Workshop on youth across Asia

The issues facing youth across Asia are as diverse as the cultures they represent. Issues involving schooling, employment, sexuality, and marriage take on increased significance for young people aged 10–24 in every country. Decisions made by youth and their families will dramatically affect their individual welfare. Few programs outside of public education systems exist at a sufficiently large scale to assist youth. Decisions to stay in school, opportunities to learn skills and manage resources, the exercise of sexual responsibility, and the process of family formation all impact both personal welfare and community development. Gender-equality issues compound many of the problems. Due to population momentum, growth will be largest among those countries where fertility has been highest in the past 20 years. Momentum is attenuated by increasing the age of marriage, delaying first birth, and spacing subsequent births. This report states that the objectives of the September 1997 “Workshop on Youth Across Asia,” held in Kathmandu, Nepal, were to better understand implications of population momentum and the challenges facing youth in achieving reproductive health in Asia, and to facilitate effective policies and services to address these issues