Harnessing the Potential: why young people towards the Millennium Development Goals

Harnessing the Potential: why young people
are fundamental to accelerating progress
towards the Millennium Development Goals
Overview
The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) summit will decide how we can accelerate current
progress towards the 2015 deadline. This summary paper demonstrates how young people can
provide the solution. There are over 1 billion young people (aged 15-24) in the world. Young
people are passionate about participating in and contributing to development – as demonstrated
in the DFID-CSO Youth Working Group paper, Our Voice. Currently young people, especially young
women, are an underutilised resource of initiators and implementers of development. India alone
misses out on potential economic growth worth around US $33 billion each year through underinvestment in girls.1 By harnessing this resource and empowering people to take part in their own
development we can significantly increase our impact.
1. MDG 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
1.1 How young people are being overlooked
15-24 year olds make up approximately one quarter of the world’s population, but almost half is unemployed.2 If
developing countries do not create the new jobs that are required for the youth population it will be impossible to
eradicate the cycle of extreme poverty and hunger. During the recent global recession, youth unemployment rose
faster than the overall global rate.3
1.2 Youth impact
Over 300 million new jobs will have to be created worldwide if we are to return to levels of employment pre-financial
crisis.4 According to the ILO, halving the world’s youth unemployment rate could add an estimated US$ 2.2 to 3.5
trillion to the world economy. To a young person, this means the ability to afford vital necessities for their families, and
contributing to the growth of their economy. Harnessing and channelling the energies and creativity of young people
constructively is vital to reaching this MDG.
 The Youth Business International (YBI) network assists young entrepreneurs who are unable to find support
elsewhere, with a combination of access to capital, volunteer mentoring, and other business development services. In
India, YBI has worked with local partners to support 2,134 young people to establish and run successful businesses,
lifting themselves and over 17,000 others employed by these businesses out of poverty over the past 15 years (with a
95% loan repayment rate).
2. MDG 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
2.1 How young people are being overlooked
136 million 15-24 year olds are illiterate and two-thirds of them are young women.5 71 million adolescents are estimated
to be out-of-school, the majority of whom are young women who often face additional barriers to education.6 For
example, the WHO estimates that 150 million girls have been raped or suffer other forms of sexual violence at school.
The failure to improve access to, and the quality of, primary and secondary education for girls and young women puts
a whole generation at risk.
2.2 Youth impact
Fully delivering secondary education for young women would hasten the achievement of all other MDGs. For years,
we have known that women in Africa with seven or more years of schooling have between two and three fewer
children than women with fewer than three years’ education.7 Those children are also likely to be healthier and better
educated.8 We need to ensure that young people, as the main victims and perpetrators of violence, are involved in
tackling the sexual abuse that is preventing young women from going to school and increasing drop-out rates.
As documented by Plan and ODI, the young people in the programme Learn Without Fear developed a gendersensitive, peer-to-peer manual to support prevention and intervention against violence in schools. The manual
is used by peer educators, youth groups, school class and student councils, enabling young people to talk
3. MDG 5: Improve Maternal Health
3.1 How young people are being overlooked
The UK government stated that they want to “ensure the world delivers on its commitments to cut the number of
women and children dying during pregnancy and childbirth in some of the world’s poorest countries.”9 For this to
be possible, we must focus on young women who are the worst affected group in relation to MDG 5, especially in
countries affected by conflict. Pregnancy is the leading cause of death for young women aged 15 to 19,10 and an infant’s
risk of dying before their first birthday is 60% higher when the mother is under 18.11
3.2 Youth impact
Accessible and effective education, family planning and contraceptive services that target and empower young women
as leaders and partners, not just beneficiaries, could avert up to 35% of maternal deaths.12 Peer-to-peer sex education
by young people has been demonstrated as an effective means of making this happen. The central principle is that
young people are more likely to be genuinely influenced by their own friends and generation, than by outsiders.
