(Bloomberg) -- The World Bank warned the global economy risks leaving 800 million young people without jobs over the coming decade, a dynamic that may destabilize societies and keep them mired in poverty.
Countries are on track to create 420 million jobs, well shy of what’s needed to provide meaningful employment for 1.2 billion youth poised to enter the workforce, the anti-poverty lender’s President Ajay Banga said Friday in remarks prepared for the institution’s annual meetings in Washington.
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To meet that shortcoming, the bank is launching a new initiative focused on generating jobs, bringing together leaders from business, civil society and academia, he said. Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and former President Michelle Bachelet of Chile are leading the effort and met for the first time this week.
“Jobs have proven time and again to be the surest and most lasting panacea for poverty,” he said. But, “the specter of unemployment looms large.”
The dynamic is “threatening to destabilize societies and hinder economic growth,” he said.
In an interview on Thursday, Banga also said that the World Bank is making progress gathering resources to provide more than $100 billion for the International Development Association, the bank unit that makes low-interest loans and grants to the roughly 75 poorest countries.
A record $93 billion was raised in the most-recent donor round, which ended in 2021. Final figures from this round will be announced in December.
Banga said that this year’s Group of 20 president Brazil is “re-entering” the IDA commitments, the US, the bank’s largest shareholder, is being “very constructive;” and the UK and Spain are making commitments.
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