ICYO

YOUTH INFORMATION

                           No: 2007/42 (June)

(E-Newsletter from network of youth organizations in India)

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ICYO - Platform of 356 Youth Organizations in India.       

ICYO - India’s largest network of urban and rural youth.

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The State of the World Population Report 2007 is released on 27 June 2007.

The Report also has the Youth Supplement.

The Youth Supplement focuses on ‘investment in young people’.

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Young People in the Cities Today

 

The world is undergoing the largest wave of urban growth in its history. The 3 billion population of towns and cities in 2005 will increase by 1.8 billion by 2030.1 The urban population of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa will double in less than a generation. The fastest growth will be in the poorer urban areas. For example, the slum population of Dhaka has more than doubled in a decade, from 1.5 million in 1996 to 3.4 million in 2006.

 

Most urban growth comes from natural increase (more births than deaths). The urban poor have higher fertility rates than other urbanites: women have less education and less autonomy; they know little about sexual and reproductive health services, and have little access to them. Rural-urban migration also contributes to urban growth. Young people under 25 already make up half the urban population and young people from poor families will be a big part of the urban wave. The future of cities depends on what cities do now to help them, in particular to exercise their rights to education, health, employment, and civic participation.

 

Investment in young people is the key to ending generations of poverty. In particular it is the key to reaching the Millennium Development Goals and halving poverty by 2015.

 

Young People in the Cities Today

 

Most urban young people were born in the cities. Others arrive on packed buses or trains, bringing with them few possessions, great expectations, and an eagerness to engage fully in a better life. They come with the hope of a good education, adequate health services, and a society with plenty of jobs to choose from: a plan for escaping the poverty in which their parents are trapped.

 

Urban centres attract economic investments, and offer a high concentration of jobs and public services. Political power is concentrated in national, state or district capitals, and secondary schools, higher education institutions, and health care centres are better and more accessible in urban areas.

 

 The high disparity in the rates of school attendance among urban and rural youth illustrates the “urban advantage”: rural boys’ and girls’ school attendance rates are, respectively 26 and 38 per cent lower than their urban counterparts’.

 

 A vanishing dream?

 

At the beginning of the 21st century, the best recipe for a life without poverty is still to grow up urban; but young people’s dream of moving beyond their parents’ poverty is quickly vanishing.

 

Although cities offer better jobs, housing, education, health care, and opportunities are unevenly distributed. Most people in the poorest countries, including the young, have little access to the amenities of urban life.

Although school attendance is higher in cities than in rural areas, many young people in poor areas, especially girls, never start school, or drop out before finishing secondary level.

 

In urban centres, young people are faced with higher unemployment rates than adults; work is more likely to be in the unregulated “informal sector” where they are often exposed to abuse and exploitation.

 

Housing for the urban poor is most likely to be in slums – crowded homes and poorly-built neighbourhoods with little or no infrastructure like paved roads, electricity, gas, piped water or sanitation. In some cities this applies to more than half the population. In most African cities, for instance, only ten per cent of the population is connected to sewers, and many have no sewers at all. Many young women and men grow up resenting their exclusion from the promise of city life. Extreme poverty, family conflict, violence and neglect, alcoholism or drug abuse in the home, or the illness and death of parents, may drive young people to live on their own. In some countries a high proportion of urban adolescents do not live with their parents, for instance 30 per cent of Ethiopian girls aged 10 to 14.6 In Benin 14.3 per cent of a sample of children up to age 14 in urban areas lived with neither parent, though both were alive, compared with 8.9 per cent of rural children.

Some children live in the streets.

 

For young people brought up in poverty with low-quality education, health care and housing, and few prospects for steady work, things can go very wrong.

 

Young people are often the risk takers and experimenters: they are regularly reminded of their unequal state and lack of opportunities – luxury cars in the streets; smart houses in safe neighbourhoods; opulent lifestyles in the mass media and on the Internet. Exclusion and frustration can lead to crime and violence.

