1.8 Billion Adolescents Worldwide – More Than Ever Before In Human History

The 1.8 billion adolescents worldwide – more than ever before in human history – can help to propel their countries' economies, provided that Governments invest in education, health care and jobs for them, a new report released today by the United Nations shows.

During a press conference today (18 Nov) at UN Headquarters in New York, UNFPA Senior Editor Richard Kollodge said that "never before have there been so many people between the ages of 10 and 24, and never again is there likely to be so much potential for economic and social progress."

Kollodge said that young people "have the potential to change the world for the better" but they can do it "only if they are healthy, they are educated, their capabilities are developed, they have rights, they have a voice, and they have real opportunities and choices in life."

The State of World Population 2014, he said, "aims to change the way the world thinks about young people, from liabilities to assets, from problems to possibilities."

The senior editor of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), publishers of the report, said "today's record 1.8 billion young people present an unprecedented but fleeting opportunity to transform the future."

Speaking at the same event, Robert Engelman of the Worldwatch Institute said that young people "want to go to school, they want to get a decent job that provides a certain amount of livelihood and some dignity to their lives, and they want to start a family. And generally speaking, they say that they want to do that in a sequence, that's the order, the natural order of things they want to do. But often their lives don't provide them the opportunity to do that."

The report, The power of 1.8 billion: adolescents, youth and the transformation of the future, finds that the potential economic gains to countries with large populations of youth 10 to 24 years old would be realized through a demographic dividend, which can occur when a county's working age population is larger than the population that is dependent and younger.

To maximize the dividend, however, countries must ensure that their young working-age populations are equipped to seize opportunities for jobs and other income-earning possibilities.

SHOTLIST:
18 NOVEMBER 2014, NEW YORK CITY

Exterior United Nations headquarters
Dais
Photographer
Reporters
End of presser

SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Kollodge, UNFPA Senior Editor:
"The world's young people now number a record 1.8 billion. Never before have there been so many people between the ages of 10 and 24; and never again is there likely to be so much potential for economic and social progress. While young people have the potential to change the world for the better, they can do it only if they are healthy, they are educated, their capabilities are developed, they have rights, they have a voice, and they have real opportunities and choices in life."

SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Kollodge, UNFPA Senior Editor:
"This UNFPA report aims to change the way the world thinks about young people, from liabilities to assets, from problems to possibilities. Today's record 1.8 billion young people present an unprecedented but fleeting opportunity to transform the future."

SOUNDBITE (English) Robert Engelman, Senior Fellow at the Worldwatch Institute:
"What 10 to 24 year-olds want for their own lives is, hardly surprising, is really what we all want, or what any of us would want at least. I have interviewed dozens of young people in continents, all the world's continents. And what I hear them say is that they want to go to school, they want to get a decent job that provides a certain amount of livelihood and some dignity to their lives, and they want to start a family. And generally speaking, they say that they want to do that in a sequence, that's the order, the natural order of things they want to do. But often their lives don't provide them the opportunity to do that."

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