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 high-frequency waves feel urgent. The low-frequency waves 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 young people in developing countries will come of working age — a scale the world has never seen. On current trajectories, these economies are expected to generate only about 400 million jobs over that same period — leaving a gap of staggering proportions.

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.

What was striking at the Davos conference this year was how easily this issue was brushed aside — overshadowed by the urgency of the issue du jour. It must not be ignored at coming forums like the G-7 and G-20.

If we invest early in people and connect them to productive work, this vast new generation can build lives of dignity 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.

Three pillars

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.

First, creating infrastructure — both human and physical.

Without reliable power, transportation, education and healthcare, private investment and jobs never materialize. While the role of physical infrastructure is well understood, investment in people is equally critical. For example, a skills center in Bhubaneswar, India — supported in partnership with the government and private sector —— trains nearly 38,000 people each year. Because the preparation is aligned with real market demand, nearly all graduates secure employment — or go on to create jobs themselves, supported by engineering, manufacturing and intellectual property training.

Second, creating a business-friendly environment.

Clear rules and predictable regulation reduce uncertainty and improve the ease of doing business. Jobs are generated when entrepreneurs and firms have the confidence to invest and expand. Public resources can help unlock that process, but job creation at scale depends on the private sector — especially micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises that generate most employment.

This leads to the third pillar: helping businesses scale.

Through our private-sector arms, we provide equity, financing, guarantees and political risk insurance. One recent model is a trade-finance guarantee supporting Banco do Brasil, which is unlocking roughly $700 million in affordable funding for Brazilian small businesses, particularly in agriculture — channeling capital to the firms that drive local growth.

We focus where job potential is greatest, across the five sectors that consistently generate employment at scale: infrastructure and energy, agribusiness, primary healthcare, tourism and value-added manufacturing.

This is not an abstract theory. It is grounded in evidence, country experience and hard choices about where limited resources deliver the greatest impact.

It is also not a zero-sum proposition.

By 2050, more than 85 percent of the world’s population will live in developing countries. That represents not only the largest expansion of the global labor force in history, but the largest growth in future consumers, producers and markets. Whether the motivations are development, altruism, returns or security, there is a role and reward for putting energy and resources into this effort.

Developed countries gain as well

Developing countries benefit because jobs create income, stability and dignity. They strengthen domestic demand and give young people a reason to invest in their future at home rather than look elsewhere.

Developed countries gain as well. As developing economies grow, they become stronger trading partners, more resilient supply-chain anchors and more stable neighbors. Growth in those markets expands global demand and reduces the pressures that drive irregular migration and insecurity — outcomes that carry real economic and political costs far beyond borders.

And for the private sector — both financial institutions and operators — this represents one of the largest opportunities of the coming decades. Rapid population growth means sustained demand for energy, food systems, healthcare, infrastructure, housing and manufacturing.

The constraint has never been a lack of opportunity. It has been risk, real and perceived. That is where development institutions can play a catalyzing role: financing infrastructure, supporting regulatory reform and reducing risk.

If we get this right …

If we get this right, the low-frequency forces shaping the world — in this case demographics — become engines of growth and stability rather than sources of volatility and risk. If we get it wrong, we will continue to chase crises — reacting to outcomes that were visible years, even decades, in advance.

The choice is not whether these forces will shape the future. They will. The choice is whether we act early and bend them toward opportunity — or wait until they arrive as instability.

Ajay Banga is president of the World Bank Group. He wrote this column for Bloomberg Opinion.

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SEATTLE — Long before he became the face of one of the most successful reality competition series ever, Jeff Probst educated Seattle residents on car electrical maintenance.

In a 1992 clip from KIRO’s Northwest Car Care Show,” an early-30s Probst wears a salmon-colored polo and stands in front of the Marymoor Park windmill before outlining ways to keep up with a car’s electrical system. “Survivor” superfans will notice some parallels in the segment: how a young Probst looks confidently into the camera, the way he gesticulates as he explains a concept, then rests his hands on his hips.

The Seattle clip is an early look into the Probst millions recognize now as host of “Survivor,” the CBS reality show that will premiere its 50th season on Wednesday. Probst, who grew up in the Seattle area and started his career here, is synonymous with the show that’s outlasted (and outwitted, and outplayed) any TV counterpart.

