World Bank initiative puts the young at top of agenda

By Saffina Rana

Date: 16/09/04

WITH more than half of the world's population under the age of 25, the World Bank is planning a new initiative to target youth problems. Within Europe, youth unemployment in the new EU member states and Balkan countries is expected to receive particular attention. Other priorities will include education, health (particularly AIDS) and conflict resolution.

The initiative is a pet project of World Bank President James Wolfensohn, who wants to raise the profile of youth issues within the Bank before he steps down in nine months. His ambition, he said at a meeting in Sarajevo last week, is to become an advocate for youth once his World Bank duties have come to an end. "Youth is half the world. We must listen to them and we must work with them," he said.

Wolfensohn had some sharp criticisms of current government spending priorities. "The proportion of young people without jobs is far greater than other parts of the community," he explained. "While we consider how to blow each other up and spend good dollars on defence, we are not going to give hope to young people. We also have $300 billion [€245bn] spent on agricultural subsidies which could also be used for better purposes."

The Sarajevo meeting brought together delegates from more than 150 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) dealing with youth issues and World Bank officials.

The result of the meeting is that an informal network will be set up to gather ideas and proposals from such groups working at the grass roots level on youth issues. The aim is to take local suggestions and see whether they can be developed for national or regional application.

The NGOs themselves are unlikely to benefit directly from the ideas that they come up with. The Bank has no intention of lending funds directly to the voluntary sector, or of creating a funding instrument to support the new strategy. However, Wolfensohn feels that the Bank's influence will be enough to achieve results. "The Bank has political leverage," he said. "As an advocate for youth I can bring the issues to the political agenda of governments."

More directly, the Bank can negotiate loans in which a certain percentage of the funds is set aside for youth policy development, such as tackling unemployment. Bank officials told European Voice that ring-fenced amounts of up to 4% had already been brought up in negotiations with governments.

The first step will be to establish a task force of Bank officials and NGO representatives to examine issues that could be taken up. The Bank also wants to set up a website to improve the exchange and dissemination of information between the youth groups. This will link groups with similar concerns and allow them to share their experience and work better together. This should be established by the end of September.

Although Wolfensohn's advocacy has given the network a high profile, it also highlights a potential weakness. Officials present at the meeting expressed concern that it may slip down the organization's priorities once Wolfensohn leaves. This problem is compounded by the fact that, to date, the initiative has been handled by the Bank's public relations department rather than at a more strategic level. And while the initiative does not need a specific budget line to succeed, there are fears that without one it may not be treated seriously within the Bank.

• Saffina Rana is a Brussels-based freelance journalist.

With more than half of the world's population under the age of 25, the World Bank is planning a new initiative to target youth problems. Within Europe, youth unemployment in the new EU member states and Balkan countries is expected to receive particular attention. Other priorities include education, health (particularly AIDS) and conflict resolution.