World Development Report by WB reveals record number of young people

The situation of young people today presents the world with unprecedented opportunity to accelerate growth and reduce poverty, says the “World Development Report 2007” produced by the World Bank, and cited by Info-Prim Neo. This year’s report focuses on the development of youth in developing countries. The results of the WB report were presented Tuesday, October 10, in Chisinau by the WB Country Director for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, Paul Bermingham, during his visit to the Republic of Moldova. The report found that developing countries which invest in better education and job training could produce surging economic growth and sharply reduce poverty. The record number of young people in history, 1.3 bln, comes to support this deduction. “There has never been a better time to invest in youth because they are healthier and better educated than previous generations”, the report says. Moreover, this expansion of workforce that has fewer children and elderly to support provides a window of opportunity to spend on building human capital. Despite this, the report finds countries from the former Soviet Union in a different situation: the number of youth, aged 12-24, has peaked and is set to decline. Thus, Moldova is among the countries for which this kind of window of opportunity will be closed in less than 10 years. The study also reveals that access to jobs, along with physical security, are among the biggest concerns of the youth from Eastern Europe. Data show that only 24% of Moldovan young people, aged 18-24, are enrolled in an education institution, labor force participation rate (ages 15-24) is of circa 67%, and economically active children (ages 7-14) constitute 33.5%. At the same time, the probability that a 15-year-old will die before the age of 60 is 15.2% (females) and 30.3% (males). The World Bank also provides policy recommendations along three main axes: expand opportunities by investing more in human capital; improve the capacity of youth to decide among opportunities; offer “second chances” and help young people recover from poor outcomes. The WB report on World Development 2007 was launched at the Bank's Annual Meetings in Singapore, in mid September.