Dear Friends and youth activists:
 
As you may have heard, the World Bank plans to publish its 2007 World Development Report on the theme of Youth and Development.
 
I am scheduled to meet the people drafting the report – which, because of publishing schedules, has to be ready in draft form early in 2006! – on September 19th.  So I have been corresponding with some of the officers working on it, and today, have received this remarkable letter, inviting answers to a series of very challenging questions. The letter is very encouraging to all of us interested in YLD as he mentions that the Bank is “committed to the idea that young people can be agents of their own development…” Also he acknowledges that he - and thus probably the Bank -  are “approaching this issue from a position of complete ignorance.”  and thus, he asks me to help him answer what I believe are just the right kinds of questions we should be asking ourselves about YLD.

Because you provided what, in our assessment, the best, most imaginative YLD Project proposals through our Taking IT Global appeal for projects ahead of this year’s World Youth Congress,  I am writing to you in the hope that you will assist me in developing him answers to them:
 

1.      Under what conditions does YLD work best, or worst?

2.      What sorts of issues are most successfully dealt with, and what issues are poorly handled by young people?  (ie entrepreneurial, social, environmental, political)

3.      Are successful actions exclusively locally oriented?

4.      At what age does it become useful to engage young people in YLD?

5.      Do more successful ideas and organizations come “top down” or “bottom up”?

6.      Are young people more successful if they engage in partnership with public-sector institutions? – or with other established private (NGO) institutions?

7.      Is youth activism the exclusive purview of relatively wealthy and well-educated youths?

8.      What is required to engage or encourage participation among the young poor?

Please send your answers directly to me BEFORE SUNDAY 18TH SEPTEMBER!!   You might also like to answer a final question which is the generic one we address at each of our World Youth Congresses:

What is the most effective role for young people in development?

But please, think “Hard evidence” – “Case Studies” – “Facts” – “Statistics.” It would be so easy for you to write breezy, esoteric answers to these questions based on your fantasies of what YLD ought to be. Pointless. No help at all.  What we need is the hard, factual stories of what you have done to back up ever answer you give.
 
I will prepare a digest of your answers and send it to all of you who answer me – along with the results of the meeting I have with Mattias in Washington on 20/22 September.

thanks for your help
 
Sincerely
 
David Woollcombe



From: Mattias K.A. Lundberg
Development Economics Research Group
World Bank
7 SEP 2005   10.31 EST

Dear David,
 
Many thanks for your kind note, and your offer to make time to meet with us. I would be grateful for the opportunity to meet, to learn from your experience, especially on youth-led development.  We are committed to the idea that, as Juan Felipe has said, young people can be agents of their own development.
 
What we really need in the WDR is more hard evidence -- whether anecdotal or systematic, including successes and failures -- of experience with youth-led development.  The WDR is really an operational document, presenting solid recommendations derived from robust evidence.  So I would be enormously grateful for any information that you could give us on a range of questions, such as
 

1.      Under what conditions does YLD work best, or worst?

2.      What sorts of issues are most successfully dealt with, and what issues are poorly handled by young people?  (ie entrepreneurial, social, environmental, political)

3.      Are successful actions exclusively locally oriented?

4.      At what age does it become useful to engage young people in YLD?

5.      Do more successful ideas and organizations come “top down” or “bottom up”?

6.      Are young people more successful if they engage in partnership with public-sector institutions? – or with other established private (NGO) institutions?

7.      Is youth activism the exclusive purview of relatively wealthy and well-educated youths?

8.      What is required to engage or encourage participation among the young poor?

I realise this is a broad range of questions, but in my (fairly shallow) reading of the literature, there's rather little evidence on any of these issues – at least little that has been compiled in any systematic way.
 
So I'm approaching this issue from a position of complete ignorance – not biased by prior knowledge. Thus I'm also eager for any light that you can shed on these issues.  I look forward to meeting you in a few weeks' time.
 
Mattias
___________________________________
Mattias K.A. Lundberg
Development Economics Research Group


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