The World’s Youth, Their Future and Development

International Youth Day, celebrated on August 12 each year, raises awareness of global youth issues.

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August 12, 2008—Half of the world’s population is 25 or younger and most live in developing countries.

Supporting these young people in their successful transition into productive and engaged adulthood can have a big impact on the countries’ progress and growth.

International Youth Day, celebrated on August 12 each year, raises awareness of global youth issues.

Developing countries that invest in better education, healthcare, and job training for their youth could create strong economic growth and sharply reduce poverty, according to World Development Report 2007, Development and the Next Generation, a recent Bank flagship report that focused on youth.

"As we work to help overcome poverty and reach the Millennium Development Goals, our development efforts must focus particularly on children and young people,” says World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick. 

Healthy and Educated, but Unemployed

In many ways, young people are better off than previous generations, but their potential is not always best utilized.

“Compared to their parents’ generation, young people have more education, more opportunities, and more say in decision-making, but there is still a lot of potential that’s not recognized,” says Wendy Cunningham, World Bank Coordinator for Children and Youth.

Cunningham says one puzzling phenomenon is that while education rates are higher than ever before, so are the unemployment rates.

“It’s rather confusing why youth unemployment rates are high,” she says. “Clearly we need to do something more than education. We’re looking at what else needs to be done.”
 
Looking at the school-to-work transition is one of the Bank’s focal areas on youth.

“We’re not sure what the school-to-work transition breakdown is,” Cunningham says, citing several possible reasons. It may be that young people don’t know how to find jobs, or that employers are looking at issues broader than just education, such as how reliable or customer-service oriented young people are.

In some countries it may be an unintended consequence of the way the education system and labor markets are designed. Cunningham singles out the issue of high wages in the public sector.

“In the Middle East and North Africa, young people might be preferring not to go into the private sector, but wait for a job in the public sector,” Cunningham says, referring to the report Education Reform in the Middle East and North Africa.

Research from Latin America indicates that high minimum wages may cost young people jobs. “A high minimum wage can be beneficial, but some research on Latin American countries suggests that young people lose jobs when public wages go up,” Cunningham explains, referring to the regional study Youth at-Risk in Latin America and the Caribbean: Understanding the Causes, Realizing the Potential.

Absorbing Youth into the Workforce

However, countries must figure out how to expand their job markets and create jobs for these young people.

Middle East and North Africa alone needs to create 100 million jobs by 2020 to stabilize the region’s employment situation, according to the 2007 World Development Report. Surveys of young people in East Asia, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia indicate that access to jobs is one of their major concerns, according to the report.

What is the World Bank Doing?

The school-to-work transition is one of the four areas in the Bank’s youth strategy. The other three are risky behavior, including HIV/AIDS, peace and voice, and early childhood development.

“These issues were selected because they are important to more than one region, they cut across several sectors and because we have partners in the regions who can carry this forward,” says Cunningham.

The strategy grew out of the findings of the 2007 World Development Report.

Since 2002, the Bank has had 114 projects and produced 63 analytic works that directly benefit youth. It has invested more than $11 billion in youth since 1995. Investments financed by trust funds and other external sources comprise an additional $10-$15 million annually.