ING joins the UN Generation Unlimited partnership to further empower youth
25 September 2018
ING will join the Generation Unlimited partnership, a United Nations (UN)-led initiative aiming to ensure that every young person is in education, learning, training or employment by 2030.
Generation Unlimited joins businesses, governments, organisations and young people to create new ways to tackle three challenges: access to secondary age education, acquisition of employability skills, and empowerment, especially of girls. It was launched on 24 September as part of the UN’s ‘Youth2030’ strategy.
In tackling these challenges, the partners aim to broker support and provide mentoring and funding, placing young people at the forefront of change.
“Joining the Generation Unlimited partnership feels natural, as it builds on our UNICEF partnership programme Power for Youth,” says Leon Wijnands, global head of Sustainability at ING.
“We see this new partnership as an opportunity to collaborate with an even broader community to invest in this generation and prevent them from ending up unemployed and without prospects.”
The world today has 1.8 billion young people between 10 and 24 years old, with nearly 60 percent living in developing countries. Many do not enter, transition to or complete secondary education and therefore aren’t acquiring the skills they need to secure jobs – therefore putting their prospects at risk.
ING CEO Ralph Hamers will be one of the global board members of Generation Unlimited. In this role, he’ll help establish the strategic direction of the partnership, mobilise and share knowledge, and offer support for implementation and scale-up of the proven models.
Launch of the Generation Unlimited partnership, 24 September in New York
