Category: Youth

Human Development, Policy, Youth

Política 2.0. Combinando la protesta con la propuesta

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De Max Trejo, Secretario General, Organismo Internacional de Juventud para Iberoamérica (OIJ)

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Política 2.0. CombinandoLas formas de participación política juvenil son múltiples, dinámicas e interconectadas y demandan una comprensión de lo político amplia y flexible para no subestimar el compromiso de las personas jóvenes con la transformación. Por ejemplo, uno de los puntos destacados en los análisis sobre el tema es el bajo involucramiento de la población joven en los procesos electorales. En este sentido, el Informe Mundial sobre Juventud de la ONU (2016) señala que en los 33 países consultados sólo el 44% de la población joven “siempre vota”, frente al 60% de adultos.

En Iberoamérica, donde las juventudes representan más del 25% de la población, la situación no es diferente. Por citar algunos casos, en México, que tendrá elecciones presidenciales en 2018 y donde las y los jóvenes representan el 30% del padrón electoral, el registro histórico muestra que, aunque la participación de quienes votan por primera vez es del 69%, ésta disminuye al 53% entre los 20 a 29 años (INE, 2016). A su vez, en Chile, que experimentó el mismo proceso en 2017, la tendencia muestra que las juventudes tienen la participación electoral más baja de la población, aportando cerca del 34% del total de la abstención (PNUD, 2017).
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Development Matters
Gender, Women and Girls, Latin America and the Caribbean, Security, Youth

Reducing violence in El Salvador: What it will take

By Ian Brand-Weiner, Policy Analyst, OECD Development Centre; Katharina Ross, Project Officer Latin America & Asia, Plan International Deutschland e.V; Francesca Cárdenas, Head of Public Relations, Plan International El Salvador; César Pineda, Grants specialist, Plan International El Salvador

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A young woman is being trained through the Youth Employability and Opportunities initiative.

Violence holds El Salvador’s economic and social development potential hostage. Violence and inequalities often reinforce each other in Latin America: countries with higher levels of inequality tend to have higher rates of intentional homicides (Figure 1). El Salvador, however, stands out. Its homicide rate is disproportionately high compared to its level of inequality. The small Central American country surpassed Honduras and Venezuela in 2015 to become the most violent country in the Americas, with 108 homicides per 100 000 inhabitants.

The violence and its consequences are costing the government, households and enterprises 16% of GDP annually. These costs include expenses for public and private security, extortion, medical treatments, preventing and combating violence, the penitentiary system, and the opportunity costs for those in prison or forced to emigrate. These costs exclude the intangible ones, such as the suffering of victims and their families, the long-term fear and psychological effects impacting their employability and that of future generations, and decreased trust in the community and state.
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Development Matters6 Comments
Gender, Women and Girls, Youth

Girls’ Leadership Matters!

By Alda, an 18 year old Plan International girl activist from Indonesia

 To mark the 2017 International Day of the Girl today, the author was tapped to serve as Secretary-General of the OECD on 11 October 2017
during a special girls “take over“ event organised by Plan International.

day-of-the-girlWhen someone asks me to describe an ideal girl, in my head, she is a person who is physically and mentally independent, brave to speak her mind, treated with respect just like she treats others, and inspiring to herself and others. However, I know that the reality is still so much different from what I have in mind.

When I was 12 years old, my friend in school was pregnant. As soon as everyone in her family and school knew, she dropped out of school and I have never heard about her again. Three years later, I attended the wedding of another friend, who was pregnant at the age of 16. I was really confused at her wedding and feeling sad for her because she looked unhappy and very quiet. I imagine that it was a hard time for my friend to accept. After the wedding, she dropped out of school and moved in with her husband’s family.
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Development Matters
Africa, Food security, Policy, Youth

Strengthening Regional Agricultural Integration in West Africa

By John Staatz, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, Michigan State University

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Photo credit: Ryan Vroegindewey

