ASEAN Leaders Hail Creation of the First Youth Development Index
13 November 2017 – During the 31st ASEAN Summit, the Leaders highlighted the finalization by the ASEAN Youth Ministers of the first ever ASEAN Youth Development Index (YDI) through a declaration recognizing the important role of the youth in realizing the ASEAN Vision 2025 and the importance of having regional standards that allow for the measurement and monitoring of the various aspects of youth development.
With the ASEAN YDI, ASEAN now has a framework that includes selected domains and indicators which will provide the basis for ASEAN Member States to gather and compare relevant data which may be used in the crafting of regional youth policies and programs. The five domains and indicators are Education; Health and Well-being; Employment and Opportunity; Participation and Engagement; and, ASEAN Awareness, Values and Identity.
Part of the ASEAN YDI is a report providing a picture of the achievements of the youth in ASEAN as well as shows important signposts indicating areas that need further work on. It provides data showing that Education has improved markedly across the region from 2011 to 2015 and also highlights that Employment and Opportunity is an area in need of future youth policy development.
The ASEAN YDI was proposed by the Philippine National Youth Commission (NYC), with Indonesia as the project leader. NYC is the agency that represents the Philippines in the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Youth and the ASEAN Senior Officials on Youth.
The ASEAN Summit is the biennial gathering of Leaders of the 10 Member States of ASEAN. During the Summit, the ASEAN Leaders exchange views on important issues and provide guidance to the various sectoral bodies on the way forward for building a people-oriented and people-centered ASEAN Community. END