Acknowledgements Acknowledgements The Global Youth Development Index and Report 2016 was prepared by a Commonwealth Secretariat Youth Division research team led by Abhik Sen, who was also co-editor along with Rafiullah Kakar, the lead researcher for the project. Layne Robinson and Sushil Ram played a leading role in the development of the Youth Development Index (YDI) and the National YDI Toolkit. The methodology and data for the YDI were developed and collated by the Institute for Economics and Peace, a team comprising Daniel Hyslop, Gemma Wood and David Hammond. Part of the qualitative research in the report was contributed by Youth Policy Labs, specifically Andreas Karsten, Cristina Bacalso and Alex Farrow. Andy Furlong, Professor of Social Inclusion and Education at the University of Glasgow, was the editorial consultant for the report, and Youth Division staff Melissa Bryant, Ida Asfir-Muktar and Christopher Jones provided valuable research, production and communications support. Special thanks are due to the YDI Technical Advisory Committee – drawn from a range of governments, international organisations, universities and NGOs – which played a critical role in refining and validating the methodology and data choices for the YDI. The full composition of the Committee is listed in Annex 1. The report benefited immensely from the guidance and support of Commonwealth Deputy SecretaryGeneral Deodat Maharaj, and advice from Dr Selim Jahan, Director of UNDP’s Human Development Report Office. A debt of gratitude is also owed to the guest authors and the young change agents who have shared their inspiring stories. The project received the support of numerous additional members of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Youth and Communications Divisions, in particular Sherry Dixon, Tim Inman, Andrew Schofield, Omnea Said, Sita Patel, Malcolm DingwallSmith, Sionlelei Mario, Bhagya Ratnayake, Tiffany Daniels, Lawrence Muli and Dharshini Seneviratne. Finally, sincere thanks are due to the Government of Australia, whose generous financial support made possible the development of the Global Youth Development Index and Report 2016. Katherine Ellis Director, Youth Division Commonwealth Secretariat \v