World development report 2007: development and the next generation - Softcover

World Bank

Softcover

ISBN 10: 082136541X ISBN 13: 9780821365410

Publisher: World Bank Publications, 2006

Synopsis

Developing countries which invest in better education, healthcare and job training for their young people between the ages of 12 and 24 years of age, could produce economic growth and sharply reduced poverty. With 1.3 billion young people now living in the developing world - the largest-ever youth group in history - the report says there has never been a better time to invest in youth because they are healthier and better educated than previous generations and they will join the workforce with fewer dependents because of changing demographics. The report says that young people make up nearly half of the ranks of the world's unemployed and as, for example, in the Middle East and North Africa region must create 100 million jobs by 2020 in order to stabilize its employment situation. Moreover, surveys of young people in East Asia and Eastern Europe and Central Asia - carried out as research for the report - indicate that access to jobs, along with physical security, is their biggest concern. Far too many young people, some 130 million 15-24 year olds, cannot read or write. Secondary education and skill acquisition make sense only if primary schooling has been successful. This is still far from being the case and efforts have to be reinforced in this area. In addition, more than 20 percent of firms in countries such as Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Estonia and Zambia, rate poor education and work skills among their workforce. Overcoming this handicap starts with more and better investments in youth. The report highlights three areas to promote better investment in the future: expanding opportunities; enhancing capabilities and providing second chances. Expanding opportunities focuses on increasing the quality of education, smoothing the transition to work and providing young people with a platform for civic engagement. Enhancing capabilities involves making young people aware of the consequencesof their actions, especially consequences that will affect them much later in life as well as building their decision-making skills and giving them the right incentives. Providing second chances calls for helping young people recover from missed opportunities through remedial education, retraining treatment and rehabilitation.

About this title

Synopsis

There has never been a better time to invest in young people in developing countries. Those aged 12-24 years number 1.2 billion and make up the largest youth cohort in history. They are, on average, more educated and healthier than generations before them. They represent, potentially, a stronger base on which to build, in a world that is increasingly demanding more than basic skills. Today's young people are the next generation of workers, entrepreneurs, parents, active citizens and leaders, who will live their lives with relatively fewer dependents because of lower fertility. Countries need to seize this window of opportunity before the aging process closes it. "Development and the Next Generation", the 2007 World Development Report (WDR), discusses the priorities for government action across five youth transitions that shape investments in young people's human capital: learning, working, staying healthy, forming families, and exercising citizenship. It concludes that investments in young people have been most successful when they have not only expanded opportunities directly, but have also improved the climate for young people and their families to invest in themselves.

Within these transitions, the WDR concludes that priorities for investment vary across countries. For middle-income and high-growth countries in East Asia, among others, which have already succeeded in providing mass basic and secondary education, the challenge is to develop a tertiary education system that enables young people to find jobs in highly competitive innovative industries, and to address their new health threats such as youth's tobacco use, obesity and road accidents. For lower-income countries such as those in Africa, the priority is to establish basic literacy and life skills for young adolescents and to safeguard health by preventing HIV/AIDS among young people who are beginning to be sexually active. Other priorities are more commonly shared across all countries. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the "World Development Indicators 2006" - an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries.

Edition details

• Publisher: World Bank Publications
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 082136541X
• ISBN 13: 9780821365410
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 334