South Asia ranked eighth out of the nine regions in the 2020 Global Youth Development Index which measures the status of young people in 181 countries around the world.

Despite a 9.5% increase from 2010 to 2018, the region’s average YDI score (0.641) remained lower than the global average.

With 492.4 million young people in 2018, South Asian youth made up 27.28% of the world’s youth population. The region’s eight countries are home to more than 1.8 billion people and young people made up 27.1% of South Asia’s population in 2018.

Three countries in the region scored in the high YDI category, while two countries fell within the medium category and the final three in the low category.

From 2010 to 2018, all eight South Asian countries included in the 2020 YDI improved their overall score, with substantial progress particularly in the Education and Peace and Security domains. The region’s average Education score improved by 16.13%, while Peace and Security improved by 21.18% from 2010 to 2018. 

Political and Civic Participation was the only domain to record deterioration across the eight-year period, with the average country score deteriorating by 6.91%.

South Asia’s substantial progress in Peace and Security was driven primarily by positive developments recorded in five countries: Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. This progress, measured as substantial percentage improvements, put Afghanistan and India among the largest YDI risers in the 2020 YDI.

Sri Lanka recorded an impressive increase in Peace and Security of 98.98%, almost doubling its score from 0.391 in 2010 to 0.778 in 2018. India also recorded improvements in Peace and Security of 44.47%.

The substantial increase in Afghanistan’s Peace and Security score of 29.09% has, however, led to only a marginal absolute improvement in the score, which remained at a relatively low level (moving from 0.110 to 0.142). Hence, youth development continues to face great challenges in Peace and Security in South Asia.

Similarly, South Asia’s impressive progress in the Education domain, at 26.13%, was driven by improvements of greater than 10% in six of the eight countries. Afghanistan’s score improved by 54.39%, while Bangladesh and Nepal recorded improvements of 40.16 and 24.01%, respectively. Sri Lanka was the only country in the region to deteriorate in the Education domain, albeit marginally, at 0.13%. 

Sri Lanka remained the second-highest scoring country in the region, with an Education score of 0.769 in 2018. The Maldives maintained its first place in Education in the region, scoring an impressive 0.857 in 2018, much higher than the regional average at 0.676. The Maldives also scored higher than the global average, despite a relatively small improvement of 1.88% since 2010.

Political and Civic Participation was the only domain to record an average deterioration in the region since 2010. 

Three countries have contributed significantly to this development: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. Pakistan’s score deteriorated by 64.29%, though from a relatively low score of 0.168 in 2010. Afghanistan and Sri Lanka saw deteriorations above 11% each, while Bangladesh and Bhutan recorded deteriorations in Political and Civic Participation at less than 5%. 

Nepal and India were the only two countries in the region to improve their Political and Civic Participation scores, by 7.53 and 7.79%, respectively. The Maldives maintained its score at 0.243 from 2010 to 2018.

Sri Lanka ranks 61st out of 181 in leading index measuring state of youth around the world