Soaring and volatile international food prices since 2007-08 have forced West African governments and their development partners to translate their long-standing rhetoric about support for West African agriculture into concrete programmes. Doing so effectively, however, has proven much more challenging than simply meeting the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) goal of increasing the share of national budgets and donor funds dedicated to the agricultural sector. A recently released joint study by the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) and Michigan State University (MSU) draws lessons from such efforts over the past 10 years and suggests ways in which policies and programmes can be more effective in helping West Africa feed its young, burgeoning and increasingly urban population. Research by MSU, SFSA and West African scholars provides a number of crucial policy insights. Continue reading “Strengthening Regional Agricultural Integration in West Africa”

Lia Beyeler2 Comments
Gender, Women and Girls, Latin America and the Caribbean, Youth

Reimagining job-oriented education to give youth the chance of a better future

 By Mariana Costa, Co-founder and CEO of Laboratoria

 To find out more on youth and inclusive development, go to the 2017 International Economic Forum on Latin America and the Caribbean website

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Laboratoria graduates. Photo credit: the Laboratoria website

Receiving quality higher education in Latin America is still a privilege, with two-thirds of youth in the region lacking advanced technical, professional and management skills. Despite their limited access, acquiring these valuable skills is still the main vehicle to a career. The consequences are not minor. According to OECD data, 21% of youth are not working or studying, and another 19% are working in the informal economy. All of them face limited opportunities to fulfil or even discover their potential. A better way must be found to give the region’s young talent a path to professional growth.

A few years ago, I started a web development company in Lima, Peru. In the process of building our team of software developers, my partners and I discovered what appeared to be a loophole in the system. Most of these coding professionals, making competitive salaries and facing endless opportunities for career growth, did not have a fancy degree from a renowned university. They were self-taught developers, university dropouts or computer engineering graduates from obscure technical institutes. Despite the lack of a degree, they were doing great. And they were not the only ones. According to Stack Overflow’s 2016 survey, 56% of developers do not have a college degree in computer science or related fields. In tech, the key to a high paying job often has more to do with what you can build than where you studied.

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Development Matters
Asia, Youth

Youth Employment and Inclusive Growth: Part of the same coin in Cambodia

By Emmanuel Asomba, Development Policy Researcher, and Ji-Yeun Rim, Youth Inclusion Project Co-ordinator, OECD Development Centre

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Courtesy ©UNV Cambodia May 31, 2016

Some countries in the South Asia and Pacific region are experiencing a rapid increase in the number of working-age people. This will create some opportunities as it will contribute to reducing the dependency ratio and increasing the possibilities for social cohesion policies. But if these people fail to find decent jobs, then per capita income may slow down. With less income, people face lower living standards and difficulties accumulating capital and assets. For young people, these changes potentially bring significant challenges. Take, for example, youth in Cambodia.

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Development Matters2 Comments
Africa, Human Development, Youth

Girls robbed of their childhood in the Sahel

By Laurent Bossard, Director, Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat (SWAC/OECD)

In Mali, Niger and Chad, 40% of children under five suffer from stunting. These children do not receive enough nutrients. Their bodies — their brains, bones and muscles — do not get enough calcium, iron or zinc or enough vitamins (A, B2, B12 etc.), so they do not have enough energy to grow and develop. Many of these children will suffer from chronic diseases and will have cognitive problems — so they won’t be able to go to school for long, if at all. As adults, they will have little chance to flourish and, secondarily, will have low economic productivity. Many will also die very young, often before turning five.

In these countries, at least 100 children out of every thousand die before reaching the age of five. That’s 10 times more than in Sri Lanka, 20 times more than in Canada and 50 times more than in Luxembourg. Why are these children dying and why are they doomed to a hopeless future?  Continue reading “Girls robbed of their childhood in the Sahel”

Lia Beyeler2 Comments
Youth

Closing the gap on youth well-being

By Alexandre Kolev, Head of the social cohesion unit at the OECD Development Centre Today’s world youth population ages 10 to 24, is 1.8 billion people strong and represents the largest cohort ever to be transitioning to adulthood. The vast majority of these young people – 88% – live in developing countries. These young people are the next generation. If properly nurtured, they can be … Continue reading Closing the gap on youth well-being

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