A population of 1.8 billion of adolescents and youth was recorded this year, according to the State of World Population Report 2014, but nine of 10 of them live in less developed countries, where the young encounter obstacles to their rights to education, health, and to live a life free from violence.

The report that urges countries to invest in their youth, stated that never before had there been so many young people and never again was there likely to be such potential for economic and social progress.

“How powerful and transformative young people could be if countries invested in them in ways that yielded a demographic dividend, with the right key investments young people can unleash their power to rebuild a better future,” the report stated.

It gave an example of how East Asia invested in its young people’s human capital starting in the 1960’s, “enabling the region to realise its demographic dividend contributing to six percent point surge in GDP and quadrupling of per capita incomes in some countries.”

However, today many young people may never realize their full potential as leaders, entrepreneurs and as people with power to transform the future.

“A staggering 57 million young people are of out of school, one in seven new HIV infections is among adolescent aged 10-19, and more than one in three women including those who are young, suffer violence from an intimate partner.”

The report said in every minute, 27 girls are forced into marriage and expected to have a child while they themselves are still children. “A world in which a quarter of humanity is without full enjoyment of their rights is a world without the basic building blocks for change and progress.

At the same time, an estimated 120 million young people enter into the work force every year. But the report showed that young people today already accounted for two in five of the world's unemployed.

“Returns on investments in young people – particularly young women and adolescent girls can be enormous with the potential to catapult developing economies forward and eliminate poverty with a central objective of the next generation of development goals to succeed the Millennium Development Goals in 2015.”