World leaders unite under new initiative to provide quality education and training for young people

NEW YORK, 24 September 2018 – World leaders will launch a new partnership to get every young person into quality education, training or employment by 2030, next week at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly. Generation Unlimited will tackle the global education and training crisis currently holding back millions of young people and threatening progress and stability.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres; President of Rwanda Paul Kagame; World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, European Union, Ms. Federica Mogherini; UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore; United Nations Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth Jayathma Wickramanayake; Unilever CEO Paul Polman; UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Lilly Singh; and global pop group BTS are among the global, business, education and youth leaders behind Generation Unlimited who will unite at a high-level event today at 12.00pm at the United Nations headquarters in New York City to launch the partnership.

Without urgent investment in education and skills training, the rapidly growing global population of adolescents and young people – which will reach 2 billion by 2030 – will continue to be unprepared and unskilled for the future workforce. And with more than 200 million young people of lower- and upper-secondary school age currently missing out on school, instead of contributing to equitable progress, young people – especially the most disadvantaged – could face futures of compounding deprivation and discrimination.

Generation Unlimited – which forms part of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Youth 2030 Strategy – will complement and build on existing programmes that support adolescents and young people. The partnership platform will focus on three key areas: secondary-age education; skills for learning, employability and decent work; and empowerment. A Youth Challenge taking place in 16 countries worldwide this year calls for applications from young people to create solutions that will support the three key pillars of Generation Unlimited.

“All our hopes for a better world rest on young people,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. “The world is home to the largest generation of young people ever – 1.8 billion. Sustainable development, human rights, peace and security can only be achieved if we empower these young people as leaders, and enable them to unleash their full potential.”

“The change in demographics the world is experiencing, coupled with fast-moving technological advances, presents a critical moment in history. If we act wisely and urgently, we can create a skilled cohort of young people better prepared to create sustainable economies and peaceful and prosperous societies. Young people may represent 25 per cent of the global population, but they account for 100 per cent of the future. We cannot afford to fail them,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.

About Generation Unlimited
As part of the Youth 2030 Strategy, Generation Unlimited launches to help address the desperate lack of quality education, skills training, and employment opportunities for young people. Generation Unlimited brings together a wide range of partners – governments, the private sector, academia, international and civil society organizations, and – most importantly – young people themselves, to co-create, fund and scale up innovative solutions to expand opportunities for the world’s young people.