2016 Global Youth Development Index: Results and Analysis partially explained by the domain’s lower weight in the YDI. 2.4.5  Political Participation The Political Participation domain in the YDI mainly seeks to convey whether the policy environment in a country supports youth development and encourages participation of young people in decision making. Political participation of young people improved by nearly 6 per cent between 2010 and 2015, not least because of the significant increase in the number of countries that have introduced a youth policy. Gains were the largest in North America, Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. The MENA region was the only region to experience sharp deterioration between 2010 and 2015 in this domain. Table 2.10 lists countries with the highest and lowest ranks in the Political Participation domain, and compares them with their overall rank in the 2016 YDI. The top performing regions in the Political Participation domain are South America, Central America and the Caribbean, and South Asia, with the lowest levels of political participation found in the MENA region, Asia-Pacific and – perhaps surprisingly – North America (see Section 2.5). North America, the highest-scoring YDI region overall, fares relatively badly in this domain, to a large extent because neither the USA nor Canada has a national youth policy – a key indicator for this domain of the YDI. North America’s differing scores in the Political Participation domain and the overall YDI indicate that good institutional mechanisms and effective delivery of youth-related services at sub-national or local levels can be just as effective as having a formal policy in place. Many countries doing well in the Political Participation domain have a low rank in the overall YDI. This is partially explained by the domain’s lower weight in the YDI. 2.5 2016 Youth Development Index results by region While this report focuses on youth development at the national level, it is also important to understand similarities and differences between and within regions. Highlighting distinct regional characteristics of youth development may encourage greater regional co-operation and understanding of common challenges faced by countries in a region. The YDI results show that in 2015 North America had the highest average YDI scores among all the regions, and Sub-Saharan Africa had the lowest (Figure 2.12). Table 2.12 shows the 2016 regional rankings. Table 2.11 illustrates the state of youth development by region in each of the five domains in 2016. Commonwealth countries, on average, score lower than the rest of the world in the Education, Health and Well-being and Employment and Opportunity domains but significantly better Table 2.10  Highest and lowest-ranked countries in the Political Participation domain compared with their overall 2016 YDI score Ten highest-scoring countries Political Participation rank Overall YDI rank Ten lowest-scoring countries Political Participation rank Overall YDI rank Sao Tome and Principe 174 150 Equatorial Guinea 174 179 Comoros 176 158 Oman 177 99 Germany 1 1 Colombia 2 36 South Africa 3 126 UK 4 4 Chile 5 24 United Arab Emirates 178 107 Costa Rica 6 21 Qatar 179 75 Guatemala 7 101 Chad 180 182 Uganda 8 135 Singapore 181 43 Namibia 9 155 Algeria 182 126 Barbados 10 28 China 183 118 \ 45