Title: Investing in Youth for Poverty Reduction
1Investing in Youth for Poverty Reduction
2Structure of this Presentation
- Building the case a few facts
- The Youth and the MDGs Report
- Youth and poverty reduction
- What youth have to give to the MDGs
- Positive signs ahead but much to be done
3Building the case
- Pure demographics
- Of the total 1.2 billion young people
- 659 million live in Asia and the Pacific
- 161 million live in Africa
- 101 million live in Latin America
4Building the case
- Pure demographics
- Young people currently comprise 18 of the world
population. - In addition to the youth cohort, children below
age 15 comprise another 30 of the total global
population - If these two groups are taken together, those
below 24 years of age comprise almost half the
world population
5Building the case
- Not the first time UN has recognized young people
as major allies in development - In 1995, Member States agreed to the World
Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000
and Beyond (WPAY)
6WPAY has all the ingredients for national youth
policies
- - Education - Globalization
- Employment - ICTs
- Poverty - Conflict
- Health - HIV/AIDS
- Environment - Intergenerational issues
- Drug abuse
- Juvenile delinquency
- Leisure
- Girls and young women
- Participation in decision-making and society
7Youth and the MDGs Challenges and Opportunities
for Implementation
8Youth and the MDGs Report
- The Challenge
- How will the Millennium Project
- involve young people as partners?
-
- You tell us!
9Youth and the MDGs Report
10Youth and the MDGs Report
- Around the world, many of them are already
making contributions to the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), and their work should
be further acknowledged and strengthened.
Increasingly, youth are recognized as key
participants in decision-making and development,
as reflected in the growing presence of
non-governmental youth organizations and the
upsurge of youth advisory boards and committees
to international institutions and programmes.
Yet building the capacity of and creating
sustained partnerships with young people are
crucial strategies to achieving the MDGs that
have not been fully realized by the international
community.
11Youth and the MDGs Report
- The Writing Launching Process
- Online E-consultation with over 350 youth from
all regions of the world a series of
teleconferences hosted by the UN Programme on
Youth - Interim report released in November 2004 for
feedback downloaded more than 24,000 times - Core writing group meeting in New York, February
2005 met with the UN Millennium Project - Launched in a side event during the 13th Session
of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development,
April 2005
12Youth and the MDGs Report
- The Report
- Aims to show that
- Youth are already active contributors to
achieving the MDGs - There are Options for Action that governments
and multilateral agencies can harness, support
and scale-up to enable more young people to
contribute to achieve the MDGs - Investing in youth will provide a long-lasting
and effective dividend towards meeting the MDGs
13Youth and the MDGs Report
- Options for Action and Quick Wins
- There are links and synergies with the Millennium
Projects Quick Wins and by undertaking key
Options for Action, young people can be utilized
to implement the Quick Wins - Youth can also be service providers in many of
the Quick Win actions - There are youth-specific quick wins that can make
a significant difference to the state of young
people
14Youth and the MDGs Report
- The Next Steps
- Report will be disseminated and utilized
- As an education and awareness raising tool on
MDGs by NGOs and individuals - Key global and regional youth fora, ie. World
Youth Forum 2005 (Scotland), UNESCO Youth Forum
(France), LAC MDG Youth Summit (Brazil) - MDG5 Summit, 60th Session of the UN General
Assembly, UN WSIS, African Development Forum - Planned National MDG Youth Campaigns in around 30
countries in partnership with GYAN, TIG,
Millennium Campaign, broad coalition of youth
groups, UN agencies, development banks, etc
from global to local - We challenge
- Governments and multilaterals to uptake the
Options for Action - Millennium Project to utilize youth as
implementing agents for Quick Win actions - Young people to continue and scale up their work
to achieve the MDGs
15Youth and Poverty Reduction
- On poverty (all based on WPAY estimates)
- 209 million young people, or 18 of all youth,
live on less than 1 a day - 515 million young people, or nearly 45 , live
on less than 2 a day - South Asia has the largest number of youth living
below these two poverty lines, followed by
sub-Saharan Africa. - Using a different indicator, these regions are
also home to the largest concentrations of
undernourished young people.
