Children, youth, and development

Children and youth are gaining increased attention in development. They are addressed directly in the Sustainable Development Goals and measured by emerging tools including the Early Childhood Development Index, Early Human Capability Index and Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Index. It would seem that they have a well- defined space in development, yet in this chapter I argue that they remain peripheral in development thinking and practice. This is largely as a result of limited understanding of the critical developmental changes and consolidation that take place throughout this formative period in a person’s life, and a failure to view them as already valuable people. I argue that development practitioners need a better understanding of child development to support more effective engagement with the scale and diversity of human development, and to enable children to fully realize their capacity as active agents in the present and the future.