Can good governance solve youth unemployment?

This article by Robbie Lawrence, highlights how young people are very much part of the solution to youth unemployment. This post is part of the Wikiprogress Governance and Civic Engagement Series

“Education is our top priority but, once educated we want to be trained, enabled – and funded – to take action to address the challenges faced by our generation through youth-led development. We want, in Gandhi’s words, to ‘be the change’ we want to see in the world…” World Youth Congress, Hawaii, 1999

On the same day that the Bank of England upgraded its economic forecast, stating that inflation is expected to drop within the next two years, the Trades Union Congress reported that UK unemployment figures grew by 15,000 in the first three months of 2012 to 2.52 million. Rising employment numbers in the latter months of 2012 had offered a level of respite for the British government following a bruising financial year, however, today’s findings show that joblessness is still extensive.

The issue remains embedded among young people, with jobless rates soaring towards the one million mark and standing at 21.2% across the country. The TUC is concerned that while employment prospects for older workers have been improving, those for young people are far worse, and have deteriorated further since mid-2010. The damaging effects of unemployment on young people are well documented, and there is an increasing risk that the UK’s current 15-24 year olds will suffer lasting damage to their earnings potential and job prospects throughout their lives.

Global figures are equally gloomy. Over the last few years we have been inundated with statistics on the deteriorating situation in Europe (particularly Spain) for young job seekers and in Africa well over half of 15-24 year olds are currently out of work. According to a UN led report released last week, the weakening world wide recovery has further aggravated the youth job crisis and as a result the problem will continue growing over the next five years. The International Labour Organization’s ‘Global Employment Trends forYouth 2013: A generation at risk’ estimates that 73.4 million young people (12.6 percent) are expected to be out of work in 2013, and by 2018, this will have reached 12.8 percent.

Graph taken from ILO Report 2013

The report stipulates that young people face persistent unemployment, a proliferation of temporary jobs and growing discouragement in advanced economies; and poor quality, informal, subsistence jobs in developing countries:

“The economic and social costs of unemployment, long-term unemployment, discouragement and widespread low-quality jobs for young people continue to rise and undermine economies’ growth potential,” ILO - Global Employment Trends for Youth 2013 report.

Despite vocal concern around the issue, it seems that governments and organisations have struggled to find an effective means of combating youth unemployment. The recent World Economic Forum in Davos touched upon the subject on a number of occasions with some leaders suggesting that a global fund for unemployment be implemented. Yet there have been murmurings among critics that such steps are simply inadequate when faced with the ‘tidal wave’ of jobless young people sweeping the world’s nations. Lynda Cratton of the London Business School believes that in a similar way to global warming, the sheer complexity of the challenge renders it almost impossible to solve.

Following the release of ‘A generation at risk’ the ILO’s assistant director-general for policy José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs stated, ‘These figures underline the need to focus policies on growth, massive improvements in training systems and targeted youth employment actions’. 

Two recent Wikichild Spotlight reports look at tackling youth unemployment through effective governance.

- Developed by UNICEF and Save the Children, Children's Rights and Business Principles provides a comprehensive framework for understanding and addressing the impact of business on the rights and well-being of children. The Children’s Rights and Business Principles are built on existing standards and practices and helps to explain the opportunities for business of investing in children.  

- First published in Nairobi last year, UN-HABITAT’s State of the Field in Youth Development sheds light on how youth are positively impacting communities around the world. As part of wider series, this particular report stresses how young people can be beneficial to communities, and how local, national and international governments can implement, engage and support youth and youth led initiatives.

Both reports look to brand young people as ambassadors of change. ‘Children’s Right’s and Business Principles’ recognizes that children are among the most marginalised members of society, yet when provided with the agency to participate, they have shown that they can offer vital alternative viewpoints and make effective contributions. Similarly, ‘State of the Field’ emphasizes the need to have faith in the power of young people to contribute constructively to the good of society. It seems that both publications hope to change the attitude of governing bodies towards young people by showing that they themselves have placed youths at the center of their own projects. The ‘State of the Field’ report lists countless examples of how initiatives led by young people have positively benefited society.

Youth unemployment is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges facing governments this century and will worsen as populations swell and education becomes more readily available. However, the two publications featured provide hard facts about how the integration of young people in a country’s workforce can catalyse economic prosperity. With the development of more projects similar to the ones mentioned in the ‘State of the Field’ it seems that we can go someway to combating the problem.   

