2016 Global Youth Development Index: Results and Analysis The scores of United Arab Emirates improved in the Civic Participation, Education and Employment and Opportunity domains, with the proportion of youth who helped a stranger at 68 per cent and literacy rates surpassing 99 per cent in 2014. 2.5.5  North America The North American region consists only of the USA and Canada, both of which are in the very high YDI category. The two countries saw small overall improvements in their YDI scores between 2010 and 2015. Altogether, this region is home to 4 per cent of the world’s youth population, nearing 74 million. Youth make up approximately one-fifth (20 per cent) of the region’s population, a proportion that is on course to decline over the coming years as the population ages. Figure 2.17 shows the regional YDI change in North America between 2010 and 2015. North America improved its overall YDI score by approximately 2 per cent in the past five years, but it leads the rest of the world for all-round youth development. It scores better than all other regions in the domains of Education, Civic Participation and Employment and Opportunity. Political Participation is the only domain where the region’s score is below the global average, although there was an improvement of 16 per cent in Political Participation between 2010 and 2015. North America recorded a minor deterioration in the domain of Health and Well-being. 2.5.6  Russia and Eurasia The Russia and Eurasia region is home to 3 per cent of the world’s youth population, with over 62 million Figure 2.17  Regional YDI change in North America, 2010–2015 1.2 Improvement Bahrain transitioned from the high to very high YDI category in 2015 because of its large improvement in the Civic Participation domain and more modest gains in Education, Employment and Opportunity and Health and Well-being domains. Iraq has made significant progress in the Civic Participation and Political Participation domains since 2012, following a deterioration in the scores for these domains between 2010 and 2012. The proportion of youth who helped a stranger improved to 76 per cent, well above the global and regional average scores for this indicator. There has been steady deterioration in the Education domain score since 2010, with the youth literacy rate falling to 81.5 per cent by 2015. The high level of violent conflict in Iraq during this five-year period is a likely explanation for the drop in youth literacy rates. 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 Civic Participation Education Employment & Opportunity Health & Well-being Political Participation YDI overall score 0.2 0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Source: Commonwealth Secretariat young people. Youth constitute nearly one-quarter of the region’s population. This region has the sixth highest overall YDI score out of the nine regions. Except in Education, it has below global average scores in all domains. Figure 2.18 shows the regional YDI change in Russia and Eurasia between 2010 and 2015. With less than 1 per cent improvement in its overall YDI score, Russia and Eurasia was the region that made the least progress in youth development between 2010 and 2015. Although there was a slight upswing in scores in the Political Participation and Health and Well-being domains, it was offset by a large deterioration in the score for the Civic Participation domain, the only domain in which its score deteriorated over this period. Of the 12 countries measured, only seven (67 per cent) improved their YDI scores. The largest improvement happened in Kazakhstan at nearly 10 per cent, whereas the biggest deterioration was in the Ukraine and Azerbaijan, at 9 and 8 per cent respectively. The scores for Moldova, Belarus and Armenia also deteriorated slightly, largely due to a decline in the YDI scores for Civic Participation. Of the seven countries that improved in all domains between 2010 and 2015, Kazakhstan’s 10 per cent gain was the most impressive. This improvement was linked strongly to a reduction in the mental disorder rates and improvement in youth policy. Kyrgyz Republic and Russia also saw improvements of more than 5 per cent. Both showed improvements in youth with an account at a financial institution and the enrolment in secondary school indicators. \ 51