Participation and Sense of Community

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PARTICIPATION AND SENSE OF COMMUNITY:

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION INVOLVEMENT AND

PERCEPTIONS OF PUBLIC ENTITIES

Kendra Brumfield-NaWangna

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Affairs and Public Policy.

Spring 2020

PARTICIPATION AND SENSE OF COMMUNITY:

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION INVOLVEMENT AND

PERCEPTIONS OF PUBLIC ENTITIES

Kendra Brumfield-NaWangna

Approved: ______Maria P. Aristigueta, D.P.A. Director of the Joseph R. Biden Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration

Approved: ______John Pelesko, Ph.D. Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

Approved: ______Douglas J. Doren, Ph.D. Interim Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education and Dean of the Graduate College

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Signed: ______Harvey L. White, Ph.D. Professor in charge of dissertation

Signed: ______Minion K. C. Morrison, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee

Signed: ______Yasser A. Payne, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee

Signed: ______Leland Ware, JD Member of dissertation committee

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Words cannot express my gratitude to all the amazing people who have gone on this journey with me and that I have met along the way. I would like to give a special thanks to: Dr. Harvey White, my profoundest thanks for never seeming to consider that there is anything that I can’t do… and for encouraging me to achieve my goals, even before I set them. My committee members, despite the detours and delays, your patience and support meant more than you know. Over the span of just a few years, I have experienced more changes than I can imagine. Sometimes it felt overwhelming, but thank you for always making time for me and being willing to listen as I figured it all out. To Emanuel, “Ladybug,” and Braza, I am humbled and grateful for all the sacrifices you’ve made. Thank you for literally going the distance with me, even when I wasn’t quite sure where I was headed. To my mother, those “ordinary” things you do on a daily basis mean as much as the extraordinary ones. To my family and friends, thank you for being ready to laugh, cry, and/or commiserate with me.

To everyone in Senegal and the States that made this research possible, thank you for giving me the confidence to see that my voice matters.

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ...... ix LIST OF FIGURES ...... x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...... xi ABSTRACT ...... xii

Chapter

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1

1.1 Why youth? ...... 1 1.2 The Significance of Youth in Environments of Disproportionality ...... 5 1.3 African Youth ...... 6

1.3.1 Senegalese Youth ...... 14

1.4 Origins of Youth Disproportionality ...... 18 1.5 Youth Development (YD) as a Response to Youth Needs ...... 23 1.6 Chapter Outline ...... 26 1.7 Conclusion ...... 30

2 LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 32

2.1 Overview ...... 32 2.2 Part I: “Youth Bulge” and “Demographic Dividend” ...... 33

2.2.1 “Youth Bulge” ...... 35 2.2.2 “Demographic Dividend” ...... 39 2.2.3 Similarities ...... 42

2.3 Part II: Considering Youth Agency ...... 44

2.3.1 Youth Development (YD) ...... 44 2.3.2 Sense of Community (SOC) ...... 55

2.4 Conclusion ...... 58

v 3 AFRICA: A SPECIAL CASE ...... 61

3.1 Overview ...... 61

3.1.1 Beyond Senegal: A Conversation about Solutions ...... 61 3.1.2 Notes on Methodology ...... 65

3.2 Youth Demographic Snapshot ...... 70

3.2.1 Population Growth and Future Outlook ...... 72

3.3 Trends in Youth-Specific Policy ...... 77

3.3.1 National Youth Infrastructure ...... 84

3.4 Regional Trends...... 87

3.4.1 Northern Africa ...... 87 3.4.2 Eastern Africa ...... 89 3.4.3 Central Africa ...... 91 3.4.4 Southern Africa ...... 94 3.4.5 Western Africa ...... 95

3.5 Conclusion ...... 100

4 RESEARCH DESIGN AND ANALYSIS ...... 102

4.1 Methodology Overview ...... 102 4.2 The Significance and Structure of YD Organizations ...... 106

4.2.1 The Significance of YD in Young Societies ...... 106

4.3 Study Sample ...... 109

4.3.1 Organizational Profiles ...... 110 4.3.2 Trends in Organizational Characteristics ...... 113 4.3.3 Organizational Sample and their Relevance to the Senegalese Context ...... 121 4.3.4 Informant Subsample...... 126 4.3.5 Archival Research Subsample ...... 127

4.4 What is YD? ...... 127

4.4.1 The Structure of YD Organizations: Three Models of Participation ...... 128

vi 4.4.2 What YD Organizations Provide: Four Resource Typologies .. 132

4.5 Procedure Overview ...... 139

4.5.1 Transcription...... 140 4.5.2 Translation ...... 140 4.5.3 Inter-Rater Reliability (IRR) ...... 142 4.5.4 Analysis ...... 147 4.5.5 Limitations ...... 150

4.6 Conclusion ...... 151

5 CASE STUDY: DAKAR, SENEGAL ...... 153

5.1 Overview ...... 153 5.2 Research Setting ...... 154

5.2.1 National Youth Policy and Politics ...... 155 5.2.2 Youth-Specific Resources ...... 159

5.3 Conclusion ...... 162

6 FINDINGS ...... 163

6.1 Overview ...... 163 6.2 YD Resource Allocation Strategies ...... 164

6.2.1 Youth-Serving Organizations ...... 164 6.2.2 Youth-led Organizations ...... 184 6.2.3 Youth-Run Organizations ...... 209

6.3 Perceptions of Government ...... 237

6.3.1 Youth-serving Organizations...... 238 6.3.2 Youth-Led Organizations ...... 242 6.3.3 Youth-Run Organizations ...... 249

6.4 Citizenship and Sense of Community (SOC) ...... 254

6.4.1 Youth-Serving Organizations ...... 255 6.4.2 Youth-Led Organizations ...... 257 6.4.3 Youth-Run Organizations ...... 261

6.5 Conclusion ...... 263

vii 7 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ...... 267

7.1 Discussion...... 267

7.1.1 Participatory Structures ...... 267 7.1.2 From Youth Development to National Development in Young Societies: Rethinking Praxis ...... 277

7.2 Directions for Further Research ...... 280 7.3 Conclusion ...... 282

7.3.1 Youth: Varying Definitions ...... 282 7.3.2 The Dynamics of Young Societies ...... 284 7.3.3 Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend Theories ...... 287 7.3.4 Youth Development (YD): Inputs, Processes, and Contexts .... 289 7.3.5 SOC in Adverse Circumstances ...... 292

REFERENCES ...... 294

Appendix

IRB APPROVAL LETTER ...... 415

viii LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Survey of Youth Representation in PRSP Consultation Processes (B. Roberts, 2007, p. 137) ...... 13

Table 2: Age Structure Indicators (By Region) ...... 71

Table 3: Youth-Specific Indicators (By Region) ...... 73

Table 4: Average Population Growth Rates (By Region) ...... 76

Table 5: Africa HDI and YDI Score Comparisons (By Region)...... 78

Table 6: Africa’s Highest and Lowest Education Performance ...... 79

Table 7 Africa’s Highest and Lowest Employment and Opportunity Performance .... 81

Table 8: Africa’s Highest and Lowest Civic Participation Performance ...... 82

Table 9: Africa’s Highest and Lowest Political Participation Performance...... 83

Table 10: Highest Level of Educational Attainment in Senegal (ANSD, 2002, p. 86) ...... 108

Table 11: Profiles of Organizational Sample ...... 111

Table 12: Interrater Reliability of A Priori Codes ...... 144

Table 13: Interrater Reliability of Emergent Codes ...... 145

ix LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Organization Sampling Criteria ...... 104

Figure 2 Conventional Categorizations of YD Organizations’ Tangible and Intangible Resources (By Organizational Type) ...... 131

3: Senegal’s Age/Sex Structure in 2018 (Source: CIA, 2018) ...... 154

4: Screenshot of Ministry of Youth, Employment, and Civic Construction Website (Republic of Senegal, 2019b) ...... 160

x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AU- African Union

CFA- Colonies françaises d'Afrique or French colonies of Africa

ECOWAS- Economic Community of West African States

EU- European Union

ILO- International Labor Organization

UK- United Kingdom

UNESOC

US- United States

SOC- Sense of Community

YD- Youth Development

xi ABSTRACT

Over the past decades, both governments and public benefit organizations have diversified their efforts to address young people’s needs. One strategy for doing so has been through the implementation of initiatives specifically targeting youth. These efforts, which are referred to as youth development (YD) initiatives, come in a variety of forms. They provide a diverse array of resources with varying levels of impact in the lives of youth. The present study explores the dynamics of youth disproportionality in

Africa. Using case study of the country of Senegal, it examines what services and resources are provided to youth by YD organizations. It contemplates whether the quality of youths’ participation in youth-specific initiatives is in itself a resource that these organizations leverage. Finally, it questions youth involved in these initiatives about their perceptions of their communities and the national government. It is guided by the following research questions: Do YD organizations’ participatory models and the types of resources they provide to youth in a particular neighborhood in Senegal affect how they perceive their government and/or their geographically defined neighborhood?

Does the level of youth participation influence whether their perceptions of a successful

YD initiative are congruent with those of the organizational administration?

xii Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Why youth?

Public policy scholarship begins with the notion that all segments of a society are important and that they merit some degree of inclusion in the governance process.

This study focuses on youth stakeholders and the influence of participation on their engagement and perceptions of their communities and the public sector. It is guided by the following research questions: Do YD organizations’ participatory models and the types of resources they provide to youth in a particular neighborhood in Senegal affect how they perceive their government and/or their geographically-defined neighborhood? Does the level of youth participation influence whether their perceptions of a successful YD initiative are congruent with those of the organizational administration?

The tenet of inclusiveness is the lifeblood of present-day public policy discourse. Applying this orientation to youth-specific research, the purpose of this chapter is not to debate if youth merit scholarly attention, but rather, to explain what makes their public roles unique. This chapter identifies some of the key characteristics of youth as a life stage and their relevance to public life. Secondly, it illustrates how

1 the challenges youth face at the individual level can be exacerbated in environments of disproportion. Thirdly, it lays out some of the unique aspects of the socioeconomic structure that distinguish African youth cohorts from those of other regions. Finally, it introduces the subject of youth development (YD) organizations and the contexts of their involvement in the provision of youth-specific resources.

Youth is a time when individuals form some of the most fundamental elements of their adult lives. Young people are taking on increased responsibilities, such as playing a greater role in assuring the well-being and protection of their family units, becoming financially independent, and establishing social identities apart from their parents’ (Rwezaura, 1998). These individuals are at the precipice of some of the most impactful human experiences. They are at the height of their reproductive years, becoming more independently mobile, developing specialized skill sets, completing their formal education, and they are beginning to explore the boundaries of citizenship

(Pool, 2007).

Youth also represents continuity. They occupy a quintessential juncture between society’s oldest and youngest generations. As such, the issues they face have implications far beyond themselves. The Demographic Dividend theory, one of the leading youth-specific dialogues, hypothesizes that greater proportions of youths have the potential to give countries an economic boost (D. E. Bloom, 2010). The capital they could generate is key to supporting the care of societies’ youngest, as well as senior citizens. However, the realization of this potential, as well as the maintenance of a stable workforce, the preservation of institutional knowledge, and societal

2 sustainability, all hinge on how prepared the nation’s youths are to succeed their more mature predecessors.

Youths’ levels of preparedness are equally critical for the generations that will follow them. Individuals in the youth-aged cohort are in their prime reproductive years

(O’Malley, Wardlaw, You, Hug, & Anthony, 2014). This means that they are parents to a significant proportion of the world’s children, as well (O’Malley et al., 2014).

Theorists on both sides of the Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend debate have identified a lack of public resources for youth and high birthrates as self-propagating cycles (Alemayehu, Haider, & Habte, 2010; G. E. Fuller, 2003; Prettner, Bloom, &

Strulik, 2013).

When youth lack opportunities, they can become vulnerable to becoming victims and/or perpetrators of sexual violence and exploitation. High fertility rates have been found to be associated with both poverty and conflict (O’Malley et al.,

2014). The decisions that youth make for themselves and the children in their care have the potential to affect developmental outcomes for the next generation of youth.

The patterns of behavior youth establish at this life stage can govern their interactions with the world around them for the rest of their lives. Can we expect that ill-equipped, disenchanted youth who cannot provide for their own needs will have the capacity to nurture such skills and values in their offspring?

The challenges of this life stage place unique demands on public sectors in any environment, but the stakes are especially high for 21st-century governments and societies. Today’s youth population is the largest in human history (Lam, 2006). More

3 than 25%—over 1.8 billion—of all people are between the ages of 15 and 24

(UNFPA, 2014). These individuals have been born into “ambiguous times”

(Furstenberg, Rumbaut, & Settersten, 2005). They are attempting to make the transition to established adulthood in an era where lessening employment opportunities, higher educational requirements, mounting student and credit card debt, etc. are prolonging the youth phase (Arnett, 2001; Honwana, 2014). This study builds on existing public policy literature by providing an enriched understanding of the support mechanisms available to youth as they negotiate these issues.

The gravity of this issue is not only due to its temporal contexts, but it is also spatial. Approximately 86% of these youths are born in low and middle-income nations where public resources are stretched beyond capacity (M. Sommers, 2010). In

2016, 41 of the top 50 countries with the world’s highest total fertility rates were in

Sub Saharan Africa (CIA, 2016). Many countries in Asia and Latin America are beginning to see a reduction in birthrates; however, there is little evidence that the population growth will subside anytime soon for some African nations (“Africa’s population,” 2009; May & Turbat, 2017). Thus, youth disproportionality continues to be a pervasive issue on the continent. The phenomenon of youth disproportionality is not just a matter of population distribution. It also carries with it implications for governance, public participation, and policymaking.

4 1.2 The Significance of Youth in Environments of Disproportionality

Youth-specific vulnerabilities take on an added complexity when youth constitute a disproportionate segment of the population. Millions of individuals are expressing the same needs simultaneously when their public sectors are least able to provide them (Hvistendahl, 2011). This imminent and intense demand limits the capacity of the state to reach all of those in need (MacLean, 2010). The competition for resources can exacerbate existing vulnerabilities (Hvistendahl, 2011; Slackman,

2008). Furthermore, it can put the relationship between youths’ and their governments in jeopardy. There is general consensus around the argument that how young people interact with—and in—the public sphere is contingent on their relationships with public entities (Beehner, 2007; Cincotta, 2008a; G. E. Fuller, 2003). Youth Bulge theorists have argued that nations with a youth imbalance are particularly prone to experience situations in which inward frustration about the lack of resources results in outward conflict and ongoing instability amongst younger cohorts (Beehner, 2007;

Brunborg & Urdal, 2005). In other words, youth disproportionality raises concerns about both the provision of youths’ material needs, as well as their relationship with the state and society.

This phenomenon creates a dilemma for all nations. Where the path to adulthood is ambiguous and increasingly marked by socioeconomic attainment, independent migrations—rural to urban, intra- and inter-continental—have become an alternative rite of passage for many (Ungruhe, 2010). Whereas the burdens of youth growth resulting from high fertility and improved child survival are restricted to a

5 particular geographical context, young people’s tendency towards mobility has made the dilemma of disproportionality a transnational issue.

Even in OECD countries where governments are contending with the implications of aging indigenous populations, age-based migration has had an impact on some communities (Dumont & Lamaitre, 2005). Net migration has been a main driver of population growth in economically developed regions since 2010; the UN

(2016) anticipates that migration will be the sole driver of population growth in developed regions by 2020. The issue of migration, which is fueled by young people, has been a central theme of politics around the world (Adam & Booth, 2018; De Maio,

2019; Fulford, 2014; Time Staff, 2015; Wesel., 2017). Developing solutions to the new wave of transnational movement has prompted scholars and policy decisionmakers to look beyond their own borders and devote attention to understanding the contexts young people are traveling from. The sections that follow provide an overview of the contexts of population growth and socio-economic trends for African youth.

1.3 African Youth

Africa is currently the fastest-growing and second most populous continent in the world (Youth Division of African Union Commission, 2015). The scope and scale of youth disproportion here are unparalleled. African countries’ populations grew at an average rate of 2.14% in 2017 (CIA, 2018). It is informative to contrast it with an aging nation like the United States to place the typical rate of growth for a country in

6 Africa in perspective. The United States’ population growth rate for 2017 was less than half that of the average growth rate in African countries: .81% (CIA, 2018). The

Globalist (2015) projected that, by 2100, Nigeria’s population alone would have exceeded the population of all 48 countries of Europe by about 107 million people.

The current exponential growth rate is also a reminder that young Africans are responsible for a significant proportion of the world’s infants and children. Adolescent fertility rates for African women are among the highest in the world (You, Hug, &

Anthony, 2015). In 2017, the average fertility rate for African women was 4 to 5 children over their child-bearing years (CIA, 2018). In 2016, 41 of the top 50 countries with the world’s highest total fertility rates were in Sub Saharan Africa (CIA, 2016). It has been predicted that the continent’s approximately 1 billion inhabitants will reach—or surpass—2.2 billion by 2050 (Lazuta, 2013). If these approximations prove true, 25% of all people, and 47% of all the world’s children, will be of African origins

(You, Hug, & Anthony, 2014). The coming of age process will be particular challenging for children of these African women and men.

The transition to adulthood can involve challenges for youth in any environment, but the coming of age process presents especial hardships for both youth and the state in Africa. In many nations, young people approach adulthood already weighted with an immense amount of responsibility for others. One example of how their productive capacity compares to collective social needs can be operationalized in terms of the national dependency ratio.

7 National dependency ratios provide a quantitative illustration of the impacts of youth disproportionality and high birthrates on young societies (CIA, 2018). The dependency ratio is a proportion used to evaluate a country’s economic potential as a function of social need (CIA, 2018). The ratio calculates the share of the dependent

(non-working-age) population to the productive (working-age) population (You et al.,

2014).

