UN: The world's 1.2 billion adolescents are the key to growth and international stability, but poverty and disease are threatening their future, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said yesterday.
There are now more adolescents in the world than ever. Some 87 per cent of them are in developing countries, and one in four lives in extreme poverty.
In its 2003 State of the World Population report, the UNFPA said the baby-boom of the poor countries, the result of high fertility in the past, presents both a crisis and an opportunity to change lives.
An estimated 6,000 people aged between 15 and 24 become infected with the HIV/AIDS disease every day - one every 14 seconds - and the majority are young women, the UN report showed. The age group now accounts for half of all new infections.
"This is a crisis from the point of view of health," said Mr Alex Marshall, who worked on the report. "Young people are at risk from sexually-transmitted diseases, from accidental pregnancy and from HIV/AIDS."
Poor health and a lack of education also increase poverty, which poses other risks. "Poverty is the greatest destabilising factor in our world today. The combination of poverty and lack of hope lays kids open to all sorts of temptations, including extremism."
But the demographic surge in young people, and recent sharp declines in fertility in some countries, offers an opportunity for economic and social change because the proportion of people of working age will increase relative to the younger or older generations.
"We are calling on national leaders, local leaders, the international community and young people themselves to recognise the crisis and to take advantage of this opportunity," Ms Thoraya Obaid, executive director of UNFPA, told a news conference to launch the report.
"We will have a global crisis if we ignore the needs of young people."
The report urges governments to do more to meet development goals set at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994.
Industrialised nations pledged to meet a third of the funds to cover population and reproductive health services, to improve education and other needs in the developing world that were estimated to reach $18.5 billion by 2005.
However, so far the UNFPA has only about half of what is required. "It is less than $10 billion now, and less than $3 billion comes from industrial countries," Ms Obaid said, noting that it was a small sum compared to what was spent on arms and defence.
About 238 million young people live in poverty on less than $1 a day (about €1.17), Ms Obaid added.
She said: "We can help young people. We can help them to help themselves."
Countries such as Korea, Thailand, Mexico and Malaysia invested in programmes in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and are seeing the benefits now.
Mr Marshall also cited Bangladesh, parts of India, Uganda, Vietnam and Cambodia for their success in family planning or for lowering HIV infection rates.
Projects that combine life skills, peer counselling, are locally driven, culturally sensitive and involve youths at all stages have greater success, the UN report said.
In Uganda, education has led to a drop in the number of sexual active 13 to 16-year-olds in one district from 60% in 1994 to just 5% in 2001.
In Brazil, 48% of youngsters were using condoms in 1999 compared to 4% five years earlier.
"This is a wake-up call to leaders to listen to young people and acknowledge their needs," Ms Obaid said. "It is a call for governments to increase funding and extend information and services to young people, to support them so they can lead healthy, productive lives."