In most of the countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road (the Belt and Road), including China, young people between the ages of 10-24 constitute about one-fifth of the population and are a critical group within their societies.
For an initiative that seeks to accelerate shared growth and sustainable development around the world through enhanced policy coordination, connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people bonds, young people must be both active participants and significant beneficiaries. Further, if the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is to meet its aspirations of being an impacting long-term global development and cooperation strategy, it needs the young people of today to own, refresh, and propel it into the future. As UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has pointed out, “Young people decide whether we achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.” Fortunately, in line with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s view that “Youth are the hope of a country and the future of a nation”, the BRI incorporates youth exchanges and education as two of the priority actions for achieving its high objectives.
UNFPA launches project in Shanghai to promote youth leadership under the Belt and Road Initiative on 18 December 2018.
Noteworthy Facts
So far, 126 countries have signed cooperation agreements with China on the BRI. Together, their share of the world’s total land area and population is more than 40 percent and 60 percent respectively. They also account for over 30 percent of the world’s GDP, 40 percent of world trade, and are home to more than 50 percent of the world’s population living in extreme poverty.
High levels of poverty may account for the contradictory situation across many BRI countries in which moderately high and rising net secondary school enrollment levels among young people co-exist with relatively high levels of youth unemployment and adolescent childbearing. Indeed, recent data from the UN and the World Bank indicate that overall, the share of the population aged 15-24 who neither are employed nor pursuing education or training is more than one in ten in many BRI countries, including countries as vastly different as Russia, Egypt, Indonesia, Maldives, and Armenia. Furthermore, at least 25 of the 64 countries (excluding China) have youth unemployment rates as high as 15 percent or above. Compared to high income countries, at least 35 of these countries spread across South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe have relatively high levels of teenage childbearing (that is, 20 or more births per 1,000 girls aged 15-19 every year).
Considering these facts, it is worth remembering that all young people, no matter their geographical or social location, are participants in the process of growing up in seeking ways to meet their basic physical and social needs. They also seek to acquire knowledge, skills, relationships, and values that they deem necessary for successfully navigating their way through adolescence and adult life. Their core needs – safety and well-being, quality education and training, decent employment, wholesome relationships and social networks, and meaningful participation in community life – are all necessarily interconnected. Failing to meet one core need almost inevitably undermines the fulfilment of the others. For example, thousands of 10 to14-year-old girls in several BRI countries are knocked off the track of healthy and productive transition into young adulthood by domestic violence and forced marriage. These human rights violations often abruptly terminate the girls’ schooling, harm their health, isolate them from their peers, and undermine their life-long economic productivity, leading to a vulnerable adulthood and old age.
Empowered Young People as Agents of Change
In the face of all this, it is well established that when empowered, young people become effective drivers of economic and social change. BRI’s impact on the sustainable development of participating countries would thus be significantly enhanced if its investments were structured to include or contribute to the expansion of the health, social, and economic assets of young people. It is smart economics to do so since their central placement in households, community, and national life cycles means that it is the young people of today who will determine the development prospects of their countries, and the contributions of BRI therein.
In reality, some of the investments required to maximize the potential of young people as drivers of change in BRI countries do not entail huge financial outlays. For instance, as BRI countries sustain their efforts to expand access to secondary education for their young people, the returns on such efforts could be significantly boosted by providing additional resources to close the gaps that prevail between boys and girls in the completion of secondary education in many of these countries. Efforts made to increase the employment and employability of young people must also have a strong gender equity focus as a recent ILO report shows that globally, women and girls account for nearly 70 percent of the young people that are neither employed nor pursuing an education or training. In addition, more resources and efforts need to be committed to increasing access to comprehensive sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health services for young people, especially adolescent girls. In this way, young people will be provided with a solid foundation for a healthy and happy adulthood.
In combination, these interventions represent one of the most cost-effective means of fully harnessing the skills, energies, and creativity of young people in BRI countries for sustained national development. They help to increase their life-long opportunities, starting with higher levels of schooling, prevention of unintended pregnancies, and healthier starts to childbearing later, and more opportunities for decent employment.
On a positive note, strong evidence indicates that recent and ongoing expansions in transport, communications and energy infrastructure, and manufacturing as a result of significant BRI-related investments in several countries across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa are helping to boost their rates of economic growth. To be sustainable, however, this growth must be managed to yield decent jobs, improved health, and enhanced life opportunities for the majority of the citizens of these countries, especially their youth. The key point here is that investments in the education, health, safety, skills, and economic productivity of young people directly help to build the human capital required for multiplying and sustaining the effects of the investments in roads, railways, ports, power plants, e-commerce platforms, and industrial complexes. In addition, modern history repeatedly teaches us that the kind of economic growth which does not generate improved well-being in the present as well as optimism about the future among the large youth population of today may trigger social discontent and political instability.
Implications for BRI
In order to go forward, far greater attention needs to be given to helping young people become more active participants in and beneficiaries from the BRI, because a resilient, healthy, and productively engaged young generation is the foundation for any country’s stability and prosperity. If the BRI is to fulfil its potential, its associated investments must generate impacts that afford the majority of young people in participating countries the information and services to guarantee their healthy development, and the opportunities and capacities to lead and participate in the national development process. This in the end will ultimately benefit their own future. In particular, in the spirit of the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development of ‘leaving no one behind’, it must positively impact the life chances of disadvantaged young people such as those living with disabilities, and those displaced or on the move due to violent conflicts, natural disasters, or economic destitution.
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BABATUNDE AHONSI is the Resident Representative (China) of the United Nations Population Fund.
