International Youth Sector: Scope

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The international youth sector is anything but small, even if it is not very well known. It is made up of a wide variety of organizations, with very different missions and reasons for existence. Some have long histories of engagement with youth issues and/or exist for the fulfillment of exclusively youth-specific objectives. Others have discovered only recently that youth issues and young people are key to the implementation of their missions. Others again originate in youth-led social and political movements. It is a highly specialized field, and one with reach into many different themes, from education, to development, to democracy assistance.

A snapshot of the “facts and figures” on the condition and situation of the world’s young people provides a basic overview of some of the human development issues that the international youth sector seeks to address in full cooperation with young people and the scale of action that would be required to address the needs of this population adequately worldwide.

SOME FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT THE WORLD’S YOUNG PEOPLE

Population:

There are approx. 1.75 billion people aged 15-29 living in the world (2010).
Nearly 44% of all people in the world are under the age of 25 (2010).
The world’s youth population, ages 15-24, will become more and more concentrated in Africa and Asia between 2010 and 2050 (2009).

Development:

Approx. half of young people in the world survive on less than $2 a day (2010).
Approx. 1.5 billion young people (aged 15-29) live in less developed countries (2010).
The poorest, least developed countries tend to have the largest shares of young people as a proportion of their populations (2009).
It is expected that 9 out 10 young people in 2050 will be living in developing countries (2009).
According to the ILO, more than one third of youth in the world is either seeking but unable to find work, has given up on the job search entirely, or is working but still living below the $2 a day poverty line (2005).

Sexual and Reproductive Health:

About 16 million adolescent girls aged 15-19 give birth each year, accounting for more than 10 per cent of all births worldwide (2010).
In low- and middle-income countries, almost 10 per cent of girls become mothers by age 16 years, with the highest rates in sub-Saharan Africa and south-central and south-eastern Asia (2010).
Almost 40 per cent of the 6,800 new HIV infections each day are among young people (2009).
An estimated 5.4 million youth are living with HIV — the majority live in East and Southern Africa (2010)<./li>
Each year at least 111 million new cases of curable STIs occur among young people (2010).
Worldwide, more than 50 million adolescent girls aged 15–19 are married, some with little understanding of sex or reproduction.
Among those ages 15 to 24, male prevalence is estimated to be 0.4 percent, and female prevalence is 0.6 percent worldwide (2009).
Survey data from sixty-four countries indicate that only 40 per cent of males and 38 per cent of females aged 15 to 24 had accurate and comprehensive knowledge about HIV and its prevention.

Education and the Labor Market:

More than 100 million adolescents do not attend school.
Of the world’s estimated 211 million unemployed people in 2009, nearly 40 per cent—or about 81 million—are between 15 and 24 years of age (2010).
More youth are poor or underemployed than ever before: some 152 million young people work but live in households that earn less than the equivalent of US$1.25 per day.
Some 352 million people between the ages 5-17 were estimated to be working.
There are an estimated 59 million young people between 15 and 17 years of age who are engaged in hazardous forms of work (2009).
In 6 out of 9 developing regions, unemployment rates are higher among young women than among young men (2005).
The gender gap is particularly evident in Northern Africa and Southern Asia, and it has widened during the decade 1993-2003 (2003).
Data from sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Asia show higher unemployment for young men than young women. In the rest of the developing world, the situation is reversed. However, the relatively lower rates for women do not always reflect the availability of productive work opportunities: In sub-Saharan Africa, a larger number of women work in subsistence agriculture, low-income jobs in smallholdings, or in other forms of unpaid and informal work (2005).
According to the ILO, the ratio of the youth-to-adult unemployment rate equals three (2006).
According to the ILO, around 85.3 million young women and men were unemployed throughout the world in 2006, accounting for 44 per cent of all unemployed persons globally (2010).
According to the ILO, the global number of child labourers had declined from 222 million to 215 million, or 3 per cent, over the period 2004 to 2008 (2010).
According to the World Bank, some 130 million 15-24 year olds worldwide cannot read or write (2007).

WHO IS INVOLVED IN THE INTERNATIONAL YOUTH SECTOR?

The “Magic Triangle” provides a tool for understanding “who makes up the youth sector” (at the national and international level) and, therefore, also the parameters of participation in youth policy making.

In an ideal world, international and national youth policy would be made collaboratively among governments that have the executive mandate to prepare and implement policy (policy), nongovernmental (youth) organizations that legitimately represent the needs and concerns of young people and professional and voluntary youth workers and educators (practice) and the academic community (research), which provides evidence of the situation of youth—in other words, the actors of the «Magic Triangle».

Young people themselves, are at the heart of these stakeholders’ concern and are, therefore, at the very center of the triangle. In this sense, the triangle is both a normative and practical description of the youth sector.

The weakness of the triangle is that does not show the relationships between actors and stakeholders within each of the three areas of the triangle. It is implied that these relationships need to be collaborative to ensure the best results and coordination. In reality, though, sometimes the relationships among actors within each part on the local or national level can be even more competitive than among those in the different parts of the triangle. International institutions have tried to demonstrate the added value of cooperation.

DATA SOURCES

Adapted from public information on the following sites: