For the first time, The Youth Well-Being Index (PDF) — a joint effort by the International Youth Foundation, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Hilton Worldwide — tries to assess how teens are doing in 30 countries. The Global Youth Wellbeing Index offers a framework to help everybody understand and compare where youths stand.

Note that these are not the top 30 countries in the world; these are just the countries that the researchers looked at. They include 7o% of the world’s youth. Nigeria, for example, came in last, not 30th in the world.

To create the index, the researchers looked at 40 indicators to assess “citizen participation, economic opportunity, education, health, information and communications technology (ICT), and safety and security” among the world’s youth (defined as people 12 to 24).

The well-being of this age group should matter to everyone. “Youth-inclusive societies are more likely to grow and prosper,” the report said, “while the risks of exclusion include stunted growth, crime, and unrest.”

There are a few surprises in the data. Vietnam is the only country in the top 15 classified as lower-middle income. The World Bank classifies countries as high income, upper-middle income, lower-middle income, and low income. Nigeria was classified as Lower-middle income.

Russia is the only high-income country that’s not in the top 10. In fact, one through nine are dominated by the nine-richest countries on the list — with the exception of Russia.

Additionally, even though high-income countries in general had lower rates of youth mortality, they had higher rates of youth stress and self-harm. High levels of stress, self-harm, and smoking dragged down the ranking of the U.S., for example.

The researchers evaluated seven countries in Africa namely; South Africa, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Nigeria. Ghana had the best rating in Africa, taking the 21 out of 30 spot on the list.

The index encompasses of a set of 40 indicators that address the overall national environment, youth-specific outcomes and youths’ outlook and satisfaction levels across six interconnected aspects of their lives (domains): citizen participation, economic opportunity, education, health, information and Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Of the countries analyzed, Australian youths enjoy the highest level of wellbeing, while the quality of life for Nigerian youth has the most scope to improve.

Yet as the result for Russia and South Africa demonstrate (high income and upper-middle income by World Bank standards, respectively), young people are not necessarily equally served nor befitting from strong economic growth. At the same time, the overall results illustrate how policies and institutions can serve youth development needs even where resources may be more constrained – as in Vietnam, for example, which performs above its lower-middle-income peers.

According to the report, around the world, nearly half the youths are unemployed, more than 120 million youth are still illiterate and 40 percent of new HIV/AIDS infections occur among youths.

Roughly 85% of young people live in low and lower-middle-income countries and comprise a third of the population among the 30 countries that are home to the “bottom bottom” of the world’s poorest, according to Oxford Multidimensional index.

The report shows that Nigerian Youths performed better in terms of Economic opportunity as compared to Youths in Jordan, Egypt and South Africa.

Nigerian Youths also had better access to health facilities than youths in Uganda. ICT for Nigerian youths was better than youths in Ghana, India, Kenya and Uganda.

Visit the full report here

http://www.youthindex.org/reports/globalyouthwellbeingindex.pdf

http://giftedgreen.com/2014/blog/2014/10/24/quality-of-life-for-nigerian-youths-worst-in-the-world/

This isn't surprising. The whole essence of governance is to make lives of citizens better in the immediate and also secure the future for the coming generations. However, as was played out in Ekiti, STOMACH INFRASTRUCTURE (immediate gains) triumphs over CAPITAL INFRASTRUCTURE (the future) in Nigeria.

Who is surprised about this revelation? Certainly not Nigerians who know the reality of their nation since the PDP took over in 1999. Every measure of development and progress that is collated today always indict Nigeria, led by the PDP for 15 years, as worst or close to worst. If many Nigerians were not sentimental folks who worship religious and ethnic bias above everything else then it would be obvious that the beginning of the march toward progress for Nigeria can only arrive once the PDP is kicked out. Sad how some of these youths, as the oppressed victims, are the most vociferous in shouting "GEJ till 2030" in a bizarre display of how Nigerians suffer from the worst form of Stockholm syndrome possible.

Really? ?? ? I never knew.

When youth think they can sit down at home waiting for government to give them handouts. Nigerian youths are lazy.

The laziness of Nigerian youths is a reflection of the physical and mental laziness of the entire society. Nigerians should not expect good living conditions until they stand up to question the status quo. There is too much aparthy in the country.