The Hindu Business Line : World development in young and capable hands

At the threshold of "an age fraught with risks and laden with opportunity," young people will greatly influence the future of their nations, says WDR 2007. Making sure that they are well prepared for their futures is enormously important for poverty reduction and growth, says RAGHU DAYAL.

OF THE WORLD'S 1.5 billion in the 12-24 age-group, the developing nations' 1.3 billion are their next generation of economic and social actors.

The World Bank's World Development Report (WDR) 2007 carries a simple, clear message to governments and policy-makers that investing in young people, the GenNext, is essential for development, and that, for those investments to be most effective, young people must be included as stakeholders in decisions that affect them.

Based on an interaction with some 3,000 young people participating in focus group discussions in 26 developing countries, as also representatives of several global youth organisations and youth leaders, the WDR team felt confident of today's youth presenting the world with an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate growth and reduce poverty. The World Bank's emphasis on human infrastructure is clearly discernible. WDR 2006 made a case for focusing on inequalities in key dimensions of opportunity — such as education, health, and the capacity to participate in society. WDR 2004 with the theme `Making Services Work for Poor People' had developed a framework for improving delivery in such services as education and health.

At the Threshold

Without adhering to any one set age range, WDR 2007 defines the choice of whom to include as "the next generation". It takes 12-24 years as the relevant range to cover the transition from puberty to economic independence. At the threshold of "an age fraught with risks and laden with opportunity," these young people will greatly influence the future of their nations, it said.

More young people are completing primary school and surviving diseases. Primary school enrolment in low-income countries outside China and India rose from 50 per cent in 1970 to 88 per cent in 2000. The average life expectancy at birth worldwide rose from 51 years to 65 years in less than 40 years. With these advances come some new challenges. Further progress requires young people to be more capable and involved. It is disturbing that the vast numbers spilling out of primary schools have not learnt what they should.

In 2005, more than half the estimated 5 million people who contracted HIV worldwide were young people, between 15 and 24, the majority of them women and girls. It is by far the leading cause of death among people in the 15-29 age-group in Sub-Saharan Africa. Accidents and violence are the leading causes of death of young men. To succeed in today's competitive global economy, young people must be equipped with advanced skills and literacy; to stay healthy, they must confront new diseases and burdens.

Today, 1.5 billion people worldwide are in the 12-24 age-group. Among them, the developing world's 1.3 billion are its next generation of economic and social actors. Making sure that they are well prepared for their futures — as workers, entrepreneurs, parents, citizens, and community leaders — is thus enormously important for the cause of poverty reduction and growth.

These young people face several dilemmas: When primary school completion has gone up dramatically, illiteracy persists. While a large number of university graduates go jobless for months and years, businesses complain of the lack of skilled workers. Young people start smoking, when there are high-decibel global campaigns to control it.

WDR 2007 offers a framework and provides examples of policies and programmes to address the issues. It presents three strategic directions for reform:

opportunities, for developing human capital by expanding access to and improving the quality of education and healthcare, by facilitating the start to a working life, and by giving people a voice to articulate the kind of assistance they want and a chance to participate in delivering it;

capabilities, developing young peoples' capabilities to choose well among these opportunities, ensuring that their decisions are well-informed , adequately resourced and judicious; and

second chances, providing an effective system of second chances through targeted programmes which give young people the hope and the incentive to catch up from bad luck or bad choices. The WDR uses the term "human capital" to refer to a broad range of knowledge, skills, and capabilities that people need for life and work. The report refers to this trinity of reform as the "three lenses", which need to be duly aligned for an image to be in process, and so the need for policies to be well coordinated to have maximum impact.

Stark Disparities

One study attributes more than 40 per cent of the higher growth in East Asia over Latin America in 1965-90 to the faster growth of the former's working age population and better policies for trade and human capital development. What several Asian governments have done so well and achieved a miracle, not every one in other continents are much less likely to achieve.

There are severe disparities : In Mali, only about 20 per cent of 15-29-year-olds have completed primary school; in Malawi, more than of all 19-year-olds in school are still at the primary level. Despite recent progress in the numbers completing primary school — a Millennium Development Goal of the United Nations — children are not learning as much as they should.

Many completing primary school cannot further their education because of a lack of school places, and lack of resources. Some innovative programmes offer adequate subsidies directly to students, particularly girls. The Bangladesh Female Secondary Stipend Assistance Programme targets girls aged 11-14, transferring a monthly payment to bank accounts in girls' name, contingent on them staying unmarried and performing well enough to pass in school.

Meeting the demand for higher order skills would improve the relevance of upper secondary and tertiary education. Competition has driven up the demand for skill-intensive technological innovation in Asia and Latin America. This pressure can be eased if the upper secondary schools and universities turn out more students. But simply increasing quantity is not enough because what matters most are the content and how it is delivered. Countries such as South Africa are trying to respond to employers' demand for quality and relevance by revamping upper secondary curricula to emphasise practical thinking and behavioural skills, and offering more of a blend of academic and vocational subjects.

Self-employment

Another option for the young is self-employment. Some are entrepreneurs of necessity, others by opportunity. Both types face constraints made difficult by their age, such as access to capital and to business networks. Geographic mobility also broadens opportunities, and the young form a disproportionately large share of all migrants, both to urban areas and to other countries. Migration broadens the opportunities to work.

Some young people have undesirable outcomes because of restricted opportunities or wrong choices. More than half of all HIV/AIDS infections occur among people under 25. Half of all murders and violent crimes in Jamaica are committed by males in the 18-25 age group. Policies that help youth recover from all outcomes can provide a safety net and benefit society well into the future.

Referred to in the WDR as "second chances", they must be well-designed, well -targeted and well-coordinated. Some innovative measures deserve to be emulated. For example, the Truth and Reconciliation programme in South Africa instituted after apartheid.

Any remediation programme confronts what economists call moral hazard. The solution is not to deny "second chances" treatment that would be unethical as well as wasteful. Instead, it is to build incentives that encourage the care-taking behaviour to proceed even as people undergo treatment.

If countries are to mobilise the economic and political resources to stimulate reform, they will have to resolve three issues: Ensure better coordination and integration over national policy, stronger voice (young peoples' lack of face means they are a weak constituency for reform), and more evaluation (the dearth of rigorously evaluated youth-oriented programmes and policies can undermine their credibility, even if most are promising).

(The author is a former Managing Director of Concor.)

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