Youth skills key to climate change plan: Ajay Banga

World Bank President Ajay Banga visits Tuvalu, for youth training to adapt to climate change and rising sea levels

FUNAFUTI. World Bank President Ajay Banga said on Friday that young people in the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu need training to help them move and adapt to climate change as he visited the frontline of the battle against rising sea levels.

On the first visit by a World Bank chief to Tuvalu, the impact of the changes was clear, he said, as the tiny nation fortified its ports and reclaimed coastal land.

Soon after taking on the top job in June last year, Banga expanded the global lender's remit for the first time in 80 years to encompass climate change, under the banner of alleviating poverty in a liveable planet.

Scientists say by 2050, half of Tuvalu's main town of Funafuti will be inundated by tides. A climate migration deal struck with Australia last year gives its population a pathway to move when its atolls become uninhabitable.

Banga spoke to young people who said they told him leaving their home was the "Plan B".

"Why should they not have education and health care when they are growing up? It's not just a question of survival. It's a question of quality of life."

Banga said he wanted the World Bank to move faster, focus on impact, share its knowledge with the Pacific islands and create jobs for young people.