 

Many young women leave their villages to avoid marrying young or dropping out of school early. But slum life can be particularly dangerous for young women. Pervasive gender discrimination puts them at risk of sexual exploitation and violence. Poverty may force them to work long hours in unsafe and distant places, returning home alone on dark and dangerous streets.

 

Having no knowledge or power to protect themselves, and poor health services, they are at increased risk of  unwanted pregnancy, and childbirth without skilled care. Many teenage mothers have no support from their families or the fathers of their children. They may have to turn to transactional sex work to survive.

 

Positive signs

 

The creation of safe spaces for adolescent girls and young women can help turn urban life into a positive experience through which they may find autonomy, access to resources, and self-control.

 

By design, the city brings people closer. Youth urban culture adds music, dance, and sports shaped by global and local issues. Information and communication technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones have changed the way young people in cities relate to one another, and to their counterparts in other countries. They have introduced and spread globalized aspirations and patterns of consumption

 

The future of young people in the cities

 

The future of cities depends on the future of young people. In particular, it depends on what policymakers can do to equip young people to break the cycle of poverty. This in turn depends on involving young people in the decisions that affect them. This report draws attention to some challenges and possibilities, and suggests some actions that will help young people live up to their potential.

 

The wave of urban growth, and the consequent increase in the supply of labour, has the potential to stimulate economic growth – if local and municipal governments in developing countries can improve the quality of governance, and develop the institutional capacity to provide infrastructure and services. Services include universal access to education and health care, essential elements in the formation of human capital.

 

Governments must do four key things over the next 25 years to cope with change, reduce poverty, and create a stable environment for young people’s active participation in the urban transformation:

• Support young people to stay in school longer, so they are better educated and have access to technological innovations, information, and the life skills needed to enter changing labour markets.

• Support young people’s ability to exercise their right to health, including sexual and reproductive health, so they can stay healthy and free of sexually-transmitted diseases and HIV infection; avoid early pregnancy, postpone starting their families until they are ready, and have their children safely.

• Attract new investments to cities to create jobs and allow young people some economic security before they start their families.

• Encourage organizations of young people, to facilitate their leadership and participation in local decision-making, and act as a positive force for better governance.

 

As UNFPA’s State of World Population Report says, the wave of urbanization means that the battle for the Millennium Development Goals is being fought in the cities of developing countries. Young people will be in the forefront. Success depends on how well cities, countries and the international community strengthen and support them.

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Youth Information is published by

Indian Committee of Youth Organizations (ICYO)

194-A, Arjun Nagar, Safdarjang Enclave

New Delhi 110029, India

Phone: 91 9811729093  / 91 11 26183978 Fax 91 11 26198423

Email: icyoindia@... / icyo@...

Web:  www.icyo.in

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Indian Committee of Youth Organizations (ICYO) is a registered non-profit, non-governmental network organization, committed in developing areas of mutual cooperation and understanding among different youth voluntary agencies, youth groups, clubs and individuals working in the field of youth welfare in India. 

ICYO functions as an umbrella organization of youth NGOs in India. It's family consists of
over 356 organizations spread in 122 districts of 22 states from different corners of India.

Our goal:
To improve and extend the youth work and services through Youth Organizations;
To enhance and demonstrate youth work in the society;
To promote effective youth programmmes;
To organize network of civil society organizations working towards the development of youth work;
To organize seminars, conferences, workshops, trainings;
To maintain international relation with organizations promoting young people in their programmes and activities

Affiliation: 

Consultative (Roster) Status with ECOSOC, United Nations;
Consultative Status with Commission on Sustainable Development;
Full Member of World Assembly of Youth (WAY); Asian Youth Council (AYC);
Youth for Habitat International Network (YFHIN); CRIN, South Asia Youth
Environment Network (SAYEN), Affiliate group of ECPAT International, Thailand;
ATSECE-DELHI, Indian Partner of AIDS Care Watch Campaign;
Steering Committee member of World Bank's YDP Network;
Working relation with Indian Association of Parliamentarians (IAPPD);
International Medical Parliamentarians Organizations (IMPO);
Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD);
World Youth Foundation, Malaysia