Robbie Lawrence 

Wikichild Coordinator 

Eradicating Extreme Poverty - But How do we Measure it?

This post by Emma Samman of the ODI,  profiles the ODI's Development Progress Debate on how to measure poverty within the post-2015 framework and is part of the Wikiprogress post-2015 Series.

ODI’s Development Progress project has just kicked off a debate over how a post-2015 framework ought to measure poverty AND you are invited to join the discussion  - with a blog by Martin Ravallion arguing that a new poverty target should continue to be based on a $1.25 a day poverty line alongside a ‘weakly relative’ poverty line, so that absolute poverty is given primacy but relative poverty is also taken into account.

Further contributions will argue for:

• higher international poverty lines (Lant Pritchett),
• a focus on internationally coordinated national poverty lines (Stephan Klasen),
• a poverty measure that includes both the headcount and depth of multidimensional deprivation (Sabina Alkire), and
• a focus on relative poverty that distinguishes across different types of poor people (Amanda Lenhardt and Andrew Shepherd).

Blogs will be uploaded every few days throughout May, so watch the site!

Context

Despite a great deal of debate over what a post-2015 framework should encompass, there is a general consensus that ‘eradicating extreme poverty’ should continue to be a fundamental tenet. Less agreement prevails over how this ought to be measured. The MDG target sought to halve extreme poverty over 25 years and defined the poor as those living on $1 a day or less (later updated to $1.25) in international dollars adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).  The $1.25 measure is the average poverty line among the world’s fifteen poorest countries, and the PPP adjustment is designed to enable comparison of purchasing power across countries and over time. One dollar (PPP) in Madagascar should, in principle, have the same value as one dollar in Indonesia.

But it is not clear that this is the best way to think about and measure poverty. Some have advocated higher international income poverty lines, arguing that they hold greater meaning in rich and poor countries alike. Others have argued that PPP measures may not reflect national incomes well and that national poverty lines would offer a better solution. Others still have taken issue with an income-based poverty metric and argued that poverty should be measured in a multidimensional fashion. And it has been reasoned that measures ought to disaggregate across groups of the poor in the view that not all experience poverty equally. 

Make sure your voice is heard, join the debate, either by proposing a blog advocating a particular measure or by commenting on the proposals being advanced.

Please direct your contributions to Development Progress Communications Officer, Katy Harris, at katy.harris@odi.org.uk.

Governance Week in Review

This Week in Review by Robbie Lawrence is part of the Wikiprogress Governance Series

‘Good governance is the foundation on which a society is built, and thus it is indispensable for the development of a country.’ Dirk Niebel, German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development

As you all know we are focusing on Governance this month, so today’s Week in Review will provide you with an insight into a number of key reports (and a video!) related to the subject. The article includes overviews of the current Wikichild Spotlight, UN Habitat’s State of the Field in Youth-Led Development, UNDP’s Global Consultation on Governance and the Post 2015 framework and Beth Noveck’s Ted Talk, ‘Demand a more open-source government’.  

First published in Nairobi last year, UN-HABITAT’s State of the Field in Youth Development sheds light on how youth are positively impacting communities around the world. As part of wider series, this particular report stresses how young people can be beneficial to communities, and how local, national and international governments can implement, engage and support youth and youth led initiatives. ‘State of the Field’ then goes further and identifies youth led organizations that need more support, financial and otherwise, that could in the future make the most difference. This framework of initiatives was first put in place at the World Youth Congress in October 1999 and since then has expanded to a global form of youth led participation.

Developed by UNICEF and Save the Children, Children's Rights andBusiness Principles provides a comprehensive framework for understanding and addressing the impact of business on the rights and well-being of children. While most businesses are aware that 'children are our future,' the voices of young people are often ostracized when it comes to the corporate sustainability movement. The Children’s Rights and Business Principles are built on existing standards and practices and help to explain the opportunities for business of investing in children.  

The UNDP is currently running a global thematic consultation on governance in the lead up to the post-2015 framework. Similar to Wikiprogress, Wikigender and Wikichild online discussions, this is an open forum for individuals, policy makers, NGOs, UN staff and other stakeholders to discuss how governance can be used to tackle the most pressing issues (inequality etc) facing the post-2015 panel.  Make your voice heard!