A higher total dependency ratio indicates a greater need for social services for children (ages 0-14) who are not yet working and/or individuals beyond retirement age

(65 years old and above) (CIA, 2018). African countries exhibit some of the highest total dependency ratios—the proportion of working-age to non-working age population—in the world by this measure (Diagne, 2005; You et al., 2014). In some countries, dependency ratios exceed 100, indicating that the size of the dependent population exceeds the working population (You et al., 2014). The Handbook of

Statistics estimated Africa’s aggregate dependency ratio to be 80% in 2016

(UNCTAD, 2017).

The high fertility rates in young societies are also associated with higher child dependency ratios.1 Child dependency ratios measure the proportion of children (ages

0-14) to working-age adults as a means of illustrating the weight of the demand for

1 Child dependency ratios are also sometimes referred to as youth dependency ratios. Given the importance of age classifications for this study, the researcher uses the term child dependency to avoid confusion.

8 public resources by children in light of the country’s productive capacity. A high child dependency ratio can indicate to public administrators that there is a greater need for services like child and maternal health programming, tertiary education, and childhood nutrition programs. The child dependency ratio in Africa has been the highest of any world region for decades and is forecasted to remain the highest up to 2050 (Kögel,

2005; Shumaker & Clark, 1992; UNCTAD, 2017). Trends toward high child dependency ratios point to two other common ramifications of youth disproportionality. Firstly, governments are limited in their capacity to save for future public investitures (Eastwood & Lipton, 2011). Secondly, greater proportions of children in households can negatively impact youth participation in education and/or the workforce, especially for females (D. E. Bloom, Canning, Fink, & Finlay, 2007;

Ferguson, 1993).

The present study places specific attention on the situation of urban youths because much of the contemporary population growth is concentrated in urban centers

(Beauchemin & Bocquier, 2004; de Brauw, Mueller, & Lee, 2014). By 2025, the

African urban population is expected to overtake the rural population (Raleigh, 2014).

Gollin, Jedwab, and Vollrath (2016) contend that urbanization in Africa’s cities has presented an economic dilemma because it has not been accompanied by a substantial trend towards industrialization. The result is that African cities have not yet achieved economic growth at rates comparable to their population growth (Jelili, 2012). Instead, many African metropolises have become export-dependent, ‘consumption cities’

(Gollin et al., 2016). Poverty, overcrowding, corruption, and lack of resources in these

9 cash-strapped metropolises have contributed to a culture of informality that is unparalleled in other world regions (Dolan & Rajak, 2016; Palmade & Anayiotos,

2005).

Informality, in terms of housing and land tenure, presents major obstacles for youth’s prospects of wealth accumulation. Youth living in situations of informal tenure lack a legal claim to their homes and/or the land it is built on, which makes them vulnerable to be evicted at the whim of the property owner or the government

(Scott, Cotton, & Sohail Khan, 2013). Informal dwellings are often hastily built with substandard materials in low-lying, flood-prone areas (Douglas, 2018). Youth in Sub-

Saharan Africa are particularly challenged in this regard (Célestin Monga & Justin

Yifu Lin, 2015).

Insufficient tax revenues to support public functions like building code enforcement and routine sanitation exasperate circumstances for youth. The situation places youth can afford to live at greater risk from fire, building collapses, and communicable illnesses—such as cholera (Mark Pelling & Ben Wisner, 2009). The lack of opportunity to study and earn sustainable income is another significant barrier for African youth.

Demographic pressures and lack of sufficient revenue have had substantial effects on educational and employment opportunities for African youth. In 2011, 29.8 million school-aged children were out of school in Sub-Saharan Africa; more than half of these out-of-school children never go to school at all (UNESCO, 2013). Even

10 among youth who are able to access formal education, the intense demand for employment pushes many into the informal sector.

The challenges of informal employment parallel those of informal dwellings.

Informal workers lack institutional protections and/or legally binding agreements detailing the terms of their employment. According to ILO (2018), “poverty is both a cause and consequence of informality.” Individuals in the informal sector are susceptible to unsafe working conditions, insecure wages, abstruse employment statuses, and the general lack of legal protections (ILO, 2002). In Sub Saharan Africa, informal employment is estimated to account for as much as 80 to 95% of all employment (Célestin Monga & Justin Yifu Lin, 2015; ILO News, 2018). Informal employment rates are as high as 88 to 99% for African youth in certain countries

(ILO, 2012). Even in Northern Africa, where youth have greater access to formal education, it is not atypical for more than half of the national labor force to be employed in the informal sector (Célestin Monga & Justin Yifu Lin, 2015). According to George Joffe (2011), one of the factors that distinguished public outcry amongst

North African youths from their counterparts in the Middle East during the “Arab

Spring” was the concern with persistently high youth unemployment and lack of economic opportunity.

Africa’s young societies are also heavily impacted by multilevel governance.

As part of an effort to facilitate continent-wide integration, the African Union (AU) has promoted the creation of regional communities (Achiume & Landau, 2015;

African Union, 2019). The region of West Africa, in which Senegal is located, is the

11 site of one of the continent’s most coordinated economic communities, in terms of policy collaboration and economic cooperation: the Economic Community of West

African States (ECOWAS) (Adepoju, Boulton, & Levin, 2010). ECOWAS is composed of 15-member-states that have declared the aim of creating a borderless, integrated region (ECOWAS, n.d.). The member-states share a common passport, a common banking system, and interregional policies (Adepoju et al., 2010; ECOWAS, n.d.). Young people can traverse borders with little to no formal documentation of their presence. In this policy environment, youth disproportion is not only a local or national concern but also regional and continental as well.

The continent is also heavily influenced by laws and policies generated outside of its borders. At least 30 of Africa’s 54 countries were categorized as Heavily

Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) by the World Bank, which means that they are ranked amongst the most income-poor nations in the world and are required to periodically produce long-term strategic plans, known as Poverty Reduction Strategy

Papers (PRSPs) (B. Roberts, 2007; World Bank, 2018).

PRSPs must be acceptable to a country’s creditors before a country can gain access to further financial assistance (B. Roberts, 2007). The PRSP stipulation allows the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and other international stakeholders to exercise substantial control over the long-term policy-making priorities of African countries (Craig & Porter, 2003; Herbst, 2018). The responsibility for budgetary decisions does not rest solely with elected officials, but rather, it is shared with external interests who are not necessarily responsible for—or accountable to—

12 African constituencies (Fraser, 2005; Tarabini & Jacovkis, 2012). Youth access to participation in these decision processes is usually limited.

Benjamin Roberts’ (2007) analysis of youths’ access to participation in the processes of creating PRSPs found a concerning trend between youth exclusion from public decision-making and the way PRSPs are produced. Roberts (2007) reviewed the lists of key stakeholders for every Sub-Saharan nation that produced a PRSP and found that youths or groups representing youths were not consulted in 57% of the PRS

(Poverty Reduction Strategy) processes. Roberts (2007) also documents youth inclusion by region (see Table 1). Youth or representatives were consulted in 56%,

0%, 71%, and 40% of PRS processes in Southern Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and West Africa, respectively (B. Roberts, 2007).

Table 1: Survey of Youth Representation in PRSP Consultation Processes (B. Roberts, 2007, p. 137)

No Yes Southern Africa 9% 56% East Africa 6% 0% Central Africa 7% 71% West Africa 15% 40% Sub-Saharan Africa 37% 43%

Due in some measure to the demands placed on them by external stakeholders, many African governments are highly centralized at the national level (Vedeld, Coly,

Ndour, & Hellevik, 2016; Zajda & Gamage, 2009). The implications are that the ability of administrators at the regional and local levels to address the specific needs of

13 their young constituents according to their own discretion is restricted (Vedeld et al.,

2016; Zajda & Gamage, 2009). This is important to African youth because, not only does it limit their governments’ policy capacity and the resources to which they have access, but it also complicates the tools available to them to hold their governments accountable (B. Roberts, 2007). Demands by external stakeholders and a highly centralized government are also challenges facing youth in Senegal.

No two countries are identical, but the researcher’s examination of youth and socio-economic demographics throughout Africa reveals similarities across countries.

The explication of Senegal’s youth-specific issues functions to highlight aspects of youth disproportionality that are difficult to communicate at the country level. The section that follows focuses specifically on how youth disproportionality and its common accompaniments have manifested themselves in the country of Senegal, which is located in the western region of the continent.

1.3.1 Senegalese Youth

The goal of this study is to examine the situation of Senegalese youths as a means of inspiring a wider conversation about youth populations throughout the continent. One must be cautious about making generalizations about the whole of the continent based on a single country, but it is informative to consider the extent to which issues affecting Senegal are reflective of other nations in Africa.

Senegal is a young society and will likely remain so into the immediate future. Youth comprise approximately one-fifth of Senegal’s population (CIA, 2018). Children constitute 41.51% of the population (CIA, 2018). In 2016, Sub Saharan

14 African countries claimed 41 of the top 50 rankings for the world’s highest total fertility rates (CIA, 2016). Senegal is numbered amongst them; the country has the

29th highest fertility rate in the world (CIA, 2018). The population growth in Senegal is 2.39%, which is in close alignment with the continental average of 2.14% (CIA,

2018). One palpable result of the rapid population growth is that the dependency ratio is 85.4, or 85.4 dependents for every 100 people of working age (CIA, 2018). The youth dependency ratio or ratio of the child population (ages 0-14) to the working-age population in Senegal is 79.8, or 79.8 children to every 100 people of working age (CIA, 2018). In the immediate future, the dependency trends represent a monumental challenge to any attempt to achieve a Demographic Dividend. In the long-term, however, perhaps this abundance of intellectual potential could change the economic trajectory, provided that they have access to appropriate resources. The quest to acquire resources has attracted numerous young people to

Senegal’s urban centers. Urban dwellers make up about 44% of the population, and cities are experiencing population growth at a rate of about 3.53% annually (CIA, 2018). Urbanization has been accompanied by a decades-long shift towards informality (Granström, 2009). Informality, a term that describes activities not reported or officially accounted for by any formal legal arrangement (Gerry, 1978). In many ways, the flourishing of the informal sector can be seen as an indication of the depth of the inadequacy of service provision in Dakar. The impact of the dependency rates is evident in Senegal’s economic profile. Although the country is relatively prosperous in comparison with some others, the government had a national deficit of 3.6% and ranked 155 in terms of the tax revenue as a percentage of GDP

15 (CIA, 2018). The scale of informality is, by definition, difficult to fully capture

(Gerry, 1978). One study commissioned by the World Bank Group attempts to generate a measurement of the informal economy by using in-person surveys (Mbaye, Benjamin, Golub, & Ekomie, 2014). The researchers found that, while approximately

10,000 business firms were formally registered with the government of Senegal, their survey identified 280,000 informal businesses operating in the country (Mbaye et al., 2014). More than 43.9% of young people aged 15-24 were estimated to be employed in Dakar’s vast network of informality (Diene, 2014). Workers in the informal sector participate in a substantial proportion of the city’s construction, childcare, housekeeping, transportation, vehicle repair, electrical repair, cosmetology, and artisanal activities (Lubell & Zarour, 1990). Moreover, traditional apprenticeships provided by informal businesses have contributed to the training of most of Dakar’s skilled workers (Lubell & Zarour, 1990; Sonnenberg, 2012). Even municipal trash collection has become a lucrative activity for the informal sector (Fredericks, 2014b). Informal workers in Senegal lack legal protections. They are overworked and underpaid, which means that they are also vulnerable to living in sub-standard, informal housing as well. Approximately 25% of Dakar residents living in slum areas—where informal housing is abundant—lack either access to piped water, electricity, or permanent walls on their homes (Gulyani, Bassett, & Talukdar, 2014).

Only 60% of Dakar’s slum residents are estimated to have access to eight basic infrastructure services: water, electricity, toilets, sewage disposal, drainage, garbage collection, public transportation, and telephone services (Gulyani et al., 2014). Senegal’s National Statistics and Demography Agency (ANSD) (2002) estimated that

16 only 42% of young residents live in formal—or legally documented—households in

Dakar. It is also not uncommon to see a building teeming with tenants undergoing major additions (Melly, 2010). Sanitation is another major concern in urban Dakar (Scott et al., 2013). Only

7% of slum residents reported having water drainage outside of their homes (Gulyani et al., 2014). Residents in low-lying areas have resorted to buying trash to protect their homes from flooding and standing water (Nossiter, 2009). The compounded effect of flooding and the proliferation of garbage in some neighborhoods has become so dangerous that several children have drowned in garbage reinforced ditches in Dakar (Nossiter, 2009). According to Gulyani, Bassett, and Talukdar (2014), educational attainment alone is not necessarily a determinant of the quality of living for urban dwellers. Their study argued that, while educational attainment is lower in Dakar, living conditions for better-educated residents in Nairobi, Kenya’s slums are estimated to be even worse

(Gulyani et al., 2014). With regards to educational attainment, a random sample of Dakar’s slum areas estimated that approximately one in three adults had primary education, and less than 10% were high school graduates (Gulyani et al., 2014). This paradoxical relationship between education and standard of living for urban youth would seem to imply that preparing young people to be able to take responsibility for themselves and their families is an issue that extends beyond the provision of formal education. Further elaboration on the social, cultural, economic, and political background of Senegal is provided in Chapter 5. Chapter 3 provides a more extensive overview of the status of youth in the five regions of the continent. It also extrapolates on the character of governments’

17 approaches to meeting the needs of youth constituents. However, given the peculiar policy contexts of Africa’s young societies, African urban centers are also a furtive ground for highlighting the significance of the “community services budget” with regards to youth-specific resource provision (Warren, Rosentraub, & Weschler, 1988).

African governments depend heavily on the efforts of civil society to overcome the limitations to their autonomy (Bado, 2012). Environments of youth disproportionality can place intense pressure on the resource and policy capacities of national and local governments.

YD organizations play a dynamic role in mitigating the demands youth make on their public administrators through the provision of tangible and intangible resources. Without YD support mechanisms, young societies risk falling into a self- propagating cycle of underprivilege. Section 1.4 extrapolates on the factors that facilitate youth disproportionality and how what is essentially a domestic phenomenon can become an issue of international proportions.

1.4 Origins of Youth Disproportionality

Youth disproportionality occurs through multifaceted internal and external trends. These include high fertility, improved childhood survival, reliance on labor- intensive techniques, low life expectancies, and age-specific migrations. Youth disproportionality limits young people’s access to resources and contributes to their de jure or de facto separation from public entities. Domestically, much of the contemporary disproportion is facilitated by disparate health outcomes between the new and old generations. Rising birth rates, improved child survival for the youngest age cohorts, and low life expectancies in older age cohorts can result in an age

18 imbalance favoring youth (Kabir, 2008). Many youths have responded to resource constraints and social disconnection at home by deciding to “vote with their feet”

(Tiebout, 1956). These trends of youth-specific migration among African youth are shaping the face of politics worldwide (Adam & Booth, 2018; De Maio, 2019;

Fulford, 2014; Time Staff, 2015; Wesel., 2017).

The most fundamental element of youth disproportion is high fertility (Lazuta,

2013). In 2016, 41 of the top 50 countries with the world’s highest total fertility rates were in Sub Saharan Africa (CIA, 2016). In Senegal, the country of focus for this study, the average woman gives birth to between 4 and 5 children during her childbearing years (CIA, 2018). The rate of childbirths is related to the economic configuration of a society (Misra, 2015). African nations are rapidly urbanizing, but the agricultural sector continues to dominate economic productivity (de Brauw et al.,

2014). Many farmers still lack the financial capacity to adopt new technologies that could boost their yields and minimize time spent caring for crops (Kevin M Cleaver &

Schreiber, 1994; Kalipeni, Cleaver, & Schreiber, 2006). Instead, much of their efforts continue to rely on labor-intensive techniques where the household forms the workforce (Ungruhe, 2010). Early marriage and large families are not only the norm, but they are an exigency to avoid the expense of paying external laborers (Bongaarts,

Mir, & Mahmood, 2013). For this reason, rural areas are typically associated with higher birthrates (Caldwell & Caldwell, 1987).

While birthrates have remained high, the mortality rate for children under five has decreased. Efforts associated with programs such as the Millennium Development

19 Goals (MDGs) have decreased child mortality rates, improved pre- and antenatal health, and combatted preventable illnesses, such as malaria and HIV/AIDS (Easterly,

2009; UN DESA, 2015). As the Millennium Development Goals’ advances have reduced child and maternal mortality, the adolescent fertility rate among African women is more than double the worldwide average (O’Malley et al., 2014). Many cultural and religious traditions continue to encourage women to marry at younger ages (Caldwell & Caldwell, 1987). This tendency to establish families at an earlier age means that birthrates in Africa are not decreasing at the pace of other world regions.

High fertility, coupled with concerted efforts to improve childhood health outcomes, have meant more individuals surviving into the adolescent and adult stage (O’Malley et al., 2014).

Disproportionate youth populations are also facilitated by low life expectancies. While the quality of health outcomes for developing countries’ youngest stakeholders have seen improvement, overall life expectancies remain low on much of the continent (Dorling, Shaw, & Smith, 2006; Jamison et al., 2006). HIV/AIDS and cancers have had a heavy impact on population concentrations (Jackson, 2002; Parkin,

Bray, Ferlay, & Jemal, 2014). The average life expectancy for the Sub-Saharan Africa region is between 52 and 54 years of age (Kassebaum et al., 2016). The average life expectancy in Senegal is approximately 56 years (P. D. Fall, Carretero, & Sarr, 2010).

The proliferation of countries’ youngest citizens accompanied by a tapering of the eldest members of society create a demographic heavily skewed towards individuals in the child, adolescent, and young adult stages. The National Statistics and Demography

20 Agency (ANSD) (2002) estimated that 42% of individuals living in “regular” (formal) households in Dakar, Senegal’s administrative and financial capital, are between the ages of 15 and 35 years.

