In Southeast Asia, as women achieve higher levels of education and enter skilled jobs, marriage and fertility rates are declining.

From Noviscape:

"Countries demonstrating the trend toward delayed marriage include Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and, to a lesser extent, Indonesia."

"Fertility is also on the decline... especially among the ethnic Chinese and Indians (for example in Singapore and Malaysia), Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and most of Indonesia."

"Digital Divide Data (DDD) was founded in 2001 in Cambodia by a group dominated by Western business consultants and technopreneurs. During their travels around Indochina, they encounter poverty, and yet perceive the region as an untouched human reservoir."

Thailand is finding ways to turn a big problem—2.5 million cubic meters of waste water generated from palm oil mills and around 12 million ton fresh fruit bunch (FFB) of waste—into a source of energy, water and employment.

Methane capture projects (MCP) have been established in Krabi and Trang provinces. MCPs recycle the waste water and use the GHGs emitted from the mills to produce electricity, which has supplied 2000 households in the rural areas of Krabi province. MCPs are expected to reduce 90,000 tons of carbon foot print every year.

The Northern Mountainous and Central regions of Vietnam have a population of 2.4 million, of which 1.3 million are employable. However, only around 9% of the people are high school graduates.

"The government... is providing vocational education to the people of the region, which will provide opportunities for rural unskilled workers to take up skilled employment. Till November 2009, nearly 3000 laborers were trained for specific skills such as welding, tourism, hospitality and construction in the vocational institutes."

Implications:

There is are large gender disparities in the work world in Indonesia. These disparities are also present in the vocational education system, and they may ultimately make the government push towards vocational education ineffective.

Work world:
"The wage structure of women workers has increased, [but] it is still significantly lower, 78% of what men make on an average."

"The unemployment rate for women is higher than that of men. In 2009, the unemployment rate for women was 8.47% as compared to that of men at 7.5%."

In a development that SFG says could "provide new sources of income for millions of poor that live off forests in the coming years," forest dwellers in India are now legally able to collect and sell bamboo.
The new rule is the result of the Ministry of Environment and Forests recently issuing a directive to state governments to "officially recognize bamboo as 'minor forest produce'" instead of "timber... which gave state government the right to collect and sell bamboo exclusively."
"Minor forest produce‟ includes everything valuable in a forest, except timber, that can be utilized."

In the aftermath of a 15 year civil war, which ended in 2006, Lebanon has "an urgent need for social development, relief, and reconstruction."

Some of these needs are being met by domestic private companies, who "consider community resilience as a viable investment for their long-term growth objectives."

Examples:

Infrastructure:

"The Government of Pakistan is committed to empowering women in conservative tribal areas of the country with cash welfare payments that can only be accessed by the female head of household. The government is earmarking US$750m to provide women with allowances for food, health and training. Eligible women will receive a monthly payment of about US$12 per month. “This is the first time that there’s been the creation of a social net for women and, in particular, women that live below the poverty line,” says Dr. Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group in Islamabad."

India’s Human Resources Development Minister announced that a vocational education program targeting students in grades 8-12 would be launched soon. “Colleges and universities in the country need to develop specialized courses as institutes in India are not producing skilled graduates who can be employed in industries and factories,” said the Minister.

According to Intellecap, in the next 20 years, India will add "250 million people to its working age population, compared to 18 million in Brazil and 10 million in China" (in the same time period).

India has the "highest number of young people in the world at 84.5 million (44% of the global youth population)who live in 'extreme poverty.' Further, 44 million (23% of world youth population)... are under-nourished."

Both the private and public sector, and sometimes the two in collaboration with one another, see opportunity to give these youth skills.