ADB and NGO Engagement of the Youth of Asia and the Pacific
Address by
Bart W. Édes
Head
NGO & Civil Society Center
Asian Development Bank
Fifth Summit of the Asia-Pacific Region of the World Organization of the Scout Movement
Laguna, Philippines,
18 May 2006
Good afternoon. It is a great pleasure to join you here today for this summit of the Asia-Pacific Region of the World Organization of the Scout Movement. Let me also take this opportunity to wish you a very happy birthday in this, the 50th year of Scouting in this region.
As a former boy scout, I know from first-hand experience what an inspirational role that scouting can play in young people's lives. Scouting complements the role of school and family, filling roles not met by either. It also develops self-knowledge, the need to explore, to discover, and to want to know. Scouts learn about the world beyond the classroom, tapping the skills of others to learn, and passing that knowledge to others. In short, it enriches young people, making them well rounded individuals and upstanding citizens.
I want to talk about two things in my brief remarks this afternoon. First, I want to highlight the contributions of nongovernment organizations - NGOs - to development in this region, and how NGOs rely on youth in carrying out their mission. Second, I will describe some of the ways in which the Asian Development Bank (ADB) engages youth in its antipoverty work, and provide a few examples of how it targets youth at risk or in need.
The NGO Contribution to Development in Asia and the Pacific
NGOs - organizations that are distinct from government and not created for profit-making purposes - play a key role in many Asian and Pacific countries by addressing unmet societal challenges. They have been at the forefront in raising international awareness about - and stimulating action to address -such problems as environmental degradation, violations of civil liberties, natural disasters, armed conflict and its consequences, and the situation of marginalized and disadvantaged communities.
NGOs operate from the grassroots to the international level and seek to initiate positive change through community-based organizing of beneficiaries, education, delivery of social services, policy dialogue, advocacy campaigns -- or a combination of these and other approaches.
Through two decades of close collaboration with NGOs, ADB has come to realize that they play a key role in the promotion of sustainable development.
NGOs in the Asia-Pacific region have grown dramatically in number and influence since the 1980s. There are many reasons for this, including legal and political changes in several countries that have provided more space within which NGOs can carry out their activities.
Further, great advancements in information and communications technologies, including the Internet, have made it easier for NGOs to mobilize, network, improve public understanding of critical issues, and raise funds. In addition, the development agencies of many Northern governments have reached the conclusion that foreign aid is -- at least in some instances -- more effective if channelled through, or provided directly to, NGOs.
Today, home-grown and international NGOs working in this region manage billions of dollars generated from individual contributions, grants from foundations and governments, and financing from intergovernmental organizations. Many large NGOs are practically household names, including ActionAid, CARE, Oxfam, World Vision, Amnesty International, and the World Wildlife Fund.
One thing that these and thousands of other NGOs have in common is that they rely heavily upon youth. Look around whenever NGOs organize rallies, solicit donations, or carry out informational activities. Young adults play a prominent role in preparing and performing these activities.
NGOs rely greatly on the energy, idealism, and enthusiasm of young people. And youth, typically less encumbered by the work and family obligations of older adults, often have free time outside of school to commit to a cause in which they believe. For example, teenage volunteers with the Philippine Red Cross were collecting donations in Manila malls and at highway toll stops just this past weekend.
Many NGOs with a large membership base are centered on young people, including the Youth Employment Summit Campaign, International Youth Foundation, the YMCA and YWCA and, of course, the Scout Movement itself.
Young people are a resource that Asia and the Pacific has in abundance. A vast and culturally diverse region, Asia and the Pacific is home to 60% of the world's people, including an enormous population of youth. In fact, more than half of the world's young people - some 850 million between the ages of 10 and 24 - live in Asia and the Pacific, including Asian countries that are in the Eurasia Scout Region.
In some parts of South and Southeast Asia, young people make up between one-third and one-half of the population. Forty percent of Pacific Islanders are under 20 years old. So many people entering their productive and reproductive years offers great potential for the development of Asia and the Pacific - if countries invest wisely in the education, health, skills and economic opportunities of youth.
ADB recognizes that youth are critical to the region's continued growth and future prosperity. As you may know, ADB is a multilateral development financial institution owned by 65 members, more than 40 of which are in the Asia and Pacific region, as defined by ADB. ADB exists to improve the welfare of the region's people, particularly the 1.9 billion who live on less than $2 a day. Despite many success stories, the region remains home to two thirds of the Earth's poor.