The issue of youth disproportion is not confined only to young societies.

Whereas the burdens of youth growth resulting from high fertility and child survival are restricted to a particular geographical context, young people’s tendency towards mobility has made the dilemma of disproportionality a transnational issue (Hatton &

Williamson, 2002). Even in countries where governments are contending with the implications of aging populations, age-based migration has had an impact (Dumont

& Lamaitre, 2005).

Youth’s tendency towards mobility has been a main driver of population growth in economically developed regions. UNESOC (2016) anticipates that migration will be virtually the sole driver of population growth in developed regions by 2020. According to the EU Youth Report, youth who emigrated from non-

European countries (aged 15-29 years) constituted at or above 20% of all young people in 12 EU member-states (EU Commission, 2012). During this same period,

40% of the UK’s youth were of non-European origins (EU Commission, 2012). The

US Department of Health and Human Services reported that only two US states had birthrates above the replacement level in 2017 (UN DESA, 2017). At the height of the

2014 surge of unaccompanied child migrants, over 10,000 minors and more than

16,000 families were apprehended at the US-Mexico border in a single month (Chishti

& Faye Hipsman, 2016).

21 Independent migrations—rural to urban, intra- and inter-continental—have become an alternative rite of passage for many young Africans (Calvès, Kobiané, &

Martel, 2007; Ungruhe, 2010). Hove, Ngwerume, and Muchemwa (2013) note that as much as 60-70% of Africa’s urban growth can be attributed to rural to urban migration. Age-based population trends in the countries of West Africa in general— and Senegal specifically—are informative in this regard. West Africa is the most rapidly ‘bulging’ region of the continent and the most urbanized. This region has acquired the reputation for being a “simultaneously origin, destination and transit” region for both high and low-skilled youth (Adepoju, 2003). Senegal’s largest city of

Dakar is located on the westernmost tip of the continent and has become a nexus for young people looking for economic opportunity, fleeing conflict, and/or hoping to make the clandestine passage to Europe (Buggenhagen, 2012; Riccio, 2005). Dakar attracts one-fourth of Senegal’s rural to urban migrants and 36% of interregional migrants (ANSD, 2013; P. D. Fall et al., 2010).

While demographers have developed an array of formulas for forecasting natural birth rates, youth migration trends—and independent youth migration trends particularly—are less predictable. Age-based migration not only exacerbates the issue of efficient allocation of public resources inherent to fertility-driven growth, but it also presents an added layer of complexity to concerns about fostering a healthy sense of community (SOC) among non-native young people. Adolescents or young adults traveling independently may lack the necessary documents, financial means, or familiarity with administrative processes to officially declare their presence once they

22 arrive in the receiving country (T. Smith & Brownlees, 2011). In other instances, youth may enter—or be kept in—a country under conditions beyond their control

(Laczko, 2005). Such de jure or de facto separation from public entities—and, by extension, critical public resource networks—presents an added challenge to building relationships with vulnerable and/or marginalized youth wherever they may be.

Although common, the impacts of youth disproportionality detailed in this section are not inevitable. YD efforts by government and civil society are a means of addressing youth-specific concerns proactively. Section 1.5 provides an overview of the significance and participatory structures of YD organizations. The section devotes particular attention to the roles of YD initiatives in societies experiencing youth disproportionality.

1.5 Youth Development (YD) as a Response to Youth Needs

Just as the informal sector plays a strong role in addressing the unmet public need in Dakar, civil society YD initiatives have been employed as alternative conduits of public resources for many young people in urban Senegal and elsewhere on the continent. The broader class of YD initiatives includes policies, short-term and long- term programs, social groups, etc. designed with the aim of engaging young people in developmental activities (Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2003). The distribution of youth- specific resources, however, is often undertaken through the medium of YD organizations. In countries with the capacity to enforce universal K-12 education policies, much of young people’s experiences with YD activities, such as skill-

23 building and civic participation, take place in the classroom. In nations where millions of young people are either unable to access formal education—or do so in overcrowded, under-resourced classrooms, voluntary YD organizations take on an added importance (A. C. Lewis, 2000).

These entities employ varying approaches to providing resources, promoting specific skills and values, facilitating youth engagement, and building youths’ sense of community (SOC) (McLaughlin, 2000; Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2016). They are principally characterized by their degree of emphasis on youth participation and the extent of logistical, material, and emotional support provided by older adults

(Kirshner, 2008). Each of their organizational structures can be said to follow one of three models of participation: youth-serving, youth-led, and youth-run (N. T. Wong,

Zimmerman, & Parker, 2010; Youth Speak Out Coalition & Zimmerman, 2007).

Youth-serving organizations are defined as those created and administered by older adults (Sproul, 1942). Youth-led organizations also involve a moderate to high level of decision-making by older adults; however, these entities place an explicit emphasis on youth inclusion in the governance of organizational activities (Ho, Clarke, &

Dougherty, 2015). Youth-run organizations are those that are established and managed by young people (O’Neill, 1998).

Each structure performs a unique set of functions, is accompanied by a unique set of resources and must contend with a unique set of advantages and disadvantages.

Organizations with older adult leadership are associated with greater access to tangible resources like financial support (Sullivan & Larson, 2010). Youth-run organizations,

24 by contrast, have been credited with building intangible resources, such as social capital amongst their peers, with as few resources as a Facebook page or Twitter feed

(Ho et al., 2015; Ilkiw, 2010; Munford & Sanders, 2015).

This dissertation is aimed at offering insight into how a sample of YD organizations in Senegal leverages their resources. Although this study examined the outputs of YD organizations’ resource investments in general, it was guided by a specific emphasis on the relationship between the intangible resource of youth participation and the outputs of youths’ perceptions of their government and/or their community.

The utility of research to understanding what types of investments develop youths’ abilities to sustain—and improve on—current systems cannot be overstated.

The researcher’s focus is on organizations aimed at promoting youths’ entry into legal activities. It must be noted that formal YD organizations do not conduct their work in a laboratory setting, nor are they the sole providers of skill-building initiatives for young people. Illicit organizations and networks are also infamous for their capacity to encourage youth to develop critical skill sets towards the accomplishment of the group’s goals (Brodsky, 2009; Vigh, 2006).

Youth, however, are not passive actors in development. It is the finding of this research that youth must be not only capable of assuming roles of responsibility but also willing. This willingness is fostered by a positive sense of community (SOC). A key element of a positive SOC is that young people perceive themselves as stakeholders in their communities (Pretty, Conroy, Dugay, Fowler, & Williams, 1996).

25 This is defined not only by the provision of physical resources but also by the building of relationships.

Throughout the remainder of the manuscript, the researcher examines the literature and practical examples of the dilemmas involved in fostering capable, collaborative youth cohorts in societies experiencing youth disproportionality. Section

1.6 provides a brief outline of some of the key aspects of youth disproportionate societies that will be addressed in the manuscript. It describes the organization of the chapters that follow and provides a rationale for how each chapter relates to the larger discussion of YD in Africa’s young societies.

1.6 Chapter Outline

Each chapter of the text is organized to build on the last. The researcher’s aim is to enrich the readers’ knowledge of the larger theoretical and conceptual models, while alternately demonstrating how the models are applicable to the contexts of youth in Senegal and elsewhere in Africa. To accomplish this, the manuscript is structured as follows:

• Chapter 2: Literature Review is divided into two parts. Part I lays out

the origins of the phenomenon of youth disproportion and describes the

theoretical underpinnings of public policy approaches to addressing the

issue. It traces the development of Youth Bulge and Demographic

Dividend theories, identifies formative voices in the discourse, and

26 analyzes divergences and similarities between the two schools of

thought.

Chapter 2 argues that neither Youth Bulge nor Demographic

Dividend literature has adequately explored the role of the youth-public

sector relationship in its analysis of the implications of youth

disproportionality. Part II attempts to surmount some of the gaps in the

Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theories by incorporating a

discussion of YD literature. The second portion of Chapter 2 examines

the fundamentals of YD and addresses aspects of YD in Africa that

scholars have identified as distinctive.

In light of the emphasis Africanist scholars have placed on the

significance of collectivism to understanding traditional YD practices

among Senegal’s indigenous ethnicities, the researcher proposes that

social inquiry about young societies on the continent should also

explore the dynamics of young people’s relationships with the state and

their communities. To this end, the chapter outlines the basic tenets of

Sense of Community (SOC) theory and extrapolates on how the

theory’s scholars describe the relationship between individuals’ access

to resources and their relationships with their communities and

governance structures.

• Chapter 3: Africa: A Special Case builds on the literature review by

exploring how the Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend paradigms

27 seem to be influencing the youth-public sector relationships across the

continent. The chapter also extrapolates on the premise put forth in the

researcher’s dissertation proposal: the contexts of youth

disproportionality and YD practices on the continent of Africa are

distinct.

Chapter 3 aggregates secondary data to offer a demographic

profile of the continent as a whole and illustrates the similarities of

youth-specific public problems at the regional and national levels. The

researcher provides some key indicators of youth disproportion and its

impacts on society, examines their scope and scale at the continental

and regional levels, and highlights contemporary examples of how the

youth-public sector relationship has been fostered or damaged in

specific countries.

• Chapter 4: Research Design explains the research design, procedures,

and activities involved in the data collection and analysis processes.

The chapter involves an overview of the study’s methodology, a

discussion of the public sector roles of YD organizations, and a

description of the analysis procedures. Additionally, the researcher

provides greater specificity about the organizations included in the case

study. In keeping with the researcher’s contention that contexts play a

significant role in comprehending YD in environments of youth

disproportionality, Chapter 4 also gives consideration to how factors,

28 such as the organization’s sources of financial support and scope of

activities, could potentially contribute to diversity in how the groups

address YD. Finally, Chapter 4 also describes how the data summarized

in Chapter 6 was assessed by the researcher.

• Whereas Chapter 4 addresses the characteristics of organizations

included in the study sample, Chapter 5: Case Study: Dakar, Senegal

introduces the research setting. It offers background information on the

status of youths in Senegal with emphasis on the conditions in Dakar’s

urban environment. It includes some historical information about the

significance of Dakar’s urbanscape for the continent of Africa, the

Western Africa region, and the country of Senegal.

Chapter 5 not only offers a better sense of the soiciocultural

character of Senegalese society for those unfamiliar with the nation.

The chapter also explains some of the dynamics of the youth-public

sector relationship in the country. It focuses specifically on the role of

Senegal’s Ministry of Youth, Employment, and Civic Construction in

the country as a means of triangulating interviewees’ comments about

the government’s YD strategy.

• Chapter 6: Findings documents informants’ responses, while Chapter 7:

Conclusions summarizes this study, assesses the relevance of

respondents’ comments to YD praxis, and outlines topics for further

research.

29 1.7 Conclusion

Chapter 1 outlines the relevance of youth disproportionality to public

policy scholarship. Young people’s challenges are a matter of public concern

because youths are essential to continuity. They are necessary to maintain a

stable workforce, to preserving institutional memory, and to the rearing of the

majority of the world’s children. Youth face difficulties in being prepared to

assume these responsibilities in any environment, but their transition to

adulthood is exacerbated in societies where youth and children constitute a

demographic majority.

The chapter demonstrates that younger age structures are especially

prevalent in Africa because of high fertility rates and low life expectancies.

These demographic trends have vast implications for young Africans’ abilities to

become independent and participate fully in their societies. The difficulties of

meeting the intense demand for resources can also negatively affect young

people’s relationships with their public sectors. YD initiatives, which are

designed to focus specifically on the needs of youths, hold a special significance

in African communities experiencing youth disproportionality. This study uses

case studies of seven YD organizations in Dakar, Senegal, to explore what

role(s) YD plays in expanding young people’s access to resources and public

participation.

30 Finally, this chapter provides a synopsis of the contents of this study.

Chapter 2 reviews the relevant literature on youth disproportionality and SOC.

Chapter 3 highlights the sociopolitical impacts of youth disproportionality in

Africa. Chapter 4 lays out the methodological design of this study. Chapter 5 provides background information on the research setting. Chapter 6 describes the findings of interviews with participants in YD organizations, and Chapter 7 summarizes this study in light of those findings.

One of the key public policy challenges in environments of youth disproportionality is ensuring that youth are both prepared and willing to play a positive role in society. Youth Bulge theory, Demographic Dividend theory, and

SOC theory have all influenced how public sector actors approach this challenge in young societies. The subsequent chapter examines these three theoretical frameworks and explains how the present research contributes to the continued evolution of the literature on youth disproportionality and as a public policy issue.

31 Chapter 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Overview

The current chapter analyzes the nuances of the challenge of building youth- public sector relationships in two parts. Part one discusses some of the nuances of disproportionality and the theoretical underpinnings of the public policy approaches that have been taken to address the phenomenon. It also: (1) provides an introduction to some of the key terms and concepts used in Youth Bulge and Demographic

Dividend scholarship, (2) discusses some of the similarities between the two theories, and (3) identifies persistent criticisms and theoretical gaps, particularly those regarding the relationships between youth disproportionality and resources.

The youth-public sector relationship is a key element in the ultimate fate of young societies. In the second part of this chapter, the researcher examines varying

YD strategies that have influenced how Senegalese youths participate in society.

Senegal’s history has been marked by the dominance of a number of cultural models concerning YD. The researcher proposes that what has remained consistent, however, is the importance of examining young people’s relationships with their communities as a way of interpreting how they contribute to—or detract from—public policy goals.

32 To this end, the researcher presents the sense of community (SOC) theory as a means of expanding on the theoretical dialogue on resources and young societies. The second section includes 1) an explanation of SOC and its fundamental tenets and a 2) consideration of the applicability of the SOC literature to youth disproportionate environments. While both Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theory have done much to bring issues associated with youth disproportionality to the forefront, Chapter

2 is aimed at adding greater depth to the study of YD as an element of national development.

2.2 Part I: “Youth Bulge” and “Demographic Dividend”

The implications of youth-dominant societies are most commonly discussed within the frameworks of either Youth Bulge or Demographic Dividend theories. The literature surrounding both of these theories underscores the importance of access to resources for youth capacity-building. Similarly, any serious discussion of youth capacity-building efforts must begin with a conscientious look at the theoretical underpinnings of youth policy action. Youth-public sector relationships have been complex throughout time (J. Abbink, 2005; Eyben, 1993). In some instances, youth are hailed as future leaders and, in others, portrayed as troublemakers and agitators

(Hilfinger Messias, Jennings, Fore, McLoughlin, & Parra‐Medina, 2008; Roche,

2010). The literature examining the implications of population growth has not been immune to these attitudes.

33 Paradigms have emerged from both youth bulge and demographic dividend literature to help practitioners understand the implications of youth-dominant societies. These paradigms share some commonalities, but literature produced by each also carries some marked distinctions. The work of theorists in each area has done much to bring attention to the youth’s capacity to impact society. It has shed light on the role of the public policy contexts in countering the challenges and/or taking advantage of the benefits of youth disproportionality. Finally, their research has reiterated the linkages between youth well-being and the welfare of society as a whole.

Nonetheless, their success in highlighting the social aspects of youth disproportionality has inhibited their attention to the problems of youth themselves.

The researcher posits that both youth bulge and demographic dividend theory must be more intentional about examining youth vulnerability. Theorists, thus far, have given only cursory attention to the issue of resources available to youth, how they are made available, and/or which are most relevant to mobilizing youth towards collective goals.

Both paradigms would benefit from further attention to understanding the degree to which youth have access to public resources.

Youth Bulge scholarship represents the earliest efforts to interrogate the implications of youth disproportionality. Initially, scholars concentrated on establishing a connection between a population’s age breakdown and drastic social change. As their research interests progressed, however, proponents of this theory have directed their inquiries towards national defense and security concerns, largely neglecting the issue of YD.

34 2.2.1 “Youth Bulge”

Herbert Moller (1968) was among the first scholars to suggest that societies with younger median ages merit special attention. He noted that some of society’s most drastic changes, dating back to the Protestant Reformation, can be traced to periods when young people constituted a large proportion of society (Moller, 1968).

While acknowledging that his findings lacked systematic, empirical rigor, Moller’s (1968) work emphasized a critical distinction between “young” societies and those with more diverse age distributions. This framing of the issue and emphasis on the need to study the implications of these demographic trends more conscientiously led to the articulation of several enduring questions concerning the sociopolitical character of young societies and their efforts to develop. Among them: Is there evidence that youth-dominant societies are inherently different from societies with other types of age distributions? In what ways are they different? At what point and by what criteria can scholars identify a society as exceedingly “young”? Even if the initial questions above could be answered, does evidence confirm patterns to indicate that substantial youth populations are deterministic—however, they are defined—of either subjectively positive or negative social disruptions with any regularity? What factors would—or could—be correlated with behavioral patterns in majority youth societies? While Moller (1968) himself offered little direction concerning whether youth were behaving in a normatively good or bad way, attempts to rise to the challenge of asking the questions had varying degrees of success.

