Youth empowerment and sustainable development

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between youth empowerment and sustainable development (SD) with regards to the Prime Minister’s Youth Program (PMYP). Design/methodology/approach - Data were collected from randomly selected respondents (n=275) studying in Higher Education Institutions through online and self-administered structured questionnaire and from multiple secondary data sources. Findings - The research findings infer that youth empowerment is significantly affected by the PMYP and there is a significant positive relationship between youth empowerment and SD. Overall, respondents appear to be satisfied with the program offerings and consider it a genuine effort toward youth empowerment for SD, but such notion also necessitates an integrated youth development paradigm in Pakistan. Research limitations/implications - The cornerstone of nation’s development is an established realization worldwide that the involvement of youth in development processes is essential to save the country from “youth bulge” while converting this contour into a “demographic dividend.” It was, therefore, pertinent to explore how development actors can engage youth in order to transform priority areas into development programming and policies. Originality/value - This study deals with quite an unexplored phenomenon of youth empowerment; hence, it serves as one of the first studies to provide evidence of the relationship between youth empowerment and SD in Pakistan’s perspective. Further, it also provides a basis for carrying out advance research on youth empowerment which may assist the government, NGOs and other donor agencies to understand youth issues and blueprint apposite strategies accordingly.