“Jeff Probst is ‘Survivor,’” said three-season “Survivor” competitor Kelley Wentworth, who lives in the Seattle area. “I can’t imagine anyone else being slotted into that host role and then doing what he does, because he is very, very good at his job.”

Probst was born in Wichita, Kansas, and moved to Bellevue with his family as a teenager. He graduated from Newport High School, where he was a reporter for The Seattle Times’ youth page, writing about cruising (“cruisin’ consists mainly of a car and two to three people to cruise in it”) and senior traditions. He took classes at Seattle Pacific University but never graduated.

“Seattle is really where everything started for me,” Probst said to The Seattle Times in an email.

His dad was a Boeing executive, and helped Probst get his first job in the aviation giant’s film department, as a production assistant making marketing and training videos. He knew nothing, he recalled in a 2012 Television Academy Foundation interview, but pushed buttons on editing machines and did offline editing. He moved up to writing and producing videos, which involved hiring a host and paying him $500.

“I thought, ‘You got $500 for reading the words I wrote? And you just put on a suit?’” he said in the interview.

He hosted the next video, he said, and then got an agent — Lola Hallowell, whose legendary eponymous talent agency worked with hundreds of Seattle actors and models from 1968 through the 1990s. In Seattle, Probst began working on corporate training videos, sometimes for free in exchange for gear, and then would direct music videos for bands. He learned to direct or tell stories while using his hosting skills, he recalled, and felt natural in front of the camera.

His first official hosting gig was on KIRO’s “Ernst Home and Garden Show,” where he appeared with Seattle gardening expert and former Seattle Times contributor Ciscoe Morris.

“For four years, Saturday mornings, I would talk about poinsettias and putting good soil in the ground,” Probst said in the 2012 interview. “I had no idea about gardening. I still don’t.”

He moved to New York and hosted an FX show called “Backchat,” worked as an “Access Hollywood” correspondent and hosted “Rock & Roll Jeopardy!”

In 1999, Probst was driving in Los Angeles traffic when he heard producer Mark Burnett on the radio talking about a new show called “Survivor,” where people would have to fend for themselves on an island. He met with Burnett, who later recalled in a New York Times interview that he appreciated Probst being a relative unknown. Burnett said choosing Probst as a host was his greatest decision, and second was having him be a showrunner.

“Survivor: Borneo” premiered in May 2000 with 16 castaways chosen from more than 6,000 applicants competing for $1 million. The show quickly became a phenomenon, and along with watching castaways eat (and call each other) rats, viewers took note of Probst.

“With those dimples and pearly whites, he seems better suited to be just another pretty boy on ‘The Young and the Restless,’” an Associated Press reporter wrote of the show’s first four episodes. “But on ‘Survivor,’ Probst quickly proved to be more than an emcee with a Banana Republic expense account.”

Fifty seasons — and 26 years — later, Probst remains the show’s constant as it has evolved through different locations, tribal makeups and gameplay, as well as changes in how fans watch the show. Viewership of the early seasons dwarf recent seasons, but the show has millions of multiplatform watches, a dedicated fan base and hundreds of former players. Castaways have gone on to host successful podcasts (too many to name), win Emmys (Mike White, seasons 37 and 50) and serve as Washington’s attorney general (Nick Brown, Season 2).

Probst, too, has grown up with the show, Wentworth said.

“He does care about the show when you’re out on the island,” Wentworth said. “You can even see it in the production at challenges. If you’re doing something that we were told not to do, he will definitely call you out.”

Mike Jefferson, who competed in Season 24 and lives in Marysville, called Probst a good person who seemed genuine, even when Jefferson admits he was “kind of a jerk to him” during the long days when he was tired and hungry.

“He’s got the coolest job in the world,” Jefferson said.

Seattle-area castaways have a specific approach, Probst said, with an adventurous streak, comfort with uncertainty and “a lot of playfulness.” They’re willing to lean into the experience, he added, rather than play it safe.

“It’s similar to the feeling you get when you see Mount Rainier on a clear, sunny day,” he said. “There’s just nothing quite like it. That same spirit for seizing the day shows up in the way they play.”