ADB's main instruments for providing help to its developing member countries are:
- policy dialogue
- loans
- technical assistance
- grants
- guarantees
- equity investments
ADB's annual lending volume is about $6 billion, with technical assistance - mostly grants - totalling about $180 million a year.
ADB's Engagement of Youth
ADB's operations involve young people in many ways. For example, ADB approved its Education Policy in August 2002 to complement the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) prepared by the international community. The policy guides ADB's support to the Education sector, and highlights universal primary enrolment and equitable access for girls and boys, along with the priority to help unemployed youth. ADB financing benefits "Education for All" through goals of teacher education, secondary school expansion, skills development for unemployed youth, nonformal education, early childhood, and higher education.
ADB recognizes that HIV/AIDS presents a risk to young people. One project under development, in Viet Nam, aims to reduce the HIV-infection risk among youth aged 15-24, in particular girls, unemployed youth and youth in exposed professions, through behavioral change programs. The proposed project would introduce a major communication program targeted at youth and their families with the aim of reducing the rate of HIV infection.
In Papua New Guinea, school dropouts have swelled the number of people without jobs. Their unwillingness to work on farms - and the lack of jobs and employment options - have left many of the younger generation frustrated. In this context, ADB has financed the Employment-Oriented Skills Development Project.
One of the several initiatives supported by this project took advantage of the growing demand for vegetables in urban areas, and involved a local NGO, Hope World Wide PNG, which has trained hundreds of unemployed youth in urban market gardening.
Hope World Wide established business linkages with supermarkets and restaurants, and supported young farming entrepreneurs to join forces in providing a regular supply of high-quality vegetables. Unemployed youth learned about quality control, pricing, and other business essentials in order to become successful commercial farmers.
In Bangladesh, ADB is financing a primary health care project to improve the health status of the urban population, especially of the poor, in the country's six city corporations and five municipalities. The project is helping to ensure the delivery of a package of health services.
Services provided under the project are designed to reduce child and maternal mortality and morbidity. As with an earlier phase of the project, NGOs are being contracted through partnership agreements to undertake activities. By reducing child and maternal mortality, the Project will help Bangladesh achieve the MDGs for child mortality and maternal health. Women and children will constitute more than 75% of all those benefiting.
Another ADB-financed activity helped to bring attention to the plight of street children in urban centers in 7 countries of Asia and the Pacific. ADB teamed up with NGOs working with homeless youth to conduct an art competition in which 1,000 were given crayons, pastels and blank sheets of paper to express their vision of what they would do "if they had a chance."
To most of us, the children's dreams are modest. Suzanne, a 16-year-old rag picker in Jakarta, would send her friend to school…if she had the chance. Naranzul, a 5-year-old from Ulaanbaatar, would build a house for her mother, and "decorate it with gardens and flowers," while 14-year-old Gerald from the streets of Manila would live a simple life with his family.
Many children drew about travel: a plane that would take a young boy from Port Moresby to the Solomon Islands or bring a father back to his son in Mongolia; a cloud that a child in Manila could fly to with her friends. Others expressed the desire to become doctors, athletes, social workers, teachers. Others wished to help other street children and poor people, be reunited with families, and have a peaceful life-if they had a chance.
ADB provided grants to the NGOs to assist them in their work, and widely disseminated an award-winning compilation of the children's artwork to raise awareness of the plight of these amateur artists and thousands of others like them living on Asia's streets.
At the outset of my remarks I shared some of my thoughts on the importance of the Scout movement. I will conclude with a few more reasons why the movement is more relevant today than ever before.
Scouting achieves its purposes to help young people develop physically, intellectually, socially, and spiritually. Scouting contributes to a better world by encouraging participation in the development of society, respecting the dignity of others, and integrity of the natural world. Participation is open to all, regardless of race or creed. Scouting helps to promote local, national and international peace, understanding and cooperation. One need only read the headlines in almost any daily paper to realize that Scouting's contribution in these areas remains both timely and vital.
Thank you again for inviting me to share these thoughts with you today. I hope that this 5th Summit of the Asia-Pacific Region achieves all of its aims over the coming days, and that you enjoy your stay in this hospitable country.
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