World leaders should support development and give hope to young people who account for half of the world's population instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars on defence, the World Bank chief said today.
"At the moment, we are spending $900 billion a year on defence and $50 to $60 billion a year only on development," said World Bank Group President James Wolfensohn.
Speaking at the bank's second international conference on youth, development and peace in Sarajevo, he said developing countries accounted for five billion out of six billion people on the planet.
"The problem is not going to go away. If the world focuses on the problem of poverty . . . we have it in our power to fix it over a period of time," Mr Wolfensohn said. "We have resources to do it but you need the will to do it," he added.
Mr Wolfensohn said education and employment were the biggest problems for youth across the world. Supporting and working with young people were key strategies for combating poverty and enhancing human development.
According to a study in August by the International Labour Office (ILO), youth unemployment reached an all-time high with 88 million unemployed people aged 15 to 24.
"We have $300 billion that is being spent on agricultural subsidies that could be used to more positive purposes," Mr Wolfensohn told the conference of some 170 young people from 83 countries.
Mr Wolfensohn said the World Bank had brought about the forgiveness of close to $50 billion of poor nations' debts under its debt relief programme.