Srinagar, Sept. 6 -- Every generation inherits a world it did not create. But today's young people are inheriting a particularly contradictory one: extraordinary technological progress alongside inequality, enormous wealth alongside insecurity, unprecedented connectivity alongside loneliness, and greater access to information alongside misinformation and manipulation.

About 1.2 billion young people aged 15-24 worldwide represent roughly 16% of the global population. The United Nations identifies education, employment, poverty, conflict, climate change, migration and inequality among the major challenges confronting them.

The economic picture is equally troubling. The ILO (International Labour Organization) reported a global youth unempl...