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Investing in Youth for Poverty Reduction

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Youth are already active contributors to achieving the MDGs ... to educate young people in urban communities on responsible sexual lifestyles ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Investing in Youth for Poverty Reduction


1
Investing in Youth for Poverty Reduction
2
Structure 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

3
Building 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

4
Building 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

5
Building 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)

6
WPAY 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

7
Youth and the MDGs Challenges and Opportunities
for Implementation
8
Youth and the MDGs Report
  • The Challenge
  • How will the Millennium Project
  • involve young people as partners?
  • You tell us!


9
Youth and the MDGs Report
  • The Group

10
Youth 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.

11
Youth 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

12
Youth 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

13
Youth 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

14
Youth 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

15
Youth 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.

16
Youth 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

17
Youth 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

18
Youth 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

19
Youth 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

20
Youth 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)

21
Youth 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

22
What 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.

23
What 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

24
What 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

26
but 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

27
What 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
  • Maraming Salamat Po!!!
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