How to Create a Billion Jobs

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

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Ravi Agrawal (0:28)

Hi, I'm Ravi Agrawal, Foreign Policy's Editor-in-Chief. This is FP Live.

There are so many crises around the world, but I think if you ask Presidents and Prime Ministers, especially in the developing world, about the thing that they worry about the most, it would be jobs. Think about it, the recent student protests in India, at the heart of it, a fear that there simply aren't enough good jobs after spending all those years in school. You'll see a version of this across most of the recent Gen Z uprisings in various parts of the world. When young people are underemployed, or they feel like the system is letting them down, they rise up. The demographic dividend becomes a demographic disaster. But when young people are gainfully employed, they become force multipliers, and they not only earn money, they have dignity, they have pride, they have a pathway to progress.

I call this a crisis, and that's because the global south has a massive youth bulge. As young people in Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, and India come of age in the next decade or so, the world will need to create more than a billion jobs. The World Bank estimates we're on track to create just one third of that number. Where will the rest come from? This one question has become like a mission for Ajay Banga, the president of the World Bank. I've met other people who've held that job. Most were former academics or diplomats. Banga was best known for being CEO of MasterCard, where over the course of a decade, he led a dramatic expansion in the company's revenues. Banga grew up in India, but he's a naturalized US citizen, which is crucial here because the US president gets to nominate the bank's leader. President Biden selected Banga. Trump has kept him on. Part of Banga's challenge is to work with leaders of all stripes, in all countries, and get them to work with the bank to create the conditions required to get the private sector to create jobs. How?

That is the big question, and that is what this whole interview is about. Banga and I spoke at the Concordia Summit on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week. You might hear a little bit of audience reaction, but it's all part of the fun. I should also add, this interview is audio only, so if you're watching this, I'm going to encourage you to close your eyes and just listen. I'm going to skip my usual read on things this week, because that is coming later this week, as part of a bonus episode, my interview with the Nobel Laureate, Maria Ressa. But for now, here's Ajay Banga.

Ajay Banga, welcome.

Ajay Banga (3:22)

Thank you.

Ravi Agrawal (3:23)

Great to have you here. So I'm going to start with the thing that I think you have made your term as World Bank President, the highest agenda item, jobs. Why jobs?

Ajay Banga (3:36)

Well, first of all, it's glad to be here. And it's basically got to do with two things. One is the demographics of the emerging markets.

And 1.2 billion young people in the emerging markets are coming through the pipe. They'll be 18 years of age in the coming 12 to 15 years. And so that's the time they're going to need to have the chance for what you would call a job. Job, by the way, doesn't mean working for a big company only. It could be a small farmer with a better chance to be productive or an entrepreneur or a micro or small enterprise, whatever is appropriate. But that's the idea, a chance for both getting a job to earn, but also a chance for dignity and opportunity. We're in the business of removing poverty. And I think the best way to put a nail in the coffin of poverty is to give somebody a job because poverty is both a state of mind and a state of being.

And a state of being you can fix with handouts. But a state of mind requires optimism and hope. And I think working for somebody, working for yourself is a great way to get the right productive sense of that in your life.

Ravi Agrawal (4:39)