Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Methodological Note -- Abbreviations and Data Notes -- Overview -- Invest in young people-now -- Investments during youth's five life transitions -- Policies should focus not only on youth's opportunities but also their capabilities and second chances -- Policies to broaden opportunities -- Policies that enhance capabilities: Youth as decision makers -- Policies to offer second chances -- Moving forward -- Part I Why now, and how? -- 1 Youth, poverty reduction, and growth -- Young people are critical to further progress with poverty reduction and growth -- How the challenges confronting young people have changed -- Do numbers matter? How demographic changes affect opportunities for youth -- How prepared are youth for today's challenges? A glass half empty -- What should policy makers focus on? The five transitions -- Spotlight: Differing demographics -- 2 Opportunities, capabilities, second chances: A framework for policy -- Broadening opportunities -- Developing the capabilities of young people as decision-making agents -- Offering second chances -- Spotlight: A gender filter on the youth lens -- Part II Transitions -- 3 Learning for work and life -- Educational preparation of youth for work and life is low -- A solid foundation: Improving the readiness for postprimary education -- Enhancing postprimary education opportunities -- Better education choices by young people -- Offering second chances -- Spotlight: Vietnamese youth: Managing prosperity -- 4 Going to work -- Youth challenges in the labor market -- What makes youth vulnerable in the labor market? -- Broadening labor market opportunities -- Choosing to work and developing the skills to do so -- Providing a springboard to reintegrate the most vulnerable -- Spotlight: Do baby booms lead to employment busts? Not in OECD countries.

5 Growing up healthy -- Promoting the health of young people stimulates growth and reduces poverty and health care expenditures -- Public intervention is needed to promote youth health -- Strengthening young people's capability to practice healthy behavior -- Enhancing opportunities to make healthy choices -- What if prevention fails? Helping young people deal with the adverse consequences of poor health behavior or misfortune -- Spotlight: Addressing disparities among Brazil's youth -- 6 Forming families -- Preparing for family formation is good for growth and poverty reduction -- Preparation for family formation is poor -- Providing opportunities for youth to prepare for parenthood -- Strengthening young people's decision-making capabilities to prepare for parenthood -- Supporting those who become mothers at an early age -- 7 Exercising citizenship -- Youth participation: Rising, declining, or both? -- What youth citizenship means for adult citizenship and development -- Opportunities for political participation and active citizenship -- Acquiring an identity and a sense of belonging -- Young people need legally recognized second chances -- Spotlight: Rebuilding lives and institutions in Sierra Leone -- Part III Across transitions and next steps -- 8 Moving and communicating across borders -- Youth and international migration -- Youth and the global flow of information and ideas -- Spotlight: What donors can do -- 9 Youth policy: Doing it and getting it right -- Youth policy priorities vary by country context -- Youth policy often fails young people -- Getting it right-by developing a coherent framework and integrating it with national policy -- Getting it right-by listening to young people -- Getting it right-through monitoring and evaluation -- Spotlight: It's up to you(th)-taking action for development -- Bibliographical note -- Endnotes.

References -- Selected indicators -- Technical notes -- Selected world development indicators -- Data sources and methodology -- Classification of economies and summary measures -- Terminology and country coverage -- Technical notes -- Index -- Boxes -- 1 Investing in young people pays off big time: Estimating the long-term and interactive effects of human capital investments -- 2 The poor quality of basic education severely limits opportunities for young people -- 3 International migration offers opportunities and risks for youth -- 4 Knowing what's good for you: Telling young people about the benefits of school can affect outcomes -- 5 All dressed up and somewhere to go in Bungoma and Butere-Mumias -- 1.1 What is youth? -- 1.2 "The Millennium Development Goals are not about youth, right?" No, wrong! -- 1.3 Losing a decade-what HIV/AIDS is doing to human capital accumulation and growth in Kenya -- 1.4 A youth perspective on equity and development -- 1.5 Work and marriage for men in the Middle East and North Africa -- 2.1 Applying the human capital model to young people -- 2.2 Making services work for poor young people-World Development Report 2004 redux, with a youth lens -- 2.3 A tale of two exports: How electronics in Malaysia and garments in Bangladesh promoted work for young women in traditiona -- 2.4 Young people's voice in budget setting improved outcomes in Ceara, Brazil -- 2.5 Seen but not heard: Who decides when to drop out of school? Or when to marry? Or do anything else? -- 2.6 Is microcredit an answer to relieving the young's resource constraints? -- 2.7 Are youths rational (at least according to economists)? -- 2.8 Even those still in school need second chances -- 2.9 Brain development among youth: Neuroscience meets social science -- 3.1 The ignored side of skills development: Building behavioral skills for school, work, and life.

