This page provides presentations and supplementary materials related to a 2008 conference marking the conclusion of a project on ‘Youth Exclusion and Political Violence’ co-funded by the World Bank ‘Trust Fund for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development’ (TFESSD) and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The project sought to identify ways to break the adverse relationship between youth bulges (large youth cohorts), marginalization, and political violence, and to engage large youth cohorts positively in development.

The Education Development Center has produced a cross-sectoral assessment of the Youth of Yemen, as part of a EQUIP3 USAID-funded initiative. The Yemen Stability Initiative (YSI) endeavors to address alienation among disaffected, disenfranchised, vulnerable youth ages 15–24. It addresses their difficulties through an array of activities and programs to increase their civic participation, life skills competence, health, violent extremism management and mitigation capabilities, and livelihood opportunities.

The study focused on key youth issues:

This report highlights how service providers can be more effective in delivering market-led programs to young people. The information comes from a set of in-depth interviews and focus groups with 142 youth alumni (youth who have exited Employment, Entrepreneurship, and Training Programs). The report intends to fill a research gap by compiling information and insights about employment, enterprise and training programs from the perspective of the youth alumni themselves.

This Report, prepared by the World Bank, examines five pivotal phases of life that can help unleash the development of young people’s potential with the right government policies: learning, working, staying healthy, forming families, and exercising citizenship. Within each of these transitions, governments need not only to increase investments directly but also to cultivate an environment for young people and their families to invest in themselves.

The RTP (Rural Technology Program) will make grants available for technology development, applied research, and/or training, with a focus on rural communities, to aid in the development of a workforce for bioenergy, pulp and paper manufacturing, or agriculture-based renewable energy.

The RTP addresses the following goals:

In this report, the Middle East Youth Initiative cautions that a new jobs crisis may damage future prospects for the region's young people. For Middle Eastern economies, the global downturn coincides with a historically high share of 15- to 29-year-olds in the total population. This report shows that, even during the “boom” years of 2002 to 2008, young people in the Middle East did not benefit from high-quality education and struggled to find decent jobs.

According to the African Development Indicators (ADI) 2008/09, a job-seeking African youth (age 15-24) — typically a poor, out–of–school female living in a rural area — will likely face increasingly greater challenges in securing employment on the continent. Arguing for a multi-sectoral approach, this report suggests several key areas to begin tackling the employment issue, including expanding job and education alternatives in the rural areas; encouraging and supporting entrepreneurship; improving the access and quality of skills formation; and addressing demographic issues.

An initiative of the Youth Employment Network, the Databank offers information on over 300 organizations and 450 projects in 16 West African countries, including organizational profiles, contact information, and project overviews.

This paper explores the costs associated with youth exclusion in the Middle East by providing estimates of the economic costs to society related to youth unemployment, youth joblessness, school dropouts, adolescent pregnancy, and youth migration. The paper provides country-specific estimates of the costs of youth exclusion by using the human capital approach to valuing economic costs.

This report seeks to capture some of the key learnings that have emerged from one particular life skills initiative that is being implemented by IYF partner organizations in four countries, and in a range of different settings and economic conditions. By highlighting some of the shared lessons, challenges and achievements of these varied programs, this report aims to contribute to the ongoing global dialogue around this critical youth development issue, and provide some specific suggestions for how to successfully adapt a life skills program to a wide range of locations and cultures.