The Human Development Report 2013 examines the noticeable transition in global dynamics catalysed by the fast-rising new powers of the developing world and its long-term implications for human development. The report series provides an overview of health, education and basic living standards across the world so that governments and decision makers can make more accurate and comprehensive decisions to boost progress.

What can governments learn from the open-data revolution? In this striking talk (below), Beth Noveck, the former deputy CTO at the White House, shares a vision of practical openness - connecting bureaucracies to citizens, sharing data and creating a truly participatory democracy.

We look forward to bringing you more Governance related articles in the coming weeks!

The Wikiprogress Team

The changing definition of well-being at work

If you were stopped on the street and asked what well-being at work is, maybe you could answer the question. But what are the new trends and in what direction is working life developing?

There are many questions such as, how do leadership and well-being methods help individuals to invest in their own personal well-being at work, and in their leisure time? Where does work time start, and leisure time end? Does this difference exist anymore?

Work goes everywhere and we are always within reach. With modern technology and flexibility it is possible to work at home and even at the beach. Who is responsible of well-being at work when working is possible anywhere?

How will new leadership and well-being actions cover working life, so that it fits all areas of work and everyday life?

Since industrialization began in Scandinavia we have long separated work and other areas of life. Balancing work with family life, society involvement, coping in the culture we live in, or developing our own personal self-image did not belong to the discussions of professional identity and professional self-esteem. When we do reviews at work we still find it a taboo to talk about how we or our family is coping with the way we work!

According to the definition of The Finnish Institution of Occupational Health, well-being is an entity that combines work, health, safety and welfare. Occupational well-being is a broad concept, where labor, health, safety and well-being issues and their various features are simultaneously examined. Well-being at work can be examined, for example, through objective working conditions, the subjective experience of well-being, and through compensation perspectives. The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, defines well-being at work to mean that the work is carried out in a meaningful, well flowing, safe, health-promoting, career and community supporting environment. Well-being at work can be measured. Wellbeing at work is closely related to the concept of quality of working life.

Several definitions of well-being at work still examine it as a ‘stand alone’ entity that takes place only at work premises.

We should be looking more than just our working environment, at all levels of society:  

• individual lives during work and outside work hours (almost impossible to separate in a lot of professions)
•  groups we are involved in (at work and outside),
• at our work place/organization in its entirety (we tend to look at only our immediate collaborators)
• the society and culture we live and grow in

Still substantially the missing areas are the individual's relationship to family, communities and cultures. Individual's relationship to their closest collaborators at work is examined, but the relationship to people and the environment outside the work is missing.

Well-being at work in health care is often understood only to cover working time in specific working areas where work is performed. This way we only look at work related problems when they arise at work. We do not look at factors that arise outside workinghours. It overlooks each employee as an individual participating in a wider environment, in groups, organizations, community and society.

The way and where we work is changing so we need to change the definition and actions of working life as well. Since we can´t separate working and free time, we have come to a time where well-being at work should have more holistic approach.

Let’s look at Finland

Every  3 out of 10 workers in Finland work remotely at least once a month, every fourth work remotely sometimes. Every twentieth worker is a full time remote worker. Men work remotely more than women. Of men 45 % and of women 34 % say they work remotely sometimes. To work remotely is more common around the capital city of Helsinki. In Helsinki and surrounding areas 46 % work remotely from home sometimes, when the rest of the country percentage is 39 %. Distance to work has an effect, but according to the study it is not a substantial factor. People want to work remotely, since it brings flexibility to their everyday life. According to the study (below) working at home is a more peaceful environment to work, and involves less commuting, time and money. This Study was done during August and September 2012 for an Insurance Company that introduced a new insurance for remote workers. There were 1,094 working persons who answered the study.

Let’s look at Microsoft in Finland

They have a new concept called “Läsnätyö”. Translation does not exist yet in English language so let’s separate the word in two parts. “Läsnä” means to be present and “työ” means work. So it is freely translated “work being where you are present”. You can give full work input regardless of where your location is. New technology is making this possible, and the agreed rules of the game.  It needs new examination of how we manage and organize our work and leisure time.