3.2 Life skills programs and nonformal teaching methods in schools -- 3.3 Violence and harassment in schools -- 3.4 Georgia: Fighting corruption in higher education -- 3.5 Chile's higher education: Diversifying the sources of funding -- 3.6 Korea's secondary education: Expansion without sacrificing quality -- 3.7 Income-contingent loans -- 3.8 Integrated approaches address the many constraints on young people -- 3.9 Reaching out-of-school youth in Bangladesh -- 4.1 Measuring youth activity in the transition to work -- 4.2 Some youths are neither in the labor force nor studying -- 4.3 Early unemployment persists in Bosnia and Herzegovina -- 4.4 Reforming part of the labor market has been no substitute for comprehensive reform in Spain and France -- 4.5 Off-farm opportunities for youth in Palanpur, India -- 4.6 Employing youth with disabilities -- 4.7 Joven programs increased employment and earnings for some disadvantaged youths -- 5.1 Street children abusing drugs -- 5.2 The role of education in behavior change -- 5.3 Reducing HIV risk in Namibia -- 5.4 Social marketing can change behavior-Horizon Jeunes in Cameroon -- 5.5 Russia limited the sale of alcohol, and deaths and illnesses fell -- 5.6 Technology can help change young people's behavior: Using text messages in New Zealand to reduce smoking -- 6.1 The sequencing of marriage and childbearing -- 6.2 Education shapes family formation -- 6.3 Voices of Bangladeshi youth: Searching for the ideal spouse -- 6.4 Anemia: The outcome of multiple deficiencies -- 6.5 Grameen Bank's "Sixteen Decisions"-convincing men to have fewer children -- 6.6 Cash transfers conditional on delaying marriage to promote school attendance for girls in Bangladesh -- 7.1 What is citizenship? -- 7.2 Do large youth cohorts cause violence? Maybe, if economic growth rates are low.

7.3 The Otpor youth movement in the former Yugoslavia -- 7.4 The citizenship of Big George-from youth to adulthood -- 7.5 Promoting voluntary and independent opportunities -- 7.6 Last chance in Texas -- 7.7 Private sector interventions to deter youth crime -- 7.8 War-affected youth in Uganda -- 8.1 Small islands, large migrations -- 8.2 Poor job prospects fuel migration in Morocco -- 8.3 Moving in fits and starts with technology-the African Virtual University -- 8.4 Staying alive: HIV prevention using ICTs -- 9.1 What do ministries of youth do? -- 9.2 Does addressing gender issues hold lessons for youth policy? The view from East Asia -- 9.3 Neither seen, nor heard-youth in the poverty reduction strategy process -- 9.4 How do developed countries handle youth issues? Consider Sweden -- 9.5 Where departments of youth are headed: Evidence from Latin America -- 9.6 Successful policy coordination and implementation: How health and education policies can work together to combat the AIDS -- 9.7 Vozes Jovens: Opening national youth policy to youth voice and participation in Brazil -- 9.8 A youth scorecard? The many indicators of youth development -- 9.9 Credible proof of a program's success can ensure continuity: The case of Oportunidades -- Figures -- 1 High enrollment rates in primary school are followed by significantly lower rates at secondary levels in Indonesia and Zamb -- 2 Opening and closing demographic windows of opportunity -- 3 Youth enrollment rates decline with age -- 4 Entry into the workforce increases with age -- 5 The unemployment rate everywhere is higher for young people than older people-with gaps much larger in some countries -- 6 Risky behaviors peak during youth -- 7 Family formation increases with age -- 8 Civic engagement rises with age -- 9 Transitions seen through three lenses focus policies and magnify impact.

10 Early childhood interventions (at ages 1-5) can have long-lasting effects on young people (at ages 13-18).