Works by Fuller, Huntington, Wiener, and others represent responses to this challenge. Collectively, their research exemplifies a renewed interest in youth since the 1990s. For instance, when Fuller coined the term “youth bulge,” he described it as a phenomenon when “the third and fourth age cohorts (ages 15-l9 and 20-24) reach a

35 proportion of 20 percent or more of total population” (G. Fuller, 1995; G. Fuller &

Pitts, 1990, p. 9). Huntington (1996) advanced the theory that youth bulges above a certain level make countries especially conflict-prone. Scholars following Fuller (1995) and Huntington’s (1996) line of reasoning took the position that there is a difference between nations with younger age demographics and older populations that often manifests itself in sociopolitical disruption (Goldstone et al., 2005). This belief became the cornerstone of youth bulge theory (Schomaker, 2013). This line of inquiry spurred an array of studies into the extent to which age is associated with civil conflict

(Cincotta, Engelman, & Anastasion, 2003; Goldstone, 2002; Homer-Dixon, 1994; Leahy, Engelman, Vogel, Haddock, & Preston, 2007), revolutions (Kennedy, 1994), genocides (D. N. Smith & Gourevitch, 1999), civil war (Staveteig, 2006), the onset of ethnic wars (Esty et al., 1999), non-ethnic war (Yair & Miodownik, 2014), and extremism (Lia, 2007; Mccue & Haahr, 2008; Sciolino, 2001). The 1990s era also saw the adoption of an epistemological bent. Large N studies of whether the 20 percent threshold was appropriate began to dominate the literature. Studies aggregated data on conflicts as far as the 1950s to the present to identify the statistical significance of youth bulge to domestic and international strife (Cincotta et al., 2003; Fluckiger & Ludwig, 2018; Fukuda-Parr, Greenstein, &

Stewart, 2013; Tadjoeddin, Chowdhury, & Murshed, 2012; Urdal, 2006). The most well-known example of this was Henrik Urdal (2004), who projected that: “An increase in youth bulges of one percentage point is associated with an increased likelihood of conflict of around 7%” (p. 9). Findings from their research were often conflicting and led most to conclude that there is no clear threshold at which youth

36 will engage in conflict (Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation, 2010; Ware,

2005). Moller did not label youth as a danger, but he gave special attention to their role in catalyzing “disruptive social change” and “as one of the crucial reality factors conditioning political and cultural developments” (Moller, 1968, p. 237; Urdal, 2006). This trend in youth bulge theory of highlighting the potential threat youth as “loose molecules in a very unstable social fluid” ready to “ignite” was prevalent (Kaplan, 1994, p. 46). Neo-Malthusians even predicted that intense competition for resources spurred by population growth would “lead to a sense of absolute or relative deprivation” (Kahl, 2002, p. 261). In other words, the deficiency in what youth actually need and/or expect to have from their society would ultimately fuel upheaval.

Youth bulge theory was not initially designed to consider the needs of young people nor to advocate on their behalf. The rise of youth bulge theory coincided with a period of alarm and moral panic about youth on a global scale (Sukarieh & Tannock,

2018). The intent of much of the literature produced was to advise high-income countries, namely those in the West, on impending threats to their culture, safety, and economic systems (Kaplan, 1994). Many of its key authors hail from institutions like the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the Political Instability Task Force, and private advocacy groups (Beehner, 2007; Hvistendahl, 2011). As such, the literature is, at times, limited by its orientations towards “the interests of those who advance it”

(Hendrixson, 2003). Even the identification of youth as a ‘bulge’ arguably provokes imagery of the role of youth in ‘young’ societies as anomalous, malformed, and potentially harmful.

37 The theory was riddled with critiques from YD practitioners and youth advocates of scholars’ portrayal of young men as volatile and desperate (Bay & Donham, 2007; Hendrixson, 2003; Marc Sommers, 2006). Development theorists responded by increasing their attention to the influence of resource deprivation on the trajectories of young societies (G. E. Fuller, 2003; Goldstone, 2002). Education (Barakat & Urdal, 2009; Collier & Hoeffler, 2004), unemployment (Mastny, 2004; Ware, 2005), low economic performance (Bøås, 2004), political participation (Cincotta, 2008b; Urdal, 2006), and national policy (Fearon & Laitin, 2003; Goldstone et al., 2005) were found to be recurrent indicators of youth bulge outcomes. Cincotta (2008a, 2008b) famously argued that fear of youth and society’s willingness to accept harsh policies to suppress their voice had prevented democratic traditions in young societies from “grow[ing] up”—or making substantive shifts away from autocratic and/or oligarchical decision-making. In spite of their emphasis on security, theorists have also accentuated the significance of geopolitical and temporal contexts for the study of youth-dominant societies. When and where youth populations are growing have been critical aspects of scholars’ concerns about the phenomenon of youth disproportionality. Youth Bulge literature argues that under-resourced youths in regions where conflict is prevalent are at elevated risk for socio-political instability (Huntington, 1996). As the research has progressed, other scholars have proposed that young societies are also on the precipice of economic prosperity, provided that they manage youth cohorts effectively.

Proponents of the alternative interpretation of the implications of youth disproportionality are known as Demographic Dividend theorists.

38 2.2.2 “Demographic Dividend”

Conflict is—and should be—a formidable concern. However, a holistic approach to comprehending and addressing ‘bulges’ is critical to preventing conflict and social unrest, and exposing the potential positive contributions of youth in African societies. The demographic dividend approach was an attempt to offer an alternative explanation of the implications of youth-dominant populations. In response to the use of the youth bulge “as a politico-demographic term, with the connotation of a (male- dominated) security problem,” the demographic dividend theory examines the economic potential of societies in “demographic transition,” or experiencing a period when the bulk of the population is in the young adult stage (Roche, 2010, p. 406; Ross, 2004; Roudi-Fahimi et al., 2007). This orientation emerged as a rebuke of pessimistic outlooks about the capacity of youth being proffered by “youth bulge” theorists. Its adherents state that they are “more interested in Adam Smith, and in his narrative of the power of the market, than in Thomas Malthus’s dire predictions about population” (D. E. Bloom, Canning, Fink, & Finlay, 2012, p. 17).

Economists, public planners, demographers, and intergovernmental organizations have all contributed to the advancement of the hypothesis that countries can experience a period of “accelerated economic growth that begins with changes in the age structure of a country’s population as it transitions from high to low birth and death rates” (Gribble & Bremner, 2012, p. 2). During this period, “the labor force temporarily grows more rapidly than the population dependent on it, freeing up resources for investment in economic development and family welfare (Lee & Mason, 2007). The benefits that accrue from this uptick of young people joining the labor force are referred to as the “demographic dividend” (Paudel, 2014). The fundamental

39 goal of its adherents is to encourage nations to aspire towards a pivotal threshold of

“demographic transition” (Saad, 2011). Rather than debating the appropriate percentage of young people necessary to effect change, demographic dividend theorists employ an economic “support ratio.”

The support ratio is a calculation of the share of the working-age population to the total population (Prskawetz & Sambt, 2014). These theorists conjectured that “By assumption, growth of 1% in the share that is employed – will cause extra growth of 1% in GDP/head, simply because each worker has to ‘carry’ fewer dependents”

(Eastwood & Lipton, 2012, p. 27). Some scholars have gone so far as to produce actual GDP projections of how much the “dividends” or “demographic bonus” should be for particular countries (Attanasio, Kitao, & Violante, 2006; D. Bloom, Humair,

Rosenberg, Sevilla, & Trussell, 2006; Dramani & Ndiaye, 2012). Early research concentrated on emerging economies, particularly in Asia (D. E. Bloom & Williamson, 1998; Phang, 2005; Ross, 2004). Many of the initial studies examined countries already experiencing an economic uptick. Researchers conducted quantitative studies to reinforce the validity of the relationship between societies dominated by adults and economic well-being. The demographic dividend theory’s explanatory capacity varies, however, outside of the original “Asian Tigers”

(Bongaarts & Bulatao, 1999; Fang & Wen, 2012; G. W. Jones, 2012; Mehrotra, 2014; Pool, 2007; C. H. Wood & Roberts, 2005). These inconsistencies prompted supporters to emphasize that youth disproportionality represents a “window of opportunity,” rather than an automatic benefit (Williamson, 2013; L. R. Wong, Carvalho, & Comité para la Cooperación Internacional en las Investigaciones Nacionales sobre Demografía, 2006).

40 Africa, one of the most youthful regions in the world, has been particularly troublesome for demographic dividend theorists. The premise that treats decreasing fertility rates as an inevitability has been especially problematic (D. E. Bloom et al., 2007; Gribble & Bremner, 2012). Africa’s persistently high dependency ratios and the lack of indication that birthrates will decrease anytime soon in a number of Sub- Saharan countries have spurred much debate over the applicability of the dividend concept to African nations’ contexts (D. E. Bloom et al., 2007; Desai, 2015; Madsen, 2012; Page, 2013; Ross, 2004). Bloom, Sachs, Collier, and Udry’s (1998) report outlining some of the main constraints on Africa’s capacity to reap dividends, for example, argued that many countries on the continent are too “youth-heavy” to achieve their demographic bonuses (p. 211).

More recent literature has supported the assertion that Sub Saharan African countries also have the capacity to develop with the help of young populations (Ahmed, Cruz, Go, Maliszewska, & Osorio-Rodarte, 2016; Cleland, 2012;

Drummond, Thakoor, & Yu, 2014; Reed & Mberu, 2014). Even Bloom has revised his conclusions since the publication of the 1998 report (D. E. Bloom et al., 2007; D. E. Bloom, Rosenberg, & Trussell, 2013; D. Bloom et al., 2006). Nonetheless, demographic dividend scholars have repeatedly linked African nations’ ability to actualize economic prosperity to the quality of their resource investments. They emphasize that a well-developed “policy mix” is fundamental to catalyzing youth- driven “dividends” (Meagher, 2016; Thakoor & Wakeman-Linn, 2016). These theorists cite education (Belfield & Levin, 2007; Cuaresma, Lutz, & Sanderson, 2014), employment opportunities (Drummond et al., 2014; Mason & Lee, 2004), health services (Gu, 2003; Rau, 2003), and gender equity (D. E. Bloom et al., 2007) as

41 pivotal to making economic gains. Youth Bulge scholars have also emphasized that public resources—or the lack thereof—can contribute to the ways youths engage with society. Despite their many points of contention, resources are but one area on which scholars from both orientations agree.

2.2.3 Similarities

Both youth bulge and demographic dividend’s theoretical approaches to studying young societies have advantages for demonstrating the significance of age demographics for development trajectories. These paradigms are often discussed as polemics, but they feature numerous similarities. The strengths of both theoretical frameworks are that their efforts underscore youth’s potential to have vast collective impacts on society; accentuate the significance of geopolitical and temporal contexts when evaluating youth’s behavior; demonstrate the transformational possibilities of strategic policy and resource investments in social stability and/or economic growth; and focus on the plausible consequences of young age structures at the macro-level. In spite of their advances, the literature in support of both theories is in its embryonic stages. Theorists must further develop the concept that the fate of societies experiencing youth disproportionality is more than a simple function of population figures if they wish to remain relevant. Failure to recognize youths’ dynamism and to constantly devise and revise appropriate indicators to assess their well-being has severely impaired both theoretical traditions. Youth are a dynamic group, and inquiry surrounding them should follow suit. Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theorists would benefit from a concerted effort to alleviate gaps in the literature by developing more robust

42 measurements to assess the status of youth in environments of disproportionality.

Instead of relying wholly on metrics that describe the socio-economic situation of the general public, both theories might be better served by establishing youth-specific markers of development. They should also seek to be more contemplative about the significance of youth-public sector relationships when evaluating and/or predicting youth behavior. Material resources are only one facet of youths’ relationships with public sector entities. Understanding how youth engage with their governments and communities also involves a deeper consideration of how their governments and communities engage with them. Youth empowerment is another area that is not adequately addressed by Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theorists.

Both sets of theories emphasize the collective power of youth while largely neglecting the subject of youth empowerment. With the exception of a few notable examples, (e.g., Hilker & Fraser, 2009; Marc Sommers, 2006), few scholars have given more than perfunctory attention to the strategy of proactively encouraging youth to impact society. Barker & Ricardo (2005), Dowdney (2005), and Specht (2006) have even made the observation that violence and conflict can be a source of empowerment for discouraged youth.

Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theorists have fervently argued that the dilemma of youth disproportionality is not simply that the phenomenon is occurring, but the literature emphasizes the import of when and where these changes are taking place. Approximately 25% of all people will be African in the next 15 to 20 years (You et al., 2014). Given the magnitude of the youth populations on the continent, the state of Africa’s young societies remains under-researched. Increasing

43 the focus on the dynamics of these burgeoning populations is imperative, especially given their resource constraints. Subsequent research must go beyond noting whether resources and policies exist in a general sense and investigate more conscientiously the degree to which these resources are accessible to young people in need.

Greater effort needs to be made by theorists to create and utilize youth-specific indicators of well-being and determine whether societies show evidence of advancing or regressing. Finally, understanding how these nations make the difference between ‘bulges’ and ‘dividends’ requires that scholars devote greater attention to youths’ agency and youth-public sector relationships.

2.3 Part II: Considering Youth Agency

2.3.1 Youth Development (YD) At the most fundamental level, YD is the process of supporting young people as they exercise their individual and collective agency. An explanation of YD in

Senegal, or Africa more generally, must necessarily address the themes of authority and conceptualizations of public participation. The discussion that follows explores the interrelationships between YD, public participation, and authority. It analyzes how the presence of an array of cultural models has colored the way YD has been implemented throughout Senegal’s history, as well as the opportunities for sociopolitical participation available to young people. Three trends are discernible in the literature with regard to the conceptualization and implementation of YD activities. Scholars emphasize the significance of indigenous systems of YD. The literature describes the ways the incursion of European influence signaled a shift in youths’ roles in society, and

44 consequently, how they were prepared to assume them. Finally, the inquiry has focused on neocolonial—or contemporary—YD. The latter research takes a particular interest in how the transition to adulthood impacts young peoples’ relationships with their governance structures and communities.

It is the researchers’ position that having a disproportionate population of youth is neither a cause to celebrate nor a cause for dismay for its own sake. How young people are integrated into society, equipped to participate, and the messages they receive about their relationship with the wider community can have a tremendous influence on the fate of young societies. Gary Fuller (2003) reiterated this point when he addressed the often-posed question of whether youth disproportionality should be looked at as a positive or negative phenomenon. Fuller (2003) explained that youth disproportionality “in and of itself represents a ‘neutral value’; that is, it can be socially and economically either beneficial or harmful” (p. 11). Fuller (2003) went on to assert that “requisite conditions,” such as having adequate capital resources, educational facilities, and systems designed to offer young people a means of directing their energies towards positive outlets, can impact the collective behavior of youths in young societies. The present study takes the position that the greatest contribution of Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theorists is not their findings of the potential consequences of youth disproportionality, but rather, the attention they have brought to the significance of “requisite conditions” on the fate of young societies.

Unfortunately, the framing of the issue of youth disproportionality—by Fuller and other Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theorists—has had the tendency to focus on outcomes while failing to further elaborate on how young societies can improve the quality of “requisite conditions” to better meet the needs of their

45 populations (Marc Sommers, 2006). The major problem with overemphasizing the importance of forecasting outcomes for disproportionately young societies is that it detracts from more substantive discussions about the inputs and processes involved in facilitating development in environments experiencing youth disproportionality

(Hendrixson, 2003). One of the main queries underpinning the present study is: What are the “requisite conditions” for better outcomes in Africa’s young societies? Before examining the “requisite conditions” for young societies like Senegal to flourish; however, it is important to have a basic understanding of the contexts of YD and participation in the research setting (G. E. Fuller, 2003).

2.3.1.1 Senegalese YD: The Milieu of Cultural Models

The current milieu of YD practices in Senegal has been shaped by both history and a confluence of cultural values concerning what roles young people should have in public life. Considering only knowledge produced by African Studies scholars would fail to appreciate the ways in which the lived experiences of young people on the continent are part of a much broader framework of global interdependence (Philipps, 2018). Alternatively, drawing solely on YD literature that has its roots in conventional, Euro-American YD would imply that African communities were a tabula rasa, or clean slate, before coming into contact with foreign influences. The present section presents an interdisciplinary perspective of the literature addressing youth participation and YD in the African context, with a special focus on urban Senegal.

Although the researcher emphasizes that there are aspects of youth disproportionality in African nations that differ from other parts of the world, it is also important to recognize that Africa’s youth are members of a global society. Both traditional and imported paradigms for YD co-exist within African and particularly

46 Senegalese society. In Leopold Rosenmayr’s (1993) study of attitudes about elders and social structures in Senegal, he found that pre-colonial structures of age relations are still pervasive, even in urban populations. Rosenmayr (1988, 1993), a sociologist, has conducted ethnographic work on intergenerational relationships in a variety of communities. The conclusion he draws from his study is that a “chaotic pluralism” of African and non-African symbols and sociocultural traditions co-existing within the social space, is typical of African metropolises (Rosenmayr, 1993). Moreover, indigenous and imported cultural values are influence on how youth are permitted to participate in Senegalese society. The perception of Senegal, and other African social environments, as “chaotic” has contributed to a long-standing dilemma for scholarship concerning youths in

Africa. According to Joschka Phillips (2018), knowledge about Africa’s young people has been limited by a climate of “academic bifurcation.” The ultimate effect of the “bifurcation” is that Euro-American and African youths are treated as subjects of inquiry that are wholly unrelated (Philipps, 2018). Instead, what Rosenmayr (1993) described as “chaotic pluralism” seems to share some similarities with what David Harding (2010) identified as “cultural heterogeneity.” Cultural heterogeneity is defined as “the presence of a diverse array of competing and conflicting cultural models” (Harding, 2010, p. 144). With regards to African Studies scholarship, three key eras are used as points of reference in describing major shifts in the soiciocultural fabric: the pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial eras. Each of the historical eras continues to influence sociopolitical thought about who is considered a youth and/or adult, what roles they should have in their societies, and what milestones they should have reached at a given point in their

47 lives (Argenti & Durham, 2013). Although practices originating in each of these eras are constantly undergoing change, the cultural models that emerged from each of these periods are still evident in Senegalese society today. It is important to have at least a basic understanding of the type of cultural heterogeneity that exists in Senegal because these systems still have a role in shaping young people’s experiences with YD and participation. Put another way, Senegalese youths are attempting to exercise their citizenship within a multifaceted system of attitudes and regulations governing how young people engage with their communities.