16Youth and Poverty Reduction
- On employment
- ILO reports that youth unemployment has
skyrocketed worldwide over the past decade to
some 88 million - Young people aged 15 to 24 now represent nearly
half the world's jobless
17Youth and Poverty Reduction
- Governments should create youth development
indexes and trend monitoring schemes that are
aligned to the MDGs and PRSPs/Country Assistance
Strategies (CAS). Such studies on investing in
youth development should include UNDPs Human
Development Report for 2006 and the 2007 World
Development Report of the World Bank. - Expand sex-disaggregated and age-based research,
both qualitative and quantitative, on youth
poverty at both national and regional levels. - Ex. HDR of Croatia, MTDYP 05-10 of the
Philippines, UNESCO Brazils Youth Development
Index, 2007 WDR of the World Bank lobbying UN
Country Offices to focus on youth development in
their next HDR
18Youth and Poverty Reduction
- Governments must create mechanisms that ensure
young people are involved in the development of
PRSPs and CAS through National Youth Councils or
other forums for youth representation. This will
ensure that youth perspectives are heard and that
PRSPs are relevant to local concerns and demanded
by the targeted communities. It will also
promote widespread participation in their actual
implementation. - Governments should include young people in the
implementation of new projects identified in
national development and poverty reduction plans
and strategies, as well as support existing
youth-led development initiatives. - Ex. Kenyan youths engagement in the PRSP
process, Youth and Student Sector within the
National Anti-Poverty Commission of the
Philippines, World Economic Forums Young Global
Leaders Initiative
19Youth and Poverty Reduction
- Development policies must prioritize the growth
of rural areas, which have high percentages of
unemployed youth and little public
infrastructure, by engaging young people in
creating necessary services and infrastructure. - Ex. UNESCOs pilot project on Breaking the
Poverty Cycle for Youth Women (Nepal,
Bangladesh, Pakistan and India) - Government must enact laws that foster the
creation of community-driven projects with urban
youth living in poverty, support current
youth-led entrepreneurial initiatives in urban
communities, as well as UN-HABITATs work in slum
development. - Governments must increase efforts to educate
young people in urban communities on responsible
sexual lifestyles and reproductive health
practices as a public policy measure to
effectively manage population growth. - Ex. youth helping youth in urban poor
settlements in Nairobi, UN HABITATs Youth
Advisory Council and active engagement of young
people in WUF 2004 and 2006
20Youth and Poverty Reduction
- Governments and the private sector must support
agri-based micro-entrepreneurial endeavors of
young people and invest in farming technologies
that boost agricultural production. - Governments and micro-finance institutions must
develop funding schemes such as guarantee funds
accompanied by business mentorship programs for
young people aiming to enter into
micro-entrepreneurial endeavors. - Ex. YES Campaign, UN/WB/ILO Youth Employment
Network (NAPs), Youth Employment Spark, The
Nations Trust (South Africa)
21Youth and Poverty Reduction
- Widespread support must be extended to the World
Banks Youth and Governance Program, particularly
in countries most affected by ongoing corruption.
Youth must be further trained in eliminating all
types of corruption and whistle-blowing
strategies through country-specific youth driven
anti-corruption projects. - Governments must create communication strategies
to inform young people on accessing
anti-corruption commissions. - Ex. anti-corruption capacity-building workshops
for Zambian youth, Filipino youth involvement in
road construction monitoring in a Philippine
municipality
22What youth have to give
- The Report notes on page 9
- Youth organizations are dynamic and
cost-effective - They know how to design and implement
youth-friendly strategies - They have a vested interest in implementing the
MDGs as future inhabitants of the planet - Experience shows that interventions for, and in
partnership with, young people are among the most
effective measures. - Why? Aside from tapping into the energy and
idealism of youth, young people are generally
more willing than older generations to question
social norms and change behaviour.
23What youth have to give
- One step further
- youth play an important role in transforming
international goals and agreements into localized
plans for action - the challenge for ODA lies not just in increasing
the amount of aid provided, but also in ensuring
that it is delivered effective - poverty reduction processes that are not designed
collaboratively with those who are meant to
benefit from them cannot meet their needs
effectively
24What youth have to give
- On every level, partnership with young people are
waiting to happen - Advocacy and awareness
- Policies
- Action
- Networking collaboration
25- Positive signs ahead -but much to be done
- Some of the proposals for action are in motion
- WPAY10 review in the General Assembly
- Work underway on the role of young people in
poverty reduction processes - World Development Report 2007 will be
Development for (and by) the Next Generation - Inter-agency collaboration in the works on Youth
Development Index and Indicators - The realization of the Options for Action
strong linkage to Quick Wins identified in the
paper
26but much to be done
- Need to strengthen and support these initiatives
by building them into MDG implementation - Need to build (upon) a movement/join the larger
civil society movement - Need the work with national governments on these
issues with strong allies in the international
system
27What cannot happen
- We cannot be sitting here, in ten years time,
discussing the reasons for which the MDGs were
only partially achieved, and recognizing that one
major reason for this was because the
international system and national leaders ignored
one of its largest stakeholders and greatest
assets young people.
28