Neither Wentworth nor Jefferson said Probst mentioned their Washington connections or his time in the Seattle area during their seasons. Seattle connections may come up during casting, Probst said, but his relationship with players shifts once the game starts.

Discerning viewers might notice a few Washington references. During a Season 45 episode, Probst described a challenge as something “you might do at a carnival for laughs while you’re having a scone.” Viewers took to social media and questioned Probst — scones at a carnival? We’ll assume he was talking about a Fisher Fair Scone, a staple at Washington fairs and, yes, carnivals.

As for “Survivor” and its enduring legacy, Probst also had a Seattle-specific answer: They approach each season the same way the Seattle Seahawks approach a season.

“And in that way, ‘Survivor 50’ is our Super Bowl,” Probst said. “This is a big celebratory season for us and if we’re lucky maybe we’ll have the same success the Seahawks did and deliver a winning season for our fans!”

CBS hasn’t outlined “Survivor’s” plans beyond the show’s 50th season, or whether that will include Probst. And what would “Survivor be without Probst?

“I feel like the show could probably still go on,” Jefferson said, “but it would never be the same.”

‘Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans’

The 50th season premieres with a three-hour episode at 8 p.m. ET Feb. 25 on CBS, and streams on Paramount+ (live if you’re a Premium subscriber, the next day if you’re an Essential subscriber).

Today is Sunday, March 1, the 60th day of 2026. There are 305 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Peace Corps; since its establishment, over 240,000 Americans have served as Peace Corps volunteers.

Also on this date:

In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act, making Yellowstone the nation’s first national park.

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In 1932, Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, was kidnapped from the family home in New Jersey. (Remains identified as those of the child were found two months later; Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted of murder in the case in 1935 and executed in 1936.)

In 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the spectators gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives, wounding five members of Congress.

In 1966, the Soviet space probe Venera 3 crash-landed on the surface of Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to reach another planet. However, Venera was unable to transmit any data back to Earth because its communications system had failed.

In 1971, a bomb went off inside a men’s room at the U.S. Capitol. The radical group Weather Underground claimed responsibility for the pre-dawn blast, which damaged the building but caused no injuries.

In 1974, seven people, including former Nixon White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman; former Attorney General John Mitchell; and former assistant Attorney General Robert Mardian, were indicted by a grand jury on charges of conspiring to obstruct justice in connection with the Watergate break-in. (These four defendants were convicted in January 1975, though Mardian’s conviction was later reversed.)

In 2005, Dennis Rader, the churchgoing family man accused of leading a double life as the BTK serial killer, was charged in Wichita, Kansas, with 10 counts of first-degree murder. (Rader later pleaded guilty and received multiple life sentences.)

In 2007, a tornado outbreak in the Southeast U.S. killed at least 19 people across Alabama and Georgia. One of the tornadoes toppled a concrete wall at a high school in Enterprise, Alabama, killing eight students.

In 2014, a mass stabbing by men wielding knives and machetes at a railway station in Kunming, in southwest China, left at least 29 people dead and 130 others wounded. Authorities blamed a militant separatist group for the attack and said four of the suspects were shot dead.

In 2024, thousands of mourners bid farewell to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at a public funeral in Moscow, two weeks after his unexplained death in an Arctic penal colony. Navalny had been jailed since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow to face certain arrest after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.

Today’s birthdays:

Rock singer Roger Daltrey is 82.
Actor Dirk Benedict is 81.
Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska is 75.
Filmmaker Ron Howard is 72.
Actor Tim Daly is 70.
Hockey Hall of Famer Ron Francis is 63.
Filmmaker Zack Snyder is 60.
Actor Javier Bardem is 57.
Basketball Hall of Famer Yolanda Griffith is 56.
Basketball Hall of Famer Chris Webber is 53.
Actor Mark-Paul Gosselaar is 52.
Actor Jensen Ackles is 48.
Actor Lupita Nyong’o is 43.
Pop singer Kesha is 39.
Pop singer Justin Bieber is 32.
NFL wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase is 26.
Actor Izabella Alvarez is 22.
Actor Sawyer Sharbino is 20.