2.3.1.2 Layers of Cultural Models: Merging Tradition and Necessity

Africa’s pre-colonial era is known for its deeply embedded traditions and well- defined social systems governing how youths were prepared to take on full participation in society (Cooper, 2008; Nsamenang & Lamb, 2005; Van Staden, 2001). African societies have been found to have some of the most explicit and entrenched YD practices of any world region. The study of African “gerontocracies” where governance by elder members of society is privileged has been the subject of numerous anthropological analyses (J. Adebayo, 2018; Alber, Van Der Geest, & Whyte, 2008; Apt, 1992). Some Africanists argue that understanding traditional cultural models of YD and participation requires a differing frame of reference than the one that is typically used in conventional youth studies (Nsamenang, 2006). Scholars focused on Africa have repeatedly emphasized the importance of communitarianism within African societies (Keller, 2003; Shizha, 2014). Mediums of social participation and YD available to youth were not always voluntary, nor were they entirely democratic (Gaibazzi, 2008; Orvis, 2001). Some of the most prevalent of these practices, like initiation rites, age-grade systems, and giving of bridewealth

48 payments, were attached to long-held communal beliefs about responsibility, respect, and the appropriate protocols for interacting with others (Dramani & Ndiaye, 2012). Concepts of age and life stage were often at the center of these systems. Paolo Gaibaizzi (2008) emphasized the distinctions in indigenous philosophies about age and participation in his ethnographic study of the evolution of the “age group system” in a village of Senegambia (located in the present-day Senegal-Gambia region). Age group systems, which were prevalent in pre-colonial East and West African communities, were designed to gradually and collectively orient young people to their rights and responsibilities at a particular stage in life (LeVine & Sangree, 1962). The particularities of age group systems varied by ethnicity. Ethnographic studies done amongst West African ethnicities practicing age group systems have found that one’s age set could determine one’s work responsibilities (Hawthorne, 2001; Otite, 1972), when one could undergo rites of passage to woman- or manhood, the extent of one’s public decision-making influence (Gaibazzi, 2008; Weil, 1971), and, in some cases, even what an individual wore (Weil, 1971). One common effect of age-grade systems was that they were a means of explicitly reinforcing who was a senior, junior, or equal as a context for social interaction (Brown, 1951). Gaibazzi (2008) concluded that, although the age group system was rooted in a structure of

“institutionalised [sic] seniority ranking between age groups,” it also served as a “vehicle for expressing and acting out youths’ interests” because of the ways in which shared experiences amongst members of age-sets promoted cohesiveness (p. 25).

In their study of 21 African age group societies, Foner and Kertzer (1978) found variances across ethnicities in what age ranges were in an age-set, the rights and responsibilities conferred on a particular age-set, and at what point an age-set gained

49 full adult status. Their work illustrates that the specificities of an age group system are reflective of sociocultural attitudes about the relationship between age and public participation (Foner & Kertzer, 1978). Even in societies without age group systems, initiation ceremonies marking one’s passage to adulthood were common in Senegal.

When and how initiation rites took place held significance for local conceptualizations of who was an adult, and by extension, who had the right to fully participate in society. Some ethnicities began initiating youth to manhood or womanhood as young as four or six years old, while others might undergo initiation as late as 40 years old

(R. M. Baum, 1999; Kouba & Muasher, 1985; C. I. Niang & Boiro, 2007). Precolonial YD practices are not as commonplace as they once were, but traditional philosophies and practices still play a strong role in the character of public life in both rural and urban Senegal (Rosenmayr, 1993). One such vestige of traditional YD is Senegal’s national sport: wrestling. Wrestling in Senegal has been hybridized and commercialized into a lucrative industry whose viewership surpasses soccer (Bojang Jnr, 2011; Skelton, 2010). According to Ali Mazrui (1975), age-sets and the transition to adulthood for young men in African communities were often closely linked with the military organization of society. As a participant-observer in traditional wrestling activities with the Diola of Southern Senegal, Robert Baum

(2017) described the historical and religious significance of traditional wrestling. He notes that wrestling and the rituals attached to it were a mechanism of YD that helped young men improve their skills as warriors and reinforced to young women that they had reached marriageable age (Baum, 2017). M’baye (2013) asserts that even in its modernized form, wrestlers’ “frequently acknowledge the importance of their elders and peers, and at times, they pay them elaborate respects” (p. 188).

50 It would be fallacious to assume that all young people were satisfied with their statuses in precolonial cultural models. According to Richard Waller (2006), “While there is much evidence of strain in the precolonial past, there is little indication of societies dividing along the axis of age” (p. 78). The advent of European incursion into the continent brought a new context for youth participation and altered preexisting systems of YD (Mazrui, 1975; Waller, 2006). Youth were key figures in both resistance to and compliance with TransAtlantic slave traders and colonial administrators (G. J. Abbink, De Bruijn, & Van Walraven, 2003; Ginio, 2006; Ranger,

1997). The alternative systems of participation instituted by the colonial governments provided a new level of authority to youths that could not be achieved within traditional social structures (Waller, 2006). By virtue of their colonial backing, youths became equal to or even surpassed the authority of elders, regardless of whether they had undergone traditional rites. Benedict Carton’s (Buggenhagen, 2001; C. I. Niang &

Boiro, 2007; Ogbu, 1978) book, entitled Blood from your Children, identifies ways in which colonial governments undermined established cultural models. Among them, he argued that the ability of young people to participate in wage labor, to curry favor with colonial administrators, and/or to bring disagreements with others to colonial arbiters instead of elders enabled them to transgress the boundaries of youth into adulthood (Carton, 2000; R. Roberts & Mann, 1991). Terence Ranger (1997) highlighted how colonial representatives selectively upheld and even invented ‘tradition’ to maintain control over indigenous populations. The nexus between age, power, and participation has been relevant throughout Senegal’s history. Youths were frequently targeted by the colonial government to

51 counterbalance the authority of traditional leaders (Waller, 2006). The French colonial government also placed a special emphasis on assimilating Senegalese youths into a Euro-centric cultural model in order to assure their allegiance to France (Ba, 1973). Konate (2007) provides a detailed account of colonial social control over young

Senegalese. He posits that “This control was, at its simplest, a way of manipulating the movements of youth labor and the flow of young migrants from rural areas, but it also attempted to control the behavior of minor delinquents within and around urban areas” (Konate, 2007, p. 39). Alice Conklin (1998) explains that schooling was used to inculcate the young with Euro-centric values and privilege Western education as a means of circumventing traditional sociocultural arrangements. According to Ruth Ginio (2006), YD also played an important role in the French ‘civilizing’ agenda because they provided a means of influencing youths in their leisure time. This era saw the importation of youth-serving organizations that espoused Euro-centric values concerning how young people should behave and develop. According to Louisa Rice

(2010), cultural centers—which still exist today—created as a means of providing elite, educated youths with access to YD activities while simultaneously monitoring them. Youths also enjoyed greater status and empowerment from their communities in the colonial era—and the period immediately following—because they had the greatest capacity to defend their communities from the threat of slave traffickers and/or European incursions (Waller, 2006). African youths were sometimes encouraged by elders to insert themselves into the sociopolitical realm during and after the colonial era (Lambert, 1993). Not only were youth groups and student movements responsible for maintaining pressure on colonial governments to end systems of

52 oppression, but they spearheaded calls for a greater voice for Africans and those of

African descent globally (Wilder, 2005). President Senghor, Senegal’s “poet-president,” is still remembered for his role at the forefront of a transcontinental effort known as the Negritude/ “blackness” movement (Ba, 1973; Thompson, 2002). The Negritude movement, which was initiated by Senghor and others during their time as university students in France, was based on a desire to promote solidarity among Africans and members of the African diaspora (Ba, 1973).

Senegal’s independence signified the introduction of yet another cultural model. The new cultural model was not entirely divorced from pre-colonial cultural models, but it also retained certain elements that were characteristic of the French colonial system. YD, in the form of Western education, supplanted tradition as a paradigm for youth participation in multi-ethnic and rapidly urbanizing post-colonial African society (Sesay, 2014). In Francophone Africa, the cadres of young, foreign- educated men who became known as the “Popular Front” generation took on roles that were once reserved for the elders (Zolberg, 1969). According to Aristide Zolberg’s (1969) analysis, not only did post-colonial politicians look to youth for support, but it was common amongst the new generation of African leaders to “legitimize” their claims to govern on the basis of being young. The hybridized cultural model, which the researcher argues, is still in force today, places young people in a paradoxical situation. Young people are looked to as leaders against global inequity, while simultaneously being expected to remain within the bounds of traditional cultural models domestically. Mamadou Diouf (2003) describes the post-colonial cultural model as being designed

“to maintain the frontier between elders and juniors that characterized traditional African values, and to put young people at the center of its plans for economic development and national liberation…The paradox is that youths achieved this status only because they were thought of as channeled and supervised by adults” (p. 4).

Senegalese youth can be seen as engaging in a myriad of strategies to be recognized as adults, access resources, and, ultimately, to obtain full participation in society. Harding (2010) concluded that the young men in his analysis responded to the paradoxes of heterogeneity in two ways. In some cases, young people engaged in “model shifting,” where they held a “weaker commitment to the chosen option [of the cultural model] and a lower likelihood of follow-through” (Harding, 2010, p. 156). In other instances, youths adapted by practicing “simultaneity,” which Harding (2010) defines as “combining different aspects of incompatible cultural models” in a way that enables them to subscribe to multiple cultural models simultaneously (Harding, 2010, p. 158). It has been argued that youths have demonstrated the utility of both tactics (Findley, 1989). Frederick Cooper (2008) asserted that “The availability of young people for a wide range of purposes—dutiful sons sustaining a family, patriots, participants in religious movements, violent henchmen—remains part of Africa’s present as well as its past” (p. 194). Frederiksen and Munive (2010) go even further to contend that “’The African state’ has lost its exclusive monopoly of the management of its young population. A myriad of international actors, ranging from the United Nations and Non-Governmental Organizations to charity foundations and international religious associations, are increasingly looking to young people as instruments of change” (p.

54 250). What do these responses to heterogeneity mean for young people’s sense of community (SOC)? How do they perceive their relationships with their communities and government within this complex mosaic?

2.3.2 Sense of Community (SOC)

The SOC literature offers a means of bridging some of the most troublesome gaps in the Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend literature. Rather than focusing exclusively on the outcomes of environments of youth disproportionality, SOC takes a more expansive view of the relationship between resources and attitudes and perceptions of individuals towards their communities. SOC is appropriate for Africa’s young societies because they depend heavily on the community services budget to supplement youth needs. As such, it is important to understand their attitudes about both government and civil society resource provision. SOC scholars generally agree on four main factors affecting social perceptions: feelings of membership, one’s perception of whether they have the ability to influence others in their community, the extent of one’s integration into society, and the establishment of shared, reciprocal connections (McMillan & Chavis, 1986).

According to McMillan and Chavis (1986), one’s perceptions of their community represent an interplay between immediate resources and the extent to which one participates in their local social sphere, i.e., their neighborhood. They posited that, while the community can be both territorial and relational, an analysis of citizens’ sense of community (SOC), requires seeing it as both (McMillan & Chavis,

55 1986). In a later work, Chavis expanded the definition of community in urban environments to include the understanding of community as a network of collective political power (Chavis & Wandersman, 1990). Within a single geographical space, social boundaries exist that can either solidify one’s sense of belonging or facilitate sentiments of marginalization, especially in climates of scarce resources (McMillan &

Chavis, 1986). Beyond interaction within a social space, the formation of SOC is contingent on the perception that one’s community “share[s] in the fate of their common experience” (McMillan, 1996, p. 323). They identify SOC as being related to four key factors: membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connections (McMillan & Chavis, 1986).

Subsequent studies have demonstrated that an individual’s perceived control, in terms of resources (Lindblad, Manturuk, & Quercia, 2013), length of neighborhood tenure (Kasarda & Janowitz, 1974), and social status within the community have impacts on their expressed levels of SOC (Chavis & Wandersman, 1990; Zimmerman

& Zahnise, 1991). Among individuals with few resources, organizations were found to positively impact SOC when they were perceived as a bridge to a wider community

(Speer, Peterson, Armstead, & Allen, 2013).

Brodsky (2009) expanded on SOC by suggesting that it should be conceptualized along a continuum from positive to negative. Through her analysis of decisions of Afghani participants in a resistance organization, she determined that individuals may hold multiple SOCs simultaneously. Each community may fulfill some aspect of the four attributes that McMillan and Chavis (1986) put forth. Where

56 one community fails to meet one’s personal goals, they develop a greater affinity for other organizational associations to which they have access. Brodsky (2009) concluded that the choice of the organizational association was based both on individual-level factors, such as the perceived utility of the group, and structural factors, such as access to resources.

In the present study, the researcher focuses on the dynamics of resource exchange and SOC in YD organizations promoting formal activities, but it must be recognized that they are but one form of YD. If Brodsky’s analysis holds true, where these organizations are perceived as lacking utility, they may gradually foster the development of negative SOC with continued participation.

Youth, in particular, has been long acknowledged as a critical stage in the formation of one’s identity and perceptions of those around them. According to

Adelson and O’Neil (1966), 15 is the approximate age at which young people begin to develop a more nuanced understanding of the connection between government policy and the social sphere. It is at this juncture that youth recognize the roles of government as extending beyond specific, tangible goods and services. In other words, this is the time in life when young people’s SOC begins to take on the complexities of adulthood.

These scholars argue that to formulate their political philosophies, young people use their experiences with their immediately visible authority figures (Adelson

& O’Neil, 1966). For younger people, these authority figures are often older adults who are in close social proximity, such as parents and family members, teachers,

57 neighbors, and/or civic leaders (Carton, 2000). Lines to older adults may not be as easily accessible in environments of youth disproportionality.

In one notable attempt to use a public policy paradigm to address gaps in

Youth Bulge theory, Hart, Atkins, Markey, and Youniss (2004) investigated the difference between civic behavior and knowledge of adolescents in “child saturated” communities and “adult saturated” communities. The study was conducted using aggregated survey data from 28 countries on five continents (Hart, Atkins, Markey, &

Youniss, 2004). These researchers found that adolescents in “child saturated” communities—where children and youths outnumbered adults—were more likely to volunteer but had less civic knowledge than communities with great proportions of older adults (Hart et al., 2004). The present research juxtaposes the YD initiatives of youth-serving, youth-led, and youth-run organizations to better understand whether there is evidence of similar trends concerning civic knowledge, volunteerism, and age relations in YD organizations. In the event that youths with more frequent interactions with older adults have greater levels of civic knowledge and those with greater interaction with peers and children are more inclined to engage in volunteerism, what impact might such trends have on their perceptions of their governments and societies?

2.4 Conclusion

The literature associated with Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theories offers divergent perspectives on the public policy implications of young

58 societies. While Youth Bulge theorists express concerns about the potential consequences when young people lack resources, Demographic Dividend theorists accentuate the prospective economic benefits when the capacities of large youth cohorts are intentionally developed. These frameworks have brought greater attention to the association between public resources and outcomes in young societies. In their efforts to inform policymakers and other scholars, both bodies of literature have devoted inadequate attention to the perspectives of young people. This study contributes to addressing this gap by exploring not only what resources youths have access to, but also how their perceptions of that access colors their attitudes about their place in society—or their SOC.

The SOC literature expands on the Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend literature by placing resource provision in the contexts of relationships. Youth, in particular, are defining new roles in society and developing their political philosophies based on their interactions with those in their social ecology (Adelson & O’Neil,

1966). For Africa’s young societies, this raises the question of how young people perceive the gaps in service on the part of the state. If governments are less able to meet youths’ demands for resources, are they also missing opportunities to build relationships with them? Are youths’ perceptions of their roles as citizens impacted when YD organizations provide public resources in lieu of governments?

Before exploring the subject of perceptions further, it is important to have a sense of the scale of the continent’s young societies. Chapter 3 explores demographic trends at the continental and regional level and provides examples of how public

59 policy approaches have influenced African youths’ relationships with their public sectors. It continues this line by focusing more specifically on the factors that inhibit youths’ interactions with older adults in African contexts. It builds on the discussion of the origins of youth disproportionality to illustrate how low healthcare access, high adolescent birthrates, and other such factors have impacted the proportion of older adults in African societies. The chapter also expounds on regional and national demographic and policy trends that have influenced young people’s citizenship experiences.

60 Chapter 3

AFRICA: A SPECIAL CASE

3.1 Overview

The work of Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theorists share two distinct hallmarks. One, which is repeatedly emphasized throughout this study, is the foundational argument that societies with large cohorts of young adults constitute a distinct class for study. The previous chapter sought to elaborate on this contention by illustrating some of the ubiquities of youth disproportionality and how they can culminate to exacerbate youth vulnerability in a variety of settings. This chapter examines a second—and equally central—premise of both theoretical orientations: the implications of youth disproportionality are both temporal and geopolitical. Put more simply, a critical analysis of the youth disproportionality involves contemplation of the time and sociopolitical environment in which population growth is occurring. The research setting for the current study represents just one example of the challenges and opportunities that exist in Africa’s young societies.

3.1.1 Beyond Senegal: A Conversation about Solutions

An explicit goal of the present study is to contribute to a larger discussion about the conditions of young people throughout Africa. The study seeks to provoke a

61 dialogue about the similarities and differences between the issues faced by Senegalese youths and their counterparts in other young societies of the continent. Lastly, and most importantly, the researcher hopes to participate in the dialogue about potential solutions to the challenges with which young societies must contend.

The data collection process for this study was situated in a single urbanscape in the country of Senegal, but it is important to recognize that the issues it examines are echoed in other metropolises throughout the continent. The contention that African nations—and more specifically, their urbanscapes—share some common threads is contentious, but not novel. There has been a long-standing debate in the field of urban studies about the comparability of cities (Hart et al., 2004). Some argue that cities are rhizomatic and that their singularity should be prioritized over efforts to compare them

(Abu-lughod, 1975). Other scholars concede that urban environments carry some distinct qualities, but that systematically studying similarities and differences among them can inform new understandings of the urban experience (Ward, 2008).

