To celebrate International Youth Day on August 12, 2009, Innovations in Civic Participation (ICP) is sharing some innovative stories of youth civic engagement throughout the world.

Sustainability does not only refer to maintaining environmental balance and renewal. Sustainability encapsulates three facets of life: the environment, society and the economy. We live our lives in the overlaps and intersections of these facets, and our actions and attitudes help shape them. Their changing shapes in turn affect the way we are able to live our lives.

The 2nd Forum of Ministers and High-Ranking Officials responsible for Youth in Central America will be held in San Jose (Costa Rica), from 21-22 August, 2009 on the theme: “Towards the institutionalization of public programs of prevention”.

SUSTAINABILITY: Our Challenge. Our Future. Message from Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, UNFPA Executive Director. It is often said that young people are our future. They are our present, too. It is today, and not tomorrow, that we must invest in young people and include them in solving the great challenges of our times.

Youth difficulties in their school-to-work transition in Latin America suggest that there is a gap between the skills demanded by firms to fill productive jobs and those provided by the education system. The objective of the school-to-work research agenda is to document this gap and to propose a set of policy recommendations aiming at bridging that gap.