In Burkina Faso, Youth for Youth provides youth-friendly family planning services and provides support for young
peer educators. 82% of those who visit the project seek clinical services or counselling and 77 % are young women
- compared to other centres where the majority who attend are males.13
4. MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
4.1 How young people are being overlooked
Young people are at the centre of the global AIDS epidemic; 5.4 million are estimated to be living with HIV (2007).14
Today’s generation has never known of a world without HIV and yet, many young people still lack the knowledge to
protect themselves against it - less than one fifth of young women in developing countries claim to have even the most
basic knowledge about HIV.15 In most developing countries, the majority of young people still do not use condoms
during sex. As a result, young people account for at least 40% of new infections worldwide.16
4.2 Youth impact
Young people in some countries are proving that the right policies and interventions can yield results in the fight
against HIV and AIDS, when young people themselves take a leading role.
 As part of a youth-led intervention piloted by Restless Development, a small group of community volunteer
peer educators in Northern Uganda reached almost three and a half thousand people in under a year. The dramatic
results included a 45% increase in young males using condoms and an 18% decrease in young males having multiple
sexual partners – two of the main drivers of the HIV and AIDS epidemic.17
Conclusion
Involving young people as initiators and implementers of development is one of the most effective and realistic ways
of accelerating progress across all of the MDGs. Youth-led development programmes increase impact and reach some
of the most marginalised groups of people. Some of the examples in this paper refer to those MDGs which are most
off track - such as eliminating gender disparity in education (MDG3) and improving maternal health (MDG5) – and yet
youth-led development programmes have still yielded impressive results and should therefore be a key part of the
MDG summit.
Recommendations:
For the UK Delegation to the MDG Summit
• Youth participation and the youth-led model of development should be recognised as
innovative, effective and realistic means to accelerating progress towards the MDGs.
This should be included in the Summit Outcomes document and/or the Chair’s Summary
document.
For DFID following the MDG Summit
• DFID and the Youth Working Group should work together to increase youth involvement in
achieving the commitments set out at the MDGs Summit. This could include:
o Providing case studies of effective youth-led interventions and initiatives from our
network.
o Disseminating the Youth Participation in Development: A Guide for Development
Agencies and Policy Makers (a DFID and Youth Working Group publication) to other
donors and governments.
• DFID should develop a mechanism for the permanent representation of young people from
the Global North and South at the national and international level. This could include:
o Arranging regular meetings with young people on important issues, such as the Post2015 agenda, through the DFID-CSO Youth Working Group.
Endnotes
1
World Bank, 100 Country Survey.
2
UNESCO, EFA Global Monitoring Report: Reaching the Marginalised, 2010.
3
Keeping the promise: A forward looking review to promote an agreed action agenda to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, Report of the Secretary General, A/64/665, 2010, Page 5.
4
Ibid.
5
Global Education Digest 2007, UNESCO
6
Ibid
7
Shultz, T. (1993) ‘Returns to Women’s Education’ in Women’s Education in Developing Countries, World Bank, Washington.
8
Plan UK, Single Best Investment, 2009.
9
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Media-Room/News-Stories/2010/Placing-women-at-the-heart-of-development/
10
UNFPA (2004). State of World Population, 2004 ;http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2004/english/ch9/page5.htm; accessed 3/21/2007.
11
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/global-issues/millennium-development-goals/5-improve-maternal-health/
12
www.ippf.org
13
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2003/english/ch5/page4.htm; International Planned Parenthood Federation. n.d. “Burkina Faso Programme Review.” Unpublished report. London: International Planned Parenthood Federation.
14
UNFPA
15
The UN Millennium Development Goals Report, 2010
16
ibid
17
Restless Development Uganda Programme Report, Youth Recovery and Development Programme, May 2010:
www.restlessdevelopment.org.
This paper was written by the DFID / CSO Youth Working Group; a network of 30 organisations established in 2007 in partnership with DFID, to
help put young people at the heart of development.
Special thanks to Restless Development and War Child, members of the DFID - CSO Youth Group’s Steering Committee, for their role in
producing this paper.
If you have any questions regarding this paper, please contact:
Nick Hutchings (Policy and Advocacy Officer, War Child UK)
policy@warchild.org.uk