3.1.1.1 Debating Comparability

One branch of the debate surrounding calls into question the appropriateness of comparability and generalization for the continent of Africa (Nijman, 2007). Some have stressed that each region, country, and/or locality differs in terms of its ethnic makeup, political traditions, policy capacity, etc. (Cutter, 2006). Most—if not all— scholars concede that the diversity that exists throughout the continent must be respected (Brockerhoff & Hewett, 2000; Kornprobst, 2002; Wright, 2002; K. B.

Young, 2010). Nevertheless, they have increasingly argued that attention to

62 idiosyncrasies should not devolve into the “balkanization” of the continent (K. B.

Young, 2010). Instead, those in the realms of scholarship, policy, and practice have maintained support for the argument that history has forged some indelible commonalities along economic, social, and political lines amongst Africa’s nations

(Malisa & Nhengeze, 2018; Soyinka-Airewele & Edozie, 2010).

Disciplines like African Studies have made strides in their efforts to highlight diversity while also articulating common experiences and soiciocultural traditions that define the continent’s “Africanness” (Bentahar, 2011). However, even among those that embrace Pan-African orientations, questions of applicability of knowledge produced in Sub Saharan Africa for the problems of North Africa, or vice versa, persist (Asante, 2010). The division of North and Sub Saharan Africa is justified as a means of connoting the geographical separateness, socioreligious, and ethnic differences between the two regions, as opposed to being based on empirical differences (Bentahar, 2011). There are a variety of actors who have refuted the delineation and supported the view that North Africa has a place in discussions of

African issues.

Aside from the inclusion of North Africa in intellectual discourse under the umbrella of the discipline of African Studies, scholars have also argued that the continent’s history is replete with real, tangible policy decisions that have facilitated a common historical experience between North and Sub Saharan Africans. Dustin

Crowley (Olusegun-Joseph, 2012), for example, points to similar historical experiences as a unifying reality for the continent. Ziad Bentahar (2016) builds on

63 Crowley’s (2011) discourse by demonstrating that the North-Sub Saharan division is contradictory to both the intellectual and political tradition of the continent. Bentahar

(2016) provides a chronology of Pan-Africanism spearheaded by North Africans. He argues that, from the commercial and trade exchanges of the ninth century to the

European colonial partition of the continent to the advocacy for African unity by figures like Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, and Mummar Qaddafi of Libya to the convening of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the African Union (AU) in

North African locales, history does not support the conceptualization of North Africa and Sub Saharan Africa as mutually exclusive entities (2011). Opposition to the North

Africa-Sub Saharan lexicon has even provoked the creation of a petition aimed at abolishing its use in international organizations (Bentahar, 2011).

The goal is not to call into question North Africa’s Arab heritage, but rather to demonstrate that in terms of history, the developmental challenges, and policy coordination, there is a preponderance of evidence that North Africa is not as far removed from the rest continent as has been portrayed. The terms “North Africa” and

“Sub Saharan Africa” are employed several times in the present manuscript. It should be understood that the use of the terms is not in support of the belief that the two should be contemplated separately but rather the byproduct of how some data is presented by the secondary sources consulted in the writing of this document. To this end, Chapter 3 situates the case of Senegal within a broader discussion of the status of youth-specific development across Africa and contemplates the trends in governmental responses to their needs. The data included in the chapter is intended to

64 lend support to the researcher’s position that youth disproportionality has impacted all of Africa’s regions to some extent. The scope and scale of the problems may vary from place to place, but the demographic dominance of young people and the prevalence of age-based migration amongst disenchanted African youths mean that the status of young people on the continent should be a concern on a global scale.

Chapter 3 examines the extent to which the origins and manifestations of the consequences of youth disproportionality are similar across the continent of Africa. It utilizes secondary data from the 2018-2019 CIA World Factbook to provide a statistical overview of youth demographics at a continental level. Chapter 3 provides a brief summary of trends in youth development (YD) policy and their consequences for youth well-being based on data generated from Youth Policy Labs country factsheets.

This chapter also provides some foundational insights into the administrative mechanisms African governments use to disseminate resources specifically to youth.

Because of the expansiveness of the continent, this chapter compares and contrasts how the effects of youth disproportionality have manifested themselves in each of the five regions and highlight notable examples from specific countries of how youth- public sector relationships have been built and broken.

3.1.2 Notes on Methodology Presentation of the issue of youth disproportionality in this study is intentionally arranged in a way that both provides a global overview while concomitantly emphasizing distinctive characteristics of African and/or Senegalese urban youth demographics. While designed to carry some degree of generalizability

65 for the situation of the 21st-century youth cohort, the findings are reflective of some of the unique aspects of African societies in general—as well as of West African, francophone African societies, the Republic of Senegal, and/or Dakar particularly. The conceptual framework and methodological approach emanate from theories that address the status of world youth and offer an explicit consideration of how certain concepts are applicable to African, West African, and/or Dakar youth specifically.

This chapter builds on these considerations by examining recent data demonstrating the scope and scale of conditions relative to the lives of youth across the continent.

The data that follow are derived principally from information provided by the

United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook 2018-2019, the youth-focused research institute: Youthpolicy.org, and the Global Youth Development

Index and Report 2016. These sources were selected based on their reputations for reliability as well as their capacities to furnish some of the most recently available information.

3.1.2.1 CIA World Factbook The World Factbook, formerly known as the National Intelligence Survey

(NIS), is sourced by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (Karimi,

2010; Onyeani, 2009). Its publicly available version has been in operation since 1975 and provides background information and vital statistics for approximately 267 countries, territories, and political entities (2018). To provide the most complete information possible, some statistics, especially those related to population, are

66 derived from analysts’ estimates for the year: 2017 (CIA, 2018). This database is updated annually and includes detailed, transparent notes on its data collection methodology and sources (CIA, 2018). Data related to total population, age distributions, median age, dependency ratios, fertility ratios, population and urban growth rates, the proportion of the population living in urban areas, budgets as a percentage of GDP, school life expectancies, unemployment, percentage of revenue generated from taxes, and the percentage of the population living below poverty are based on the Factbook. Collective statistics describing regional and/or continental trends were produced by the researcher by compiling information from individual country factsheets into a comprehensive database.

3.1.2.2 Youth Policy Labs

Youthpolicy.org was established in 2011 as a project of the Youth Policy Labs.

Like the World Factbook, the Youthpolicy.org database is principally sourced with information from national governments and international governance institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the United Nations (CIA, 2018).

This database focuses exclusively on youth and the implications of youth-related trends and national-level policies on youths’ well-being (Youthpolicy.org, 2018a).

Information regarding the Human Development Index (HDI), Youth Development

Index (YDI), youth policy and institutions, their budgets and programming, national youth organizations, and educational expenditures as a percentage of governmental expenditure is based on country factsheets provided by Youthpolicy.org.

67 3.1.2.3 Global Youth Development Index (YDI) and Report 2016

The Global Youth Development Index (YDI) is produced by the office of the

Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and is sourced in part by data from Youth

Policy Labs (Youthpolicy.org, 2018a). This effort aggregated youth-specific data to aid analysis and policy-making on youth issues. Modeled on the Human Development

Index (HDI), the YDI reports the status of youth (aged 15-29 years) across 183 countries (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016).

The YDI’s indicators focus specifically on issues impacting young people, whereas the HDI measures the development of a country’s citizens irrespective of their ages. The score each country receives assesses the well-being of youth in each country with respect to “five distinct domains or key aspects of youth development:

Education, Health and Well-being, Employment and Opportunity, Political

Participation and Civic Participation” (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016).

3.1.2.4 Regional Delineations

In order to adhere to the conventional regional delineations, the researcher classified countries according to the United Nations’ M49 Standards for each region

(Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016, p. 12). References to the region of “Northern

Africa” nations include Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, and the semiautonomous entity of Western Sahara. The term “Eastern Africa” describes the countries of Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar,

Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South Sudan,

Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

68 “Western Africa” denotes the nations of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde,

Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania,

Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. “Central Africa” refers to Angola,

Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo,

Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, and Sao Tome/Principe, collectively. The term “Southern Africa” designates the countries of Botswana,

Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland. These conventional regional delineations are used to explore the pervasiveness the youth disproportionality on the

African continent. Selected countries are highlighted to illustrate unique features prevalent in a region.

A second challenge of considering youth disproportionality is the inconsistencies surrounding the use of the term “youth.” Not only do national governments define who is a young person differently, but international bodies that influence youth-specific public policy on the continent do not describe young people uniformly either. Section 3.1.2.5 explains the contention surrounding who is considered a youth and provides a justification for how the term is operationalized for the purposes of the present study.

3.1.2.5 Operationalization of Youth

Although this study operationalizes the term “youth” as consisting of individuals aged 15 to 35 years old, contending definitions of what age segment constitutes youth make precise calculations of the young adult population difficult. Western nations, like the United States, and international governing bodies, like the United Nations, classify

69 “youth” as between the ages of 15 and 24 years old (UN DESA, 1999). Even nations where the legal convention does include 35 years old or older among “youth,” it is not uncommon for official census data to use the 15 to 24-year delineation when describing the age distribution. Consequentially, much of the available data on demographic trends of the continent of Africa follow similar conventions. As Table 1 below demonstrates, however, even by international conventions, the issue of youth disproportionality is salient for the entirety of the continent.

3.2 Youth Demographic Snapshot

While youth-related scholarship produced in the contexts of aging societies and/or demographically stable populations can be resourceful, understanding the scope and scale of youth disproportionality from an Africa-centric perspective is imperative.

The continent is far from monolithic, but there are trends that can be observed across numerous geographic territories, governmental entities, and/or ethnic groups. African governments must contend with many of the same contemporary issues that permeate other societies, but the significance of time and place for the youth disproportionality

African countries are currently experiencing cannot be overemphasized. Certain types of vulnerability exhibited in contemporary African youth populations may be either virtually nonexistent or lacking in intensity in other world regions. Table 1 (below) illustrates this point by juxtaposing indicators of Africa’s age structure with those of the United States—an aging country—and world averages, which are inclusive of both youthful and aging societies. The figures in this table are illustrative of the extent to which youth-specific policy contexts vary intra- and extra-continentally.

70 Table 2: Age Structure Indicators (By Region)

Population Median Age Aged 15-24 Years Northern Africa 26.1 17.56% Eastern Africa 20.38 19.43% Western Africa 19.28 19.72% Central Africa 18.56 19.85% Southern Africa 23.74 19.68% Continent-wide 21.62 19.25% United States 38.2 13.12% World 30.6 15.77%

Table 1 uses two key indicators of age distribution to demonstrate the scope and scale of youth disproportion in Africa: median age and percentage of the youth

(15-24 years old) population. The median age is a figure that represents the midpoint of a population’s age distribution—or the age of a typical citizen. Exactly half the population is older than the median age, and exactly half the population is younger.

The percentage share of youth highlights the magnitude of this issue at present.

The average median age for countries on the continent is 21.62 years old. The average median age for African presidents was 62 years old (Commonwealth

Secretariat, 2016). The variances across regions are addressed more fully later in this chapter. It is notable, however, that the average median age in all of the regions is younger than the world average of 30.6 years old (Yahya, 2017). The contrast between the US and Africa’s regions is even starker. There is more than a 16-year difference

71 between the US median age and the average median age for the continent. Even

Northern Africa, the most mature region, there is a 12-year age gap.

Individuals between the ages of 15 and 24 years typically make up about

19.25% of societies on the continent (CIA, 2018). Youth constitute 15.77% of the world population and just 13.12% of the US populace. In aging countries, the ability to maintain even a moderate youth population has been bolstered by youth-specific migration, as opposed to the natural birthrate (CIA, 2018). These trends indicate that numerous African nations are situated at a theoretical crossroads between realizing a

“dividend” or enduring a “bulge.”

3.2.1 Population Growth and Future Outlook

The percentage of children in the population is illustrative of the future outlook for youth disproportionality. Collectively, children under the age of 15 account for

37.3% of the total African population on average (see Table 2). This is more than ten percentage points higher than the world average of 25.29% and doubles the US child population of 18.62% (see Table 2).

The combined percentage of children and youth in the US is less than one-third of the national population, whereas Africa’s is more than one-half of all habitants (see

Table 1 and Table 2). In other words, it is not atypical for about half of the citizenry in

African societies to be comprised of youth and children. These figures indicate an immense, intense need for public investment. It also entails exceptional challenges for fostering a beneficial youth-public sector relationship, now and in the future.

72 Table 3: Youth-Specific Indicators (By Region)

Average Average Population Average Total Youth Aged 0-14 Dependency Fertility Dependency Years Ratio Rate Ratio Northern Africa 2.88% 30.75% 55.34 47.6 Eastern Africa 4.26% 39.8% 80.04 73.74 Western Africa 4.52% 40.96% 84.88 79.49 Central Africa 4.61% 42.29% 86.37 80.53 Southern Africa 2.69% 32.70% 62.28 55.86

Continent-wide 3.79% 37.30% 73.78 67.45

United States 1.87% 18.62% 51.2 29 World 2.42% 25.29% 52.5*2 39.9

Demographic Dividend scholars emphasize that having such a high

concentration of the population in the youth life stage has the potential to boost a

country’s economic productivity exponentially. Dependency ratios are a measurement

that weighs a populace’s productive potential against its social welfare demands. The

ratio calculates the share of the dependent (non-working-age) population to the

productive (working-age population) (UN DESA, 2017). African countries exhibit

some of the highest dependency ratios in the world by this measure (You et al., 2014).

2 *2015 estimate

73 The continental average for dependency ratios is 73.78 (see Table 2). This means that for every non-working-age person, there are 1.36 working-age people.

The Northern African region is an outlier in this regard. Its regional average more closely mirrors world and developing country averages, where there are roughly two working-age people per non-working-age person (see Table 2). This average differs drastically from the averages in Western and Central Africa, which are 84.88 and 86.37, respectively (see Table 2). At the national level, dependency ratios sometimes exceed 100, indicating that the dependent population is greater than the working population (Diagne, 2005; You et al., 2014).

Youth dependency constitutes a substantial proportion of the social need across

Africa. The average youth dependency ratio for African countries is 67.45; 1.48 working-age people for every child (see Table 2). There are about 3.45 working-aged people per child in the US and 2.51 working-age people per child globally. Youth dependency figures demonstrate the significance of studies, such as this one. African nations have a reservoir of potential talent at their disposal, provided that they are poised to create the conditions for present and future youth to develop.

Dependency ratios alone, however, can belie the magnitude of the challenge of youth disproportionality, particularly in Africa. The heavy skew towards the young implies having a large proportion of society at the cusp of realizing their reproductive potential as well. Poverty and instability—the two major concerns of Youth Bulge scholars, as well as gender inequity, have been found to be catalysts for population growth. Not only do they contribute to gender-based violence and sexual exploitation,

74 but those living in these environments are more likely to be initiated to sex earlier in their lives and less likely to have access to contraception or other reproductive healthcare. Ultimately, they facilitate a self-propagating cycle that has the potential to extend the effects of youth disproportionality for years to come.

The dependency ratio fails to account for the impacts of age-gender intersectionality, sometimes referred to as “genderation”(You et al., 2014). In 2017, the average total fertility rate for African women was 3 to 4 children over the course of their reproductive years (see Table 2). The birthrates among young African women are more than double the worldwide average (Mabala, 2011). Globally, women gave birth to an average of 2 to 3 children (see Table 2). Births among US women occurred at a rate of about 1 to 2 children (see Table 2). Both the responsibilities that accompany having children and the sociocultural pressure women face to have primary responsibility for domestic life create added barriers to working-age young women’s access to education and/or the formal labor force (O’Malley et al., 2014). In

2000, the labor force participation rate for African women was 33.8% (Rwezaura,

1998).

The dependency ratios for young societies are also eye-opening because sociocultural expectations can result in a compounding effect for both young women and men. As recent entrants to the workforce, even skilled youth are generally among the lowest paid. Young women may be excluded from the workforce entirely while caring for younger dependents. The effects of these sociocultural norms also place

75 greater pressure on under-resourced young men to compensate for economic shortfalls in the household (Okojie, 2003).

From this perspective, the dependency ratios are even more daunting than they appear at first glance. Countries experiencing youth disproportionality must contend with a threefold challenge. They must build relationships with those already in the youth stage, prepare to develop children who will soon become youth, and, finally, they must anticipate future demand for resources by the youth who are yet to be born.

Table 4: Average Population Growth Rates (By Region)

Average Average Population Urban Growth Rate Growth Rate

Northern Africa 1.72% 2.11% Eastern Africa 2.27% 3.71% Western Africa 2.39% 3.72% Central Africa 2.29% 3.31% Southern Africa 1.17% 2.12% Continent-wide 1.97% 2.99% United States 0.81% 0.95% World 1.05% 1.90%

Contemporary youth disproportion in Africa involves a spatial aspect as well.

Whereas the US population growth rate is .81%, African countries’ populations grew at an average rate of 2.14% in 2017. Much of this growth is concentrated in urban centers. Roughly 40 to 45% of the continent is urbanized but is increasing at a rate of about 3% annually (see Table 3). Urban populations are expected to surpass rural

76 populations within the next 20 years (Slackman, 2008). Much of this rural to urban migration is attributable to young people relocating to cities in search of more opportunities for financial and social independence, as well as to feel included in the governance structure (Mubila, 2012). The median age of these young migrants is 20 to

21 years old (Marc Sommers, 2006).

Both pressures on domestic populations and host countries have prompted varying responses to providing young people with resources. Section 3.3 examines indicators of African countries’ public policy performance with regards to youth- specific resource provision. In addition to assessing rankings related to education and employment opportunity, the section also provides data examining youth’s levels of public participation.

