The world needs jobs for a billion-plus people set to enter the workforce: Can we meet the challenge?

The world moves on different wavelengths. Some are high-frequency shocks—wars, emerging technologies, market panics—that spike quickly and dominate our attention. Others are low-frequency forces that move slowly but relentlessly: demographics, globalization, water and food scarcity.

The former feel urgent, but the latter reshape the system. That is not to say crises don’t matter. But we cannot become casualties of the slow burn simply because the immediate crisis burns hotter or dominates more headlines.

Ignore the slow burn long enough, and it becomes an inferno.One of those forces is already in motion. Over the next 10 to 15 years, 1.2 billion people in developing countries will come of working age. On current trajectories, these economies are expected to generate only about 400 million jobs over that period—leaving a staggering gap.

This is often framed as a development challenge and it is. It is also an economic challenge. And it is increasingly a national security challenge.

At this year’s Davos conference, it was striking how easily this issue was brushed aside. It must not be ignored at other top-level forums such as the G-7 and G-20.If we invest early in people and connect them to productive work, this vast new generation can build dignified lives and become a foundation for growth and stability. If we do not, the consequences are predictable: pressure on institutions, irregular migration, conflict and rising insecurity as young people reach for any path available to them.The World Bank Group is pursuing the first path with urgency, bringing together public finance, knowledge, private capital and risk-management tools around a jobs strategy built on three pillars.