More than half of the global youth population is living in Asia and the Pacific. A report by ADB and Plan International UK provides information on the youth's contributions to achieving the SDGs.
More than half of the global youth population is living in Asia and the Pacific. A research by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Plan International, UK, What’s the Evidence? Youth Engagement and the Sustainable Development Goals, presents evidence that young people are already contributing towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Learnings from this study provides important insights that will support the design and implementation of youth programs across the region. Tanya Barron, CEO of Plan International UK, shares her thoughts on the report and the role of multilateral institutions like ADB on youth engagement in development projects.
What evidences did the report find about youth engagement and its impacts to development?
We really need to start thinking how to embrace this huge youth population.
Engaging young people in development programs has a very interesting impact on their personal development, their empowerment, their ability to connect with more marginalized people in their community.
The other serious impact, that we gladly could find, is actually on project outcomes and the beneficiaries. When you create programs with youth leadership, young people have a completely different approach to project and development itself. It means that they are much less hierarchical. They are much more open. They usually engage in a, what we would call, adaptive programming. If something is not working, they’ll change it.
What is the value of a huge youth population?
And I actually think meaningful work of young people and youth-led groups is going to take us forward to 2030 successfully.
The world will have the largest youth population ever over the next few years. Leaving young people out of development is frankly not very sensible, probably not possible.
We really need to start thinking how to embrace this huge youth population and mobilize their talent and actually they will mobilize their talent and get them to leadership.
And I actually think meaningful work of young people and youth-led groups is going to take us forward to 2030 successfully.
What can multilateral institutions like ADB contribute to increasing youth engagement?
I think they have a real opportunity to influence governments in the region.
And a lot of these governments are real champions of youth engagement already. But I do think ADB can take on and continue to take on leadership with the advocacy and lobbying and making sure that youth engagement is real.