3.3 Trends in Youth-Specific Policy

This study proposes that making a conscientious effort to account for young people’s access to youth-specific resources would improve Youth Bulge and

Demographic Dividend theory immensely. Despite the scale of youth disproportionality, data detailing the impacts of policy on youth is rare. One attempt to address this deficiency is the Commonwealth Youth Development Index (YDI). Like the HDI, a score of 1 on the YDI denotes the highest level of development (Boubtane,

Dumont, & Rault, 2014).

The report’s producers note that countries’ YDI scores tend to lag behind those of the HDI (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016). Sub-Saharan African nations have been found to have made some of the largest improvements in youth well-being, but

77 they are still among the lowest-ranked countries in terms of overall youth well-being

(Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016). Collectively, African nations have an average

HDI score of .517. On the YDI, African youth score an average of .434 (see Table 4).

Table 5: Africa HDI and YDI Score Comparisons (By Region)

Average Human Average Youth Development Index Development Index (HDI) Score (YDI) Score Northern Africa 0.644 0.556 Eastern Africa 0.467 0.422 Western Africa 0.423 0.405 Central Africa 0.477 0.301 Southern Africa 0.574 0.488 Continent-wide 0.517 0.434

A critical segment of the youth population is school-aged. The YDI measures the domain of “Education” as a composite of the total gross secondary education enrollment, the literacy rate, and the percentage of 15 to 24-year-olds with a minimum of five years of experience using the internet (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016).

78 Table 6: Africa’s Highest and Lowest Education Performance

Education Rank Education Score (Out of 183 Countries) (Out of 1) Highest Scores Mauritius 65 0.82 Tunisia 80 0.77 Algeria 92 0.75 South Africa 93 0.75 Egypt 96 0.74 Lowest Scores Niger 183 0.17 Central African Republic 182 0.20 Burkina Faso 181 0.28 Chad 180 0.28 Guinea 179 0.30

All 10 of the lowest ranking countries in the YDI were located on the continent of Africa (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016) (See Table 5). On average, African nations spent about 16% to 17% of their GDP on education (Commonwealth

Secretariat, 2016, p. 42). On a continental level, young Africans’ school life expectancy (SLE) is ten years (CIA, 2017). By contrast, the average SLE in the US is

17 years (Youthpolicy.org, 2018b). These telling indicators demonstrate the challenges of access to formal education and the accompanying youth-specific resources it provides. They also highlight the potential significance of YD organizations. While it is not inferred in this work that YD organizations are a perfect substitute for formal educational institutions, the lackluster educational performance

79 across regions suggests that there is a need for alternative and multifaceted conduits of information and material resources.

With limited access to formal education, alternative resource networks become even more critical for helping young people acquire the skills they need to be competitive in the workforce. Youth also constitutes the time of life when many individuals begin developing professional competency and reputation. The choices they make and the opportunities they are afforded at this point in their lives could be central to their future earnings potential. The YDI ranks the “Employment and

Opportunity” outlook for youth as a function of the: NEET (15 to 29-year-olds Not in

Education, Employment, or Training) rate, youth unemployment ratio, the percentage of 15-24 year-olds with an account at a financial institution, and the adolescent fertility rate (CIA, 2018).

Despite limited access to education, only three African countries are amongst the ten lowest performers based on the “Employment and Opportunity” criterion

(Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016) (See Table 6). This finding would seem to indicate that employment and opportunity in Africa is not strictly a function of formal educational attainment. At the very least, it demonstrates that employment and opportunity are possible in spite of the lack of access to formal education.

80 Table 7 Africa’s Highest and Lowest Employment and Opportunity Performance

Employment and Employment and Opportunity Rank Opportunity Score (Out of 183 Countries) (Out of 1) Highest Scores Ethiopia 38 0.71 Rwanda 40 0.70 Uganda 64 0.61 Swaziland 74 0.58 Djibouti 75 0.58 Lowest Scores Niger 182 0.20 Tanzania 180 0.29 Egypt 174 0.35 Sudan 173 0.36 Sao Tome and Principe 172 0.37

Not only is the educational setting a primer for economic well-being, but it is also a conduit of civic education and an institutional connection with both the governing authority and the local community. YD organizations can play a role in facilitating access to these intangible resources as well. The performance of African nations with regards to Civic Participation and Political Participation shows much promise. The Civic Participation ranking “seeks to measure the extent to which youth interact positively with their communities” (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016, p. 44).

It is the West African nation of Liberia, which ranks first of the 183 countries measured in this domain (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016, p. 44). Kenya, Malawi, and Libya are listed amongst the top performers as well (Commonwealth Secretariat,

2016). Nonetheless, three African nations are ranked amongst the worst performers,

81 highlighting the wide divergence in conditions for youth community engagement

(Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016) (See Table 7).

Table 8: Africa’s Highest and Lowest Civic Participation Performance

Civic Participation Civic Participation Rank Score (Out of 183 Countries) (Out of 1) Highest Scores Liberia 1 1.00 Kenya 6 0.93 Malawi 9 0.85 Libya 10 0.84 South Africa 19 0.81 Lowest Scores Burundi 183 0.06 Rwanda 180 0.16 Democratic Republic of the 178 0.17 Congo Chad 172 0.20 Togo 170 0.21

As indicated by the YDI scores, Sub-Saharan Africa has made gains in terms of Political Participation in comparison with previous years (Commonwealth

Secretariat, 2016) (See Table 8). In fact, this is the only domain in which Sub Saharan

Africa is classified as having a YDI score of over .5 (Commonwealth Secretariat,

2016). Success in this area, however, varies widely from country to country

(Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016, p. 46). Three African nations have achieved a top

82 10 ranking, but four others are listed among the lowest-performing countries

(Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016).

Table 9: Africa’s Highest and Lowest Political Participation Performance

Political Participation Political Participation Rank Score (Out of 183 Countries) (Out of 1) Highest Scores South Africa 3 0.98 Uganda 8 0.89 Namibia 9 0.88 Botswana 11 0.88 Swaziland 15 0.85 Lowest Scores Algeria 182 0.06 Chad 180 0.10 Comoros 176 0.14 Sao Tome and Principe 174 0.18 Equatorial Guinea 174 0.18

The findings of the YDI illustrate the challenges of contemporary African youth versus their counterparts globally. Educational opportunities remain one of the most troublesome developmental areas for many African nations. There is also evidence that youth populations have maintained an interest in vibrant civic and political expression. The dissonance between governments’ provision of educational resources and outcomes for economic opportunity, political participation, and civic engagement would seem to suggest that there are other factors at play in how African youth engage their societies. To this end, the present study extends the discussion of

83 youth engagement to consider the public institutions tasked with facilitating youths’ connections with their governments and the wider society.

3.3.1 National Youth Infrastructure

Public policy is perhaps the most frequently cited determinant of the extent to which having a disproportionately young society is an advantage or hindrance to a country’s development. To understand the present study’s findings about the impacts of YD organizations and youth policy on the attitudes of young people, it is key to, first, have a basic understanding of the contexts in which they live. There is only one country on the continent that has never had a ministry of youth—or its equivalent

(Commonwealth Secretariat, 2016). This would seem to imply that there is a tacit acknowledgment amongst African nations that youths’ needs require special attention.

Ministries and agencies created to address the needs of youth vary widely in mission and capacity. State-sponsored YD initiatives are designated to one or more ministries—the American equivalent of a federal Cabinet-level department, with varying degrees of direct participation from youth (Youthpolicy.org, 2018b). One of the most participatory structures can be found in Seychelles, where a National Youth

Council, staffed by youth and overseen by the Vice President, is responsible for the provision of youth-specific initiatives (ILO, 2012). Conversely, in Kenya, information pertaining to whether a state-sponsored institution for youth exists at the national level is “unclear” since the disbandment of the Ministry of Youth Affairs in 2013

(Youthpolicy.org, 2014e).

84 Nearly all countries have, at some point, established structures at the national level to address the needs of youth. Their titles may belie the extent of their roles, but their designations do hint at the administrations’ approaches to YD and which of its aspects they accentuate (See Table 9).

Table 2 Ministry of Youth Emphases

Sports/Recreation/Leisure 69.8% Culture/Art 22.6% Employment/Economic Empowerment 17.0% Youth/Youth Affairs 15.0% Other 7.5% Civic Education 5.7% Family/Gender/Women and/or Children 5.7% Education 3.8%

Only 15% of national authorities list “youth” or “youth affairs” as their sole function. Just under 70% (69.8%) are responsible for the administration of sports, recreation, and/or leisure in addition to YD. Culture and/or art rank as the second most popular complement to YD-related authorities. Employment and economic empowerment are the third most frequently used, while civic education is among the least frequently mentioned roles.

The focus on sport and leisure seems to corroborate the findings of other YD scholars. They note that there is a tendency to relegate youth to culture, art, and entertainment at the expense of their participation in more substantial policy areas

(Youthpolicy.org, 2014b). Others have criticized the lack of financial means, authority, and transparency that is common among youth ministries. As Mabala

85 (Everatt, 2018; Muthee, 2010; Wardany, 2012) states, “In most [African] countries, youth belong to the ministry with the longest name and the shortest budget, as they tend to be lumped together with a variety of issues.”

The amount of resources directed towards the national youth infrastructure also falls within a wide range. According to Youth Policy Labs, Nigeria’s 2014 budget allocated the equivalent of 503.2 million USD to the Federal Ministry of Youth

Development, while Burkina Faso’s 2013 budget allocated only 26,816 USD—a mere

4% of its budget—to the Ministry of Youth, Professional Education, and Employment

(2011, p. 173). Over half of these nations, however, have little to no publicly accessible documents listing funding allocations for these institutions. Of those listing budgets, it is rare that they are itemized in a fashion that allows one to distinguish the quantity of resources directed towards youth activities, as opposed to auxiliary functions. The tendency of governments to structure ministries of youth as youth- serving organizations, as opposed to youth-led or youth-run, is often a major point of contention as well (Youthpolicy.org, 2014c, 2014a).

To mitigate this criticism, at least 68.5% of countries complement the youth administrative structure with a youth-led or youth-run YD organization—or council— whose members liaise between youth and political leaders. Like the ministries themselves, these organizations are not always transparent. Many lack publicly accessible documents, making it unclear whether the organizations are still functional.

Some seem to lack a budget. Still others operate in an environment of mistrust because of their close associations with the government (Gyampo, 2012). Furthermore, one

86 could also pose the question of how diverse their membership is and how often they mirror the youth of the country in terms of educational attainment, financial capacity, and other attributes (Youthpolicy.org, 2014f). The following section provides more specific information on the youth demographic diversity across regions.

3.4 Regional Trends

The above sections have provided a general overview of several youth-specific issues germane to the continent of Africa, particularly the sub-Saharan region. While the salience of these issues is continental, to underestimate variances would belie several unique particularities of each region. The concentrations of children and youth in each of Africa’s five regions are highlighted to illustrate these variances. Finally, a few notable examples of how youth have impacted the sociopolitical character of specific countries within each region are discussed.

3.4.1 Northern Africa

Northern Africa’s youth demographics are comparatively lower than in other regions. However, their populations can still be classified as moderately youthful.

Youth aged 15 to 24 years old constitute over 17% of the population, and infants and children (ages 0-14) make up an additional 30% of inhabitants. The median age of its inhabitants ranges from as young as 19 years in Sudan to about 31 years in Tunisia.

No country in this region has a median age that approaches or exceeds 35 years old— the African Union’s upper limit for youth.

North Africa, perhaps more so than any other region on the continent, demonstrates the limitations of large-n quantitative studies based on demographic

87 breakdowns for understanding the potential consequences of unaddressed youth vulnerability. Youth Bulge theorists argue that the younger the population, the greater their proclivity towards sociopolitical instability. North Africa features numerous examples of how relatively mature societies can also be susceptible to youth-driven discord.

Tunisia, for example, boasts the third-highest median age in mainland Africa.

Only roughly 14% of the population corresponds to the conventional standard for youth. Slightly over one-quarter of the nation is identified as infants and children. In contemporary history, Tunisia is most renowned for its role in precipitating the “Arab

Spring” (Marc Sommers, 2011). North Africa’s youth-directed revolution is often traced to the actions of 26-year-old Tunisian, Tarek al-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi

(Joffé, 2011). To express his frustration with the confiscation of his merchandise and the humiliation of being spat on by a municipal official, Bouazizi resorted to an act of self-immolation (Nti, 2013). This young man’s story is both reflective of the poignancy of youth-specific vulnerability, even in relatively well-resourced African countries, and indicative of the catalytic role youth groups can—and, often, do—play in mediating the relationship between youth, their governments, and local communities.

In Tunisia, Bouazizi’s story prompted young cyber-activists to mobilize and coordinate protesters (Soto, 2011). In Egypt, youth-run groups, like the Coalition of

January 25th Youth, became leading conduits for providing youth with resources, information, and a platform for expressing their grievances (Nti, 2013; Soto, 2011). In

88 Morocco, the February 20th Movement for Change facilitated the mobilization of youth and used cyberspace to demand reforms within the monarchy (Ezbawy, 2012;

Shehata, 2011). Likewise, Algeria, Libya, and to a lesser degree, Mauritania and

Western Sahara also became illustrative of the divergent contexts that youth-run groups particularly impact youths’ perspectives on their roles in their societies

(Brouwer & Bartels, 2014; Desrues, 2013; Marzouki, 2015).

3.4.2 Eastern Africa

With an average median age of 20.38, Eastern Africa ranks as the third most youthful region on the continent. Only Djibouti, Mauritius, and Seychelles have median ages that exceed the regional average. The age demographics of the 18 countries in this region range from 15.8 years in Uganda to approximately 35.4 years in Seychelles and Mauritius. Absent these three outliers, youth in this region are more precisely described as being about 18.5 years of age, with a standard deviation of fewer than two years.

Youth compose 19.43% of East African society. Children and infants make up an additional 39.8% of the population. Conversely, individuals aged over 65 and those between the ages of 55 and 64 constitute 3.61% and 4.5% of the population, respectively. On average, East African women are estimated to give birth to approximately four children over the course of their reproductive years. Eastern Africa is the least urbanized region but has the second-fastest rate of urbanization on the continent. This region is also making strides to establish itself in the global tech industry (Joffé, 2011).

89 Referred to as the “Silicon Savannah,” development projects, like the installation of fiber-optic cables for increased internet access and speed, are enabling the region to harness the potential of the ICT era (Ndemo, 2016). In Kenya technology innovations like M-Pesa, which allows the unbanked to receive and send money via their cell phone provider; the Ushahidi application, which employs user-generated data to facilitate disaster management; and the iHub, which has launched over 150 tech start-ups since it was created in 2010, have been central to the economic empowerment of youth (Graham & Mann, 2013; Ndemo & Weiss, 2017). In recognition of the close association of technology with the well-being of youth,

Rwanda’s Ministry of Youth also oversees programs related to “ICT literacy and awareness” (Findlay, 2013; Gathege & Moraa, 2013; Jack & Suri, 2011; Tully, 2015;

Wachanga, 2012). Governments seem much slower, however, to embrace technology as a means of facilitating youth political empowerment (Youthpolicy.org, 2014d).

In Uganda, East Africa’s most youthful nation, the administration has even issued a proposal to add a daily tax for the use of popular social media applications

(Counted & Arawole, 2016). Uganda’s resistance to certain uses of technology is indicative of a broader effort to limit civil society’s influence on the political decision- making process (Kakungulu-Mayambala & Rukundo, 2018). Approximately 21% of

Uganda’s population is between the ages of 15 and 24. Another 48% are under age 15.

Although the country is urbanizing at a rate of more than 5%, it is still over 75% rural.

Around 20% of the population is classified as living below the poverty line, and the average young person can expect to attend school for around ten years in their

90 lifetime. The issue of age has been at the forefront of Uganda’s political discourse in recent years (Freyburg & Garbe, 2018; Mukeredzi, 2017).

Firstly, because Uganda is home to one of Africa’s oldest presidents (Titeca,

2019). After much debate, the presidential age limits were eliminated entirely

(Meyers, 2017). Theoretically, this introduced a political structure where any person could be president, irrespective of age. In practice, however, it is understood as a means for the current president to extend his decades-long tenure indefinitely (Meyers,

2017). This controversy has been further exacerbated by his feud with a Member of

Parliament, Robert “Bobi Wine” Kyagulanyi Ssentamu (Meyers, 2017; Titeca, 2019).

Dubbed the “Ghetto President,” Ssentamu was born only four years before Museveni took office in 1986 (Ssentongo, 2018). In July 2018, he made headlines when his driver was shot and killed in a confrontation with President Museveni’s convoy (Aidi,

2018; Ssentongo, 2018). Ssentamu himself was arrested, rearrested, subjected to torture, and charged with treason—an offense punishable by death (Titeca, 2019).

Ssentamu has been outspoken about his views on the marginalization of youth and the poor in Ugandan society both as a parliamentarian and a music artist (Titeca, Edmond,

& Reuss, 2018). As such, his conflict is seen as epitomizing the hostility youth sometimes face when seeking a means of political expression within obstinately traditional societies (Titeca et al., 2018).

3.4.3 Central Africa Central Africa has the lowest median age and, therefore, could be considered the most youthful. While Angola ranks as the youngest nation, with an average median

91 age of 15.9 years old. Countries like the Central African Republic, the Democratic

Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabo, and the Republic of the Congo are relatively more mature, with median ages of around 18 to 19 years old, no country in this region has a median at or above 20 years of age. Collectively, youth make up approximately 19.85% of the region. At the national level, the proportion of youth in populations ranges from 17.1% in the Republic of the Congo to as much as 21.46% in

Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Infants and children are 42.29% of

Central Africa’s population. This trend is most exaggerated in the countries of Angola,

Cameroon, and Chad, where this cohort constitutes 48.12%, 42.39%, and 43.02% of the population, respectively. However, even in Equatorial Guinea, which has the lowest proportion of infants and children, this cohort represents 39.81% of society.

