Overview: Youth in East Asia and Pacific

As in all developing regions, youth make up a large proportion of the population of countries in the East Asia and Pacific region. How large this proportion is varies by country, ranging from Cambodia and Laos, where around 63 percent of the population is under the age of 24, to Singapore where this number is closer to 19 percent.

OVERVIEW

The number of children and youth under the age of 24 in the East Asia and Pacific region (dominated by China) are close to 790 million, making up for 38% of the region's population. The EAP region's youth programs are tailored to the particular youth issues faced by each country and therefore vary considerably in scope, ranging from communications and outreach functions to operationalizing the youth agenda through lending and analytical work. Focus areas include skills development and training, employment, community development, social and political empowerment, capacity building for youth organizations. Each country program is being implemented in close collaboration with youth organizations and associations, government agencies, local universities and a range of civil society partners.

PUBLICATIONS AND REPORTS

Solomon Islands Youth in Transition  At the beginning of 2008 the Solomon Islands Government identified youth as one of its six priority areas for medium-term development. The Government subsequently requested the World Bank provide an analytical input to the development of a new youth strategy.  This note provides an initial overview of the situation of youth in the Solomon Islands today, and to identify options and opportunities for Government action and for World Bank engagement. (report pdf)  

PNG Rapid Youth Assessment.  Young people under the age of 20 account for almost half of the PNG’s total population; and they constitute a disproportionate part of the urban poor.  In Port Moresby, the largest city in PNG, youth between the ages of 15 and 29 represent about 35.1% of the total population as compared to 28.5% nationally; and it is estimated that the youth cohort will grow by at least another 13% by 2015 due to natural population increases and in-migration.  This report provides a situational analysis of youth in the National Capital District (NCD) and provides a summary of the key issues and challenges they face.(report pdf) 

Thailand Social Monitor on Youth: Development and the Next Generation. The Monitor provides an overview of the challenges facing Thai youth today, identifying the factors that make them vulnerable and outlining possible policy directions in moving forward. This Social Monitor studies three key transitions faced by Thai youth, using the youth development model proposed by the World Development Report 2007. This model helps provide an understanding of the interactions among the various factors that affect youth development and how they influence in three important life transitions, namely: growing up healthy, learning for work and life and moving from school to work. In this model, the role of public policy is to help youth succeed in the transition to adulthood by broadening their opportunities, expanding their capacity and providing them with second chances to overcome negative outcomes. (report pdf)

FOCUS AREA:

The Bank's Youth Engagement Strategy in the Pacific Sub-Region

Across the Pacific, young people share a number of common development challenges: poor educational commitment, access and attainment, steady rural-to-urban migration, a breakdown of traditional systems of social support, a lack of economic competitiveness, high levels of unemployment, poor human development outcomes, and a strong perception that the public system is not fair and fails to address their concerns.  Young people also suffer from alienation and have virtually no role in many areas of social and political life; and the failure of the labor market to absorb them exposes them to numerous risks, including organized crime and violence and civil unrest, evidence by youth involvement in the tensions and militaristic violence that rocked the Solomon Islands from 1998 to 2006; and Timor-Leste in 2006.

Responding to demands from clients and partners alike, the Bank is placing an increasing focus on addressing the issues facing youth, especially vulnerable and disadvantaged groups.   The Youth Engagement Strategy (YES) broadly focuses on improving the conditions for marginalized youth to become a more productive economic and social force.  This would be accomplished by helping them to become economically active in growth sectors relevant to the economy and making a concerted effort to support their welfare and foster their educational, social and occupational transition (and reintegration) into adult society. This thematic focus builds on new and existing analytical work, investments and partnerships that are being supported by country clients; and involves a more non-conventional and multisectoral approach.  To this end, the Bank has pioneered its work program along multiple trajectories that also draws on lessons and experiences from youth programs that have been undertaken elsewhere. 

Experiences so far have drawn out four basic modalities for engagement in three countries (PNG, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste): i) building youth awareness, dialogue and communications through institutions and outreach activities (e.g., through the Development Market Place, supporting youth festivals, radio programs, intra-regional learning through the GDLN, etc.); ii) supporting youth policy and strategy development (through ESW, AAA and scoping studies); iii) linking youth focused analysis/activities to sectoral investments (e.g, incorporating youth focused social analysis at the project level, including the structured participation of youth in project implementation, etc.); and iv) investing in youth projects that aim to support their transition to education and work (workfare, second chance education, technical and vocational training, etc).  These engagements will continue to create the space for the Bank to test the efficacy of a range of different approaches; distill lessons through a more "action/research" orientation; and determine the key variables and constraints that need to be addressed prior to further scaling up its interventions.

CHALLENGES

The World Bank has identified two main issues as the key priorities for governments in the region and its own work with youth:

• Unemployment - Youth unemployment rates may be up to four times the adult rate in some countries, often because, while many youth in EAP may have access to primary education, there is little access to secondary or tertiary education, resulting in inadequate skills. Even those youth that do benefit from higher education may find their skills to be irrelevant, as the education system may not be geared toward meeting the demands of the labor market. The need to reform education systems in the region is not helped by the decrease in spending on education over recent years.

• Social dislocation - Conflict and instability have also affected youth prospects due to their effect on the economy, interruption of education, government failure to provide basic services, and also because, as seen across the region, youth may play a key role in the instability, whether fighting for independence in Timor-Leste, or protesting at government repression in Indonesia, or engaging in criminal activities as part of street gangs in Papua New Guinea.

THE BANK’S WORK WITH YOUTH

The World Development Report 2007: Development and the Next Generationrecognizes that this unprecedented bulge in the youth population poses a huge challenge for developing countries, but also that it can be a positive force for development. The key is to keep the right policy interventions focused on the crucial capabilities and transitions in a young person's life: learning for life and work, staying healthy, working, forming families, and exercising citizenship.

Training

Some offices also engage in training programs for youth. In China for example, the World Bank is involved in peer education programs for HIV/AIDS prevention, and in training young women in rural areas to increase their employability.

Dialogues

Bank offices throughout the region engage youth in dialogue about development at the local level, e.g. through the Public Information Centers (PICs,) information-sharing workshops, and internships, and also by connecting youth across countries through the Global Distance Learning Network.