World Bank’s New End-Poverty Tool: Surveys in Poorest Countries
Working with countries and partners, plan will ensure household surveys every three years in 78 countries
WASHINGTON, October 15, 2015— Addressing huge gaps in the collection of poverty data, the World Bank Group pledged today to work with developing countries and international partners to ensure that the 78 poorest nations have household-level surveys every three years, with the first round to be completed by 2020.

Poverty-fighting efforts have long been constrained by a lack of data in many countries. The World Bank has identified 29 countries that had no poverty data from 2002 to 2011. Another 28 had just one survey that collected poverty data during that time. These gaps prevented analysts from identifying trends in how countries were making progress toward their goals, and posed a barrier to improving the lives of poor people.

The announcement by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim offers key support to the organization’s mission to end extreme poverty by 2030 and boost shared prosperity for the bottom 40 percent of people in developing countries.

“We will not be able to reach our goal unless we have data to show whether or not people are actually lifting themselves out of poverty,” Kim said. “Collecting good data is one of the most powerful tools to end extreme poverty. We pledge, working alongside our partners in countries and international organizations, to do something that makes common sense and is long overdue: to conduct surveys in all countries that will assess whether people’s lives are improving.”
Date: October 15, 2015 Type: Press Release

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Addressing the Youth Employment Crisis Needs Urgent Global Action
In the coming decades, global growth will depend on today’s young people. Combatting the persistent youth employment crisis requires a global effort and proactive action: report
WASHINGTON, October 13, 2015 – One third of the world’s 1.8 billion young people are currently neither in employment, education or training. Of the one billion more youth that will enter the job market in the next decade, only 40 percent are expected to be able to get jobs that currently exist. The global economy will need to create 600 million jobs over the next 10 years – five million jobs each month — simply to keep pace with projected youth employment rates. Reversing the youth employment crisis is a pressing global priority and the socio-economic cost of inaction is high, says a new report.

This inaugural report, entitled Toward Solutions for Youth Employment: A 2015 Baseline Report, is being released today by Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE) – a multistakeholder global coalition established to improve youth access to work opportunities. This coalition is a partnership started by the World Bank Group, Plan International, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), Youth Business International (YBI), RAND, Accenture, and the International Labour Organization (ILO).
Date: October 13, 2015 Type: Press Release