Central Africa is one of the most resource-rich and tumultuous regions on the continent (Ssentongo, 2018). Interregional conflicts have been the subject of ongoing

UN peacekeeping missions (Le Marchand, 2009). There were over 3,000 cases of child soldiering reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2017, and hundreds—or even thousands—more children and youth are being conscripted by

Boko Haram’s operations in Cameroon (Mobekk, 2009). The UN summary of the

Children and Armed Conflict Report conjectures that the number of child soldiers in these nations may be growing rather than decreasing (International Crisis Group,

2018; Mlambo & Mlambo, 2019; Olivier, 2018).

The conflicts impacting the Central African region have complex origins that transcend national boundaries. The violence has been detrimental to populations

92 throughout the region, but one, in particular, has brought the issue of vulnerability of

Africa’s young women to the forefront. In April of 2014, the social media handle,

#BringBackOurGirls, attracted international attention to the kidnapping of more than

200 girls by the armed militia group, Boko Haram, which operates in the Lake Chad

Basin between northern Nigeria, Niger, and the neighboring Central African nations of

Chad and Cameroon (CAAC, 2018). Boko Haram initially justified this and other kidnappings as a response to kidnappings of their female relatives by national security forces. The group whose name translates to “Western education is sinful,” has targeted schools in the area and effectively created a considerable disruption to education for young girls (Agbiboa & Maiangwa, 2014; Moaveni, 2019). Zenn and Pearson

(Mohammed Joda & Abdulrasheed, 2015) go even further to argue that this strategy of weaponizing women is a direct reaction to the security bias against young males.

Young men in areas where the group is known to operate were being harassed and detained en masse (2014). In response, Boko Haram has “disproportionately” relied on young women, and young men dressed as veiled women became a means of transporting weapons, evading security checks, and carrying out suicide bombings (M.

Bloom & Matfess, 2016).

Public pressure to address and prevent abductions has cast a negative spotlight on governments’ lack of concern for ensuring the safety of young girls and securing their rights to education. Initially, Nigeria’s First Lady order protesters’ arrests, insisting that the kidnappings were fabricated and intended to tarnish the country’s image (M. Bloom & Matfess, 2016). In Cameroon, the government has taken a more

93 aggressive approach to immigration by repatriating displaced Nigerians back to territories governed by Boko Haram (M. A. Peters, 2014). Perhaps even more disturbingly, several of the young Cameroonian and Nigerian women who were found have returned to Boko Haram strongholds of their own free will after being

“deradicalized” (Obaji, Jr., 2019). Some analysts have suggested that government failure to provide resources and the marginalization of young people has facilitated these returns (Matfess, 2017).

3.4.4 Southern Africa

The age distribution across the Southern Africa region ranges from an average median age of approximately 21 to 22 years old in the countries of Namibia and

Swaziland to about 27 years old in South Africa. Collectively, 19.68% of residents in

Southern African nations are between the ages of 15 and 25. Infants and children account for about 32.70%, while individuals aged 65 or older constitute less than 5% of the region’s inhabitants. Women in this region are estimated to give birth to two to three children over the course of their reproductive years, below the continental average of three to four children. With an average median age of 23.74, the countries in Southern Africa can be viewed as relatively more mature than their regional counterparts.

The region still faces major challenges in meeting the needs of youth. Youth- specific issues in Southern Africa mirror those of Northern Africa. Young people in this region are comparatively more educated than other regions on the continent, but the demand for inclusion and public sector support are still a source of contention

94 between youth and their governments. Two such examples of this are

#RhodesMustFall (#RMF) and #FeesMustFall (#FMF) movements in South Africa.

Not only is South Africa’s populace the most mature in the region, but by numerous measures, the country is considered the most developed on the continent.

The #RMF movement originated with student protests at the University of Cape Town aimed at removing the statue of famed British colonialist Cecil John Rhodes (Matfess,

2017; Moaveni, 2019; Nwaubani, 2017). The statue was vandalized and subsequently removed after a month of continued protest (Bosch, 2017). The campaign, which was waged on the ground and via social media, evolved into a wider critique of neocolonialism, institutional racism, South Africa’s digital divide, and other barriers to educational access (Pillay, 2015). This youth-led protest spurred a sustained national critique of the status of youth in South Africa (Bosch, 2017; Nyamnjoh, 2016; Pillay,

2015). Students at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg became the torchbearers for this debate, which evolved into the #FMF movement (Godsell,

Chikane, & Mpofu-Walsh, 2016). The #FMF movement involved a forthright appraisal that highlighted youth poverty, the practical value of formal education, and the impact of neoliberalism on the futures of African youth (Pillay, 2015).

3.4.5 Western Africa

Western Africa, the region of focus for this study, is ranked among the most peopled and youthful populations on the continent. Seven countries exceed the regional average median age of 19.28 years old, and nine countries’ demographics are below it. Youth demographics in this region exhibit less country-to-country variance

95 than can be seen in Northern or Eastern Africa. With the exception of Cape Verde, where the median age is 25.4 years old, the median age of citizens in all of these countries ranges between 15 and 25 years old. Youth comprise approximately 19.72% of the population, with a standard deviation of less than one percent. Infants and children constitute an additional 40.96% of the population in this region.

This region’s characteristics correspond closely to the attributes that are frequently emphasized in “youth bulge” scholars’ work. In many ways, West Africa is a region of superlatives. It has the highest average fertility rate. A typical woman here can expect to give birth to four—or likely, five children—in her lifetime. Collectively, this trend contributes to mean population growth of 2.60%, the fastest on the continent. These realities would indicate that the existing population growth patterns can be expected to follow similar trends into the near future.

Regional youth also have some of the lowest rates of educational completion on the continent. The average young person has a school life expectancy of 10 years.

Female students’ formal education tenure lags roughly a year behind that of males.

This figure descends as low as an average of 5 years of formal education for young people in Niger, to a maximum of 13 years of school for youth on the tiny island of

Cape Verde. Not only is the general population growing faster than its regional counterparts, but the region is also experiencing the most rapid rate of urbanization on the continent.

Issues of youth vulnerability raised in the previous chapter also have particular salience for this region. For instance, the issue of youth-specific migration, both

96 voluntary and involuntary, has become a major international and intergovernmental concern. According to a report by UNODC (Ndlovu, 2017; Pillay, 2015), West

African victims of human trafficking were the most likely to be transported across borders. In 2017, a CNN investigative report shed light on the countless migrants—the majority of whom are West African—who had traveled as far as Libya in hopes of reaching Europe (2014). Undercover videos showing groups of predominantly young people who had fallen into the hands of slave traders spurred numerous debates about the orientations of West Africa’s leaders towards this marginalized majority (Cascais,

2017; CNN Staff, 2017). A summit was organized in the Ivory Coast to develop a plan to evacuate as many of the estimated 700,000 African migrants in Libyan detention centers (Cascais, 2017; CNN Staff, 2017; Gunter, 2019). Approximately 15,000 were voluntarily repatriated through a joint effort by the AU, UN, EU, and IOM (Wesel.,

2017).

While previous examples of youth political participation have involved young people questioning domestic leaders, West African youth are currently leading a transnational campaign that represents a powerful demonstration of the role young people have to shape global political and economic systems. West Africa is also somewhat unique in that it exhibits a higher degree of regional integration than other areas of the continent, which increases the potential generalizability of this study’s findings to other countries. Much of the regional character of West Africa is undergirded by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

ECOWAS is a regional model of the larger continent-wide African Union (AU)

97 (Wintour & Chrisafis, 2017). It generates common regulations, ways of operationalizing socioeconomic terms, facilitates mobility and trade throughout the region, and manages the central banking system for the region (2019). During the presidential crisis in the Ivory Coast, ECOWAS brought the country’s financial system to a halt and forced former president Gbagbo to concede to Alassane Ouattara

(ECOWAS, n.d.).

Because of Senegal’s reputation for stability, it is the host country for numerous organs of ECOWAS as well as other intergovernmental, international, and interregional institutions. Youth have always played a strong role in sociopolitical discourse, but this millennium has marked a revival of Senegal’s role as a nexus of youth social and civic action. Their relentless calls for sociopolitical change since

2000 prompted some to debate whether their actions would be the start of an “African

Summer” in the wake of the “Arab Spring” (Cook, 2011). Youth protests have led to the successful election—and subsequent unseating—of two of Senegal’s former presidents and set a model of nonviolent political dissent that has inspired youth throughout Francophone Africa. Movements in Burkina Faso, Gabon, Burundi, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have all been attributed to inspiration from Senegal’s revered Y’en A Marre movement (Ayittey &

Siddique, 2013; Juma, 2011; Leke, 2012).

Even the regional systems that have created young West Africans’ shared culture are not immune to critique. In 2017, 35-year-old activist, Kemi Seba, reinvigorated the neocolonial debate by setting fire to a CFA banknote in Dakar

98 (Mueller, 2018). CFA franc notes were burned in three other West African capitals following his actions (Bax & Monnier, 2017). The CFA is a currency that was instituted by France in the colonial era (Kamara, 2017b). Although even France has abandoned the franc in deference for the euro, the CFA franc is still the shared currency of 14 former French and Lusophone colonies of West and Central Africa

(Rahman & Shaban, 2017). The public discussion he sparked has spread throughout the region and has even received attention from the region’s heads of state (Konkobo,

2017).

Nearly one year later, after Seba’s protest in Dakar, his organization, Urgences

Panafricanistses (Panafrican Emergency), released a video entitled “7 minutes contre le CFA” (“7 minutes against the CFA”) (Konkobo, 2017; Rahman & Shaban, 2017).

This video is a collaborative venture featuring ten well-known musical artists who hail from Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, and The Gambia, where the CFA is still in use (Amul Bayi Records, 2018; Redaction NOFI staff, 2018). With scenes from their countries of origin displayed in the background as they rap, the artists use lyrics to explain the history and criticisms of the CFA system (Redaction NOFI staff, 2018).

Participants in the project have explicitly voiced a goal of motivating young people to join in this conversation and participate in enacting change (Amul Bayi Records,

2018). Their advocacy around monetary policy seems to have yielded results. In the summer of 2019, the ECOWAS commission announced plans to actualize their long- delayed goal of creating an independent regional currency (Amul Bayi Records,

2018).

99 Chapter 5 addresses Senegalese youths’ influences on their society in greater detail. What is important to understand, however, is that competition for resources and the types of socio-political critique it has evoked from young people are not exclusive to Dakar. Despite their challenges, there are numerous examples of urban African youth demonstrating their capacity to have their concerns heard.

3.5 Conclusion

This chapter contributes to the advancement of both Youth Bulge and

Demographic Dividend literature by inserting a central component: youth. It not only examines the age structure of Africa’s young societies but also assesses the character of youth disproportionality in an array of regional and national settings. The findings clearly show that age structure, resources, and policy capacity are not identical in any of these countries, but they all share a need for strategic investment. The policy approaches and outcomes discussed in this chapter demonstrate that Youth Bulge and

Demographic Dividend theory have impacted how African policy-makers address the phenomenon of youth disproportion.

Contemporary African youth and their public sectors are facing immense challenges. Confronting this monumental task requires that practitioners and scholars consider both sides of the youth-public sector relationship. The character of engagement between youths and administrators has not always been collegial, but it presents an opportunity for scholarship. It prompts us to contend with complex questions like: How do African youth define their role as citizens in environments of disproportionality?; What do they see as the role of the state in their development?;

100 How can young societies improve the channels of communication between youth and public sector entities?; and, perhaps most importantly, How can they work toward a singular, yet pluralistic goal?

This researcher posits that Africa’s developmental trajectory is at a critical juncture and that public policy scholarship has an immense role in supporting the journey. The chapter that follows uses the case of YD organizations in Dakar, Senegal, to explore some of the larger questions prompted by this chapter on youth disproportionality in Africa. Chapter 4 restates the research questions that are key to the present study, introduces the seven YD organizations that are the subject of this case study, and describes the study procedures.

101 Chapter 4

RESEARCH DESIGN AND ANALYSIS

4.1 Methodology Overview

This study uses an institutional case study methodology to explore the following research questions: Do youth development (YD) organizations’ participatory models and the types of resources they provide to youth in a particular neighborhood in Senegal affect how they perceive their government and/or their geographically-defined neighborhood? Does the level of youth participation influence whether their perceptions of a successful YD initiative are congruent with those of the organizational administration?

The case study methodology is based on a constructivist paradigm that views the “truth” as being based on the perspectives of those being studied (Salaudeen,

2019). Research developed using the case study approach is designed to allow research participants to share their perspectives with the ultimate goal of providing an enriched understanding of the participants’ reality and behavior in context (Baxter &

Jack, n.d.). According to social scientist Robert Yin (Baxter & Jack, n.d.), the case study approach is most amenable to research that intends to describe a social phenomenon in context and/or to explain ‘how’ or ‘why’ it works (p. 4). In developing countries like Senegal, where administrative data can be infrequent, incomplete,

102 and/or unreliable, case studies are a rich source of information on the social conditions of a particular population (2009).

The present case study includes the perspectives of participants in seven organizations providing youth-specific services in Dakar, Senegal. The informants included in this case study were selected based on a two-stage stratified cluster sample. The organizations were first stratified on the basis of having one or more ongoing youth-specific projects that serve a minimum of 20-25 individuals between the ages of 15 and 35.

103 Figure 1 Organization Sampling Criteria

-One or more ongoing activities -Convene at least once per week -Serve a minimum of 20-25 individuals aged 15-35

Youth-Serving Youth-Led Youth-Run -Person(s) with the -Both youth and non- authority to make -Person(s) who make youth have authority binding decisions binding decisions and to make binding administer day-to-day and/or administer decisions and/or daily operations are operations are over administer the age of 35 under age 35

104 The organizations were further stratified on the basis of their authority structures to address the research question of whether the YD organizations’ participatory models affect youths’ perceptions of their social environments. At least two organizations represented each of the three participatory models: youth-run, youth-led, and youth-serving. The initial stage of stratification was designed to incorporate a diversity of organizations that are currently active in YD in Senegal. The second-stage of stratification enables the researcher to classify informant responses based on their organization’s participatory model. The second stage of stratification was an essential step in recognizing the nuances in informant responses during the analytical phase.

The data collection process involved qualitative methodology designed to bring greater depth to the role various models of YD play on youth’s citizens’ sense of community (SOC) in Dakar, Senegal. Organizations were identified in collaboration with the West African Research Center (WARC), the Baobab Center, and the generous assistance of individuals familiar with Senegal’s YD landscape. The findings, which are detailed in Chapter 6, synthesize the responses of 17 individual informants from seven YD organizations. These responses were made as part of 3 informal group interviews and five in-depth, semi-structured key informant interviews.

Archival data from organizational publications and third-party sources were also used to verify and triangulate information. All informants agreed to use their own names and/or organization names. However, due to concerns about the current political

105 climate in the country, this study refers to all organizations and individuals by pseudonyms at the discretion of the researcher (Kleymeyer & Bertrand, 2001).

The methodology employed in this study is designed to better incorporate discussion of youth-specific resources into the Youth Bulge and Demographic

Dividend literature. There are presumably many mediums through which youth access resources, but YD organizations specifically target young people. The section that follows describes some key aspects of the structure of YD organizations and their significance to youth-specific resource provision.

4.2 The Significance and Structure of YD Organizations

4.2.1 The Significance of YD in Young Societies

In order to have true significance, the Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theories must be attached to a broader discussion of YD. Sommers (Logan & Penar,

2019), a prominent critic of the “youth bulge” perspective, asked what is a crucial question, “Why have commanders been able to unlock the astounding resilience and potential of youth like Ronaldo [a former child soldier] while most governments and international institutions have not?” (p. 2). Implicit in his query is the understanding that it is one thing to be motivated or influenced, but quite another to possess the capacity—or training—to act. Scholars in conventional youth studies have made similar arguments with regard to young people in developed nations. They posit that the absence of behavioral problems should not be conflated with youths’ being adequately prepared for the challenges of adulthood (2006).

106 Illicit groups such as armed militias, drug and human traffickers, etc. have been known to passively or actively recruit young people to their causes. Youth Bulge scholars have produced numerous studies that are illustrative of how illicit groups’ efforts to provide youth with resources and empower them to impact society have been successful (Le Menestrel & Lauxman, 2011; Lerner, Lerner, Urban, & Zaff, 2016;

Pittman, 1996). Both negative and positive YD initiatives target youth, but what distinguishes positive YD is that positive YD initiatives do not just provide resources.

They are also explicitly aimed at encouraging youth to pursue beneficial social outcomes.

There are YD organizations in developed countries that have the mission of assisting out-of-school and “at-risk” youths, but their serving population is hardly comparable to young societies. In high-income nations, YD initiatives carried out by civil society actors are more often focused on providing resources that are complementary to school curriculums, like positive outlets of expression or safe places for youth to socialize in their leisure time (Munive, 2010; M. Sommers, 2010; Vigh,

2006). Access to public services, such as formal education, continues to be limited for young Africans (Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2016). In 2011, 29.8 million school-aged children were out of school in Sub-Saharan Africa; more than half of these out-of- school children will never receive a formal education (Commonwealth Secretariat,

2016). Senegal’s educational profile exhibits the trends of lack of access to formal instruction found elsewhere on the continent.

107 Table 10: Highest Level of Educational Attainment in Senegal (ANSD, 2002, p. 86)

Male Female Total

No Formal Education 61.1% 69.3% 65.3%

Preschool 1.2% 1.1% 1.1%

Primary 23.9% 21.2% 22.5%

Middle School 7.7% 5.3% 6.5%

Secondary 3.7% 2.0% 2.8%

Post-Secondