The 2025 World Bank Group Youth Summit invites young changemakers, innovators, and leaders to shape a sustainable and inclusive future through bold, youth-driven solutions. Under the theme “New Horizons: Youth-Led Innovation for a Sustainable World,” this year’s summit focuses on three transformative areas:
Digital Transformation & Data: Discover how youth leverage technology, including AI and big data, to drive economic growth, bridge the digital divide, and create a future-ready labor market.
Climate Action & Resilience: Explore innovative solutions for green technologies, smart cities, and sustainable agriculture, showcasing how young leaders can combat climate change while creating job opportunities.
Creative Industries: Highlight the role of arts, media, and fashion in fostering employment, social and economic change, promoting sustainability, and preserving cultural heritage.
When discussing these subthemes, the Summit will focus on three fresh perspectives on innovation: Underserved populations, Fragility, Conflict, and Violence (FCV), and Partnerships. By spotlighting these areas, the event aims at amplifying diverse voices, fostering innovation for sustainable development, and building collaborative networks to scale impact globally.
Join us in celebrating the creativity, technology, and entrepreneurial spirit of young leaders as they redefine possibilities, impulse new job opportunities, and lead the charge for a more inclusive and resilient world.
Why is it relevant?
85% of the world’s youth live in low- and middle-income countries, with 600 million in fragile or conflict-affected settings. Nearly 800 million young people in developing nations risk being excluded from the job market over the next decade, particularly those from marginalized groups facing barriers due to gender, ethnicity, disability, and other social identities. Despite these challenges, young people are driving innovation, which is a key factor to create new job opportunities, promote inclusion, and tackle climate change.
Youth-led initiatives are already making an impact, such as using real-time data to improve agricultural resilience, launching digital platforms for financial inclusion, and navigating their way into creative industries. These innovations offer new business models and industries, helping to address the rising youth unemployment crisis and solve some development challenges.
The 2025 Summit will focus on amplifying these efforts, particularly in key sectors like education, healthcare, and green technologies. It will highlight how innovation can provide job opportunities and empower marginalized populations, in line with the World Bank Group’s priorities. The Summit aims to foster global partnerships among youth, governments, businesses, and civil society to scale up youth-led solutions, contributing to a more inclusive and sustainable future for young people worldwide.
