Assessing Youth Wellbeing

In January 2013, the Youth, Prosperity, and Security Initiative began designing the framework for a Global Youth Wellbeing Index with the goal of filling a significant gap among the numerous comparative measures of national poverty, development, and wellbeing. The Index will comprise representative indicators in a number of domains including citizenship, education, economic opportunity, health, safety and security, and information and communications technology. To inform the index architecture, we held a series of domain-specific discussions with small groups of thought leaders, sector experts, and stakeholders to consult on the virtues of specific indicators and data sets for each of the six proposed domains. Over 50 individuals from 35 different organizations participated across the sessions. The following are some of the key discussion points and conclusions that will be reflected in the forthcoming final Index framework and inaugural report for select countries, expected to be released January 2014.