2011, some 45% of the unemployed aged 15 to 24 were long-term unemployed, against 30% two years earlier.

Access to life-long learning is far below the EU average, for all age groups. Just 3% of the active population participated in education or training in 2010, compared with 9% at EU level. 7% of young adults between 25 and 34 participated in education or training, against 15% at EU level. At the other end of their active life, adults between 55 and 64 also show a very low participation rate: 0.5% against 4.5% for the EU.

Gross disposable household income decreased by 9.3% in 2010. Income losses have been far greater for the rich than for the poor in absolute terms. However, in relative terms (i.e. as a proportion of their income), lower-income groups suffered a significant loss of income. Households in the bottom quintile (i.e. the poorest 20% of the population) lost an estimated 9% of their income, compared with 11% for households in the top quintile.

The overall at-risk-of-poverty or social exclusion rate for the total population stood at 27.7% in 2010, higher than the EU27 average of 23.4%. The risk-of-poverty (income-poor) rate was 20.1% in 2010, following an increase from 19.7% in 2009, whereas the EU average is 16.4%. The risk of poverty for children (23.0%) is higher than the EU average, which stood at 20.6% in 2010.

The in-work poverty rate in Greece was the second highest in the EU in 2010. Besides low earnings, in-work poverty depends on the employment status of all members of the household and on the availability and adequacy of social transfers, including in-work benefits. The household work intensity (measuring the degree to which all members of the household realise their full labour market potential) in Greece is one of the lowest in the EU, essentially due to the lower labour market participation by women. Tax credits/rebates and benefits for low-wage workers are less common in Greece than in other Member States and are often much lower.”