World development report 2007: development and the next generation

World Bank highlights the need to invest in young people

The time has never been better to invest in young people living in developing countries - that is the message of the 2007 World Development Report (WDR). The theme of the WDR 2007 is youth, aged 12 to 24.

This report 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 report identifies three policy directions for helping youth develop themselves and contribute to society:

Expanding opportunities: broaden the opportunities for developing human capital by expanding access to and improving the quality of education and health services; by facilitating the start to a working life; and by giving young people a voice to articulate the kind of assistance they want and a chance to participate in delivering it
Enhancing capabilities: develop young people’s capabilities to choose well among these opportunities by recognising them as decision-making agents and by helping ensure that their decisions are well informed, adequately resourced, and judicious
Providing second chances: provide an effective system of second chances through targeted programmes that give young people the hope and the incentive to catch up from bad luck - or bad choices.

Related content

Document
Engaging and Empowering Young People through Arts and Humanities Approaches in the Context of Global Challenges
A. Brody / PRAXIS: Arts and Humanities for Global Development, University of Leeds, 2022
The central question informing the report is: What is the distinctive contribution of arts and humanities research for engaging and empowering young people in the context of global challenges?
Document
Sanitation, Hygiene and Environmental Cleanliness for Child Development
A. Macintyre, C. Strachan / The Sanitation Learning Hub, 2021
This Frontiers of Sanitation draws on the Transformative WASH concept to explore and outline what may be required of WASH implementation stakeholders in efforts to support child development outcomes. The Frontiers explores the multiple ways in which inadequate sanitation, hygiene, and environmental cleanliness can affect physical and cognitive development in children.
Document
Revisiting the impact of covid-19 on adolescents in urban slums in Dhaka, Bangladesh: round 2
S. Ahmed Raha, S. Rana, S. Al Mamun / Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) programme, 2021
This research is part of the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) programme, a nine-year, mixed methods longitudinal research and evaluation programme following the lives of 20,000 adolescents in six low- and middle-income countries.
Document
Learning from a living archive: Rejuvenating child and youth rights and participation
V. Johnson, T. Lewin, M. Cannon / Institute of Development Studies UK, 2020
This paper reflects the findings of the first phase of the REJUVENATE project, which set out to understand and map approaches to integrating children, youth, and community participation in child rights initiatives.
Document
Children’s harmful work in Ghana’s Lake Volta Fisheries: Research needed to move beyond discourses of child trafficking
I. Bellwood-Howard, A. Abubakari / Institute of Development Studies UK, 2020
Children work throughout the Lake Volta fisheries value chain. It is commonly assumed most have been trafficked. Research and advocacy has focused on dangers to young boys harvesting fish, and poverty as a driver, precluding attention to harms experienced by non-trafficked children, girls’ experiences and work-education dynamics.

Eldis

World development report 2007: development and the next generation