Positive Youth Development Brief

Millions of young people face alarming circumstances defined by social exclusion, violence, and a lack of opportunities for education, work, and meaningful participation in community life. They are in a critical life stage, facing complex challenges while forging their identities amidst intense physical, emotional, social, and cognitive growth.

Positive Youth Development (PYD) is a conceptual framework for a multi-sectoral, assets-based approach to adolescent and youth development. In contrast to deficit-based approaches to development, which focus on correcting problems on behalf of young people as targets of development interventions, PYD focuses on empowering young people as positive agents of change. By strengthening their intellectual, physical, social, and emotional competence, PYD programs recognize the potential for young people to be a leading source of change in their own lives and communities. Investing in the world’s 1.8 billion adolescents and youth is critical to increasing returns on early childhood gains and on the evolving capacities of young people.