Investing in Youth for Poverty Reduction

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Investing in Youth for Poverty Reduction
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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

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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Youth and the MDGs Challenges and Opportunities
for Implementation
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Youth and the MDGs Report

• The Challenge
• How will the Millennium Project
• involve young people as partners?
• You tell us!

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Youth and the MDGs Report

• The Group

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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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.

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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

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What youth have to give

• On every level, partnership with young people are
  waiting to happen
• Advocacy and awareness
• Policies
• Action
• Networking collaboration

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- 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

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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

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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.

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• Maraming Salamat Po!!!