More and more work and leisure activities are merged into a single entity of human life. Thus, it is time to deal with well-being as a whole. Well-being at work is “where you are present”. Therefore, the concept of well-being at work should be transformed to the well-being of people of working age, to cover all four levels of society (individual, group, organization and society), which are more and more integrated in the work.

The key issues at work, as in life, is to be part of  a meaningful environment that is promoting openness, self-direction, intentionality, sense of community and common purpose.

We need to look at a more humanistic aspect of well-being, where working is taken into various levels reflecting each other. What affects the individual level is also affected by the other levels of the society and vice versa.  If the entity is not feeling well individually it is reflected negatively at  other levels (group, organization and society) and in both direction. One level can’t function without the other.

Society of WellBeing – Reflections on four levels of the society

There are various methods and tools to develop the well-being of people of working age. Supervision, coaching, and humanistic management are holistic approaches that count in the areas that are so often still missing.

Helena Kemppainen, supervisor, coach, empowerment trainerÒ, humanistic management specialist, gsm: +358 (0)50 4922161, Email

Ulla Heinonen, Ph.D., Lic.Ed., Master-CSLE®, gsm: +358 (0)50 591 7199, Email

Society of Well-being develops methods and tools for improving working life. We promote well-being on all areas of life, and are part of The Global Humanistic Management Network.

Sources:

http://www.taloussanomat.fi/tyo-ja-koulutus/2012/09/21/nain-moni-tekee-joskus-etatoita/201238350/139

http://www.if.fi/web/fi/yritysasiakkaat/vakuutuksemme/etatyovakuutus/pages/etatyovakuutus.aspx

http://www.ttl.fi/en/pages/default.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/b/kohtaamispaikka/archive/2011/02/23/kuvia.aspx

Governance: Our new theme of the month!

‘Governance is the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development.’ The World Bank

So it’s a new month, and you all know what that means, a new Wikiprogress theme! Over the last period we have focused on Post 2015 and Health and during the next few weeks we will be looking at Governance in relation to progress and well-being. Responsive and answerable institutions are key in contributing to societal well-being. Countries with effective, accountable and transparent governing bodies prosper ‘in a range of dimensions of human development and social cohesion’ (How’s Life Report). This blog is a means of introducing our new theme and highlighting a number of key resources related to governance that we plan to reference in the coming weeks.

- OECD’s Better Life Index  - The OECD Better Life Initiative provides a comprehensive understanding of what drives the well-being of people and nations and identifies what needs to be done to achieve greater progress for all. The Index uses eleven dimensions, including Civic Engagement and Governance in an attempt to present accurate, comparable and comprehensive well-being indicators.

According to the report a cohesive society is one where a citizens have a high confidence in their governing institutions and public administration. It seems that more than ever, citizens are demanding greater transparency from their governments. In the United Kingdom for example, the ruling parties are under permanent scrutiny from the country’s media and focus organisations like Transparency International. The Index cites transparency in communication and open access to regulations as promoters of government accountability, resulting in high voter turn out, increased participation in the legislative process and compliance with rules.

- 4^TH OECD World Forum, New Delhi - At the Forum in November last year, the OECD ran a session on Building effective and responsive institutions with the likes of Sue Taylor, the Director of the Social and Progress Reporting of the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Arun Maira, a member of the Planning Commission in the Government of India speaking:

‘If you want to understand well-being ask the citizens. They understand.’ Arun Maira

The discussion identified some of the common characteristics of successful governing institutions including; effective regulatory frameworks, streamlined and efficient public services and tough anti corruption practices. It concluded by emphasizing the necessity of NGOs, civil servants and governments to work collaboratively in an effort to improve the well being of citizens.

- ODI – Politics and Governance – The Overseas Development Institute focuses much of its work on governance, providing resources on Democracies in Transition, Justice and Security Sector Reform, Politics and Service Delivery and Applied Political Economy. Since two-thirds of the world’s population now lives in a democracy of some sort, the ODI explores the socio-political and economic factors that shape transition processes in a bid to support hybrid democracies that are vulnerable to backsliding. The organization is currently focusing on elections, the interaction between different dimensions of governance transitions and political voice and accountability in a bid contribute to the post 2015 framework.  

Finally, make sure you check out the Wikiprogress page where all our articles related to the theme are kept. We look forward to bringing you governance related articles over the next month.

The Wikiprogress Team