Africa's Youthful Population: Risk or Opportunity?

 Africa's young people will be the driving force behind economic prosperity in future decades, but only if policies and programs are in place to enhance their opportunities and encourage smaller families. This policy brief outlines the opportunities and risks that can result from the large numbers of youth growing up in sub-Saharan Africa today. (June 2007)

Children's Environmental Health: Risks and Remedies

 Due to their size, physiology, and behavior, children are more vulnerable than adults to environmental hazards. Children worldwide require special protection from longstanding risks — such as smoke from traditional fuels — as well as from emerging risks — such as exposure to an increasing number of hazardous chemicals. (July 2002)

Improving the Quality of Reproductive Health Care for Young People (PDF: 223KB)
By involving young people, their families, and providers in improving the quality of reproductive care for youth, countries can improve the future well-being of their citizens. (May 2003)

Malnutrition Is Still a Major Contributor to Child Deaths (PDF: 376KB)

 Malnutrition continues to be one of the world's most serious development problems. Exacerbating the consequences of infectious disease, malnutrition contributes to about 6 million deaths annually of children under 5. But cost-effective interventions can reduce the global impacts of malnutrition. This policy brief examines the causes and effects of malnutrition (both underweight and overweight), and provides a set of short-term and long-term actions that can improve the nutritional status of the world over the next decade. (2007)

Meeting Young Women's Reproductive and Sexual Health Needs (PDF: 269KB)
Meeting young women's needs for reproductive health information and services is vital to their future. At recent world conferences, governments committed to a universal agenda for action to improve the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents. This policy brief highlights the reproductive and sexual health needs of young women, and reviews policies and programs that policymakers and health providers need to create for these women. (September 2000)

Powerful Partners: Adolescent Girls' Education and Delayed Childbearing (PDF: 376KB)
More-educated women have fewer children. This seemingly straightforward relationship is actually complex, and the benefits associated with different levels of education can vary considerably by setting. This policy brief describes adolescent girls' reproductive health risks and how increasing their educational attainment reduces those risks, including early and unwanted fertility, and benefits their future families and society. (September 2007)

The Healthy Newborn Partnership: Improving Newborn Survival and Health Through Partnership, Policy, and Action (PDF: 394KB)

 This policy brief outlines the ways in which the Healthy Newborn Partnership (an interagency group formed to promote newborn health in developing countries) has helped to focus attention on newborn health issues. (July 2004)

Young People's Sexual and Reproductive Health in the Middle East and North Africa

 In the Middle East and North Africa, the risks associated with sexual relationships, both married and unmarried, are heightened by young people's lack of access to information and services related to sexual and reproductive health. Programs that provide such information and services would benefit young people whether they are sexually active now or not, preparing them to make more informed decisions about marriage, sexual relationships, and childbearing.(April 2007)

Youth in a Global World

 Youth in a Global World describes what it's like to grow up in today's world, with a special focus on four major experiences in the lives of young people: schooling, health, marriage, and childbearing. It highlights changes, cites trends, and suggests ways policies and programs could further improve the lives of today's youth. (June 2006)

Youth in the Middle East and North Africa: Demographic Opportunity or Challenge?

 Despite oil resources and major improvements in health and education, the Middle East and North Africa region is not meeting the changing needs of its rapidly growing young population. This policy brief gives an overview of demographic trends among MENA youth and the implications of these trends for the region's human and economic development. This policy brief is also available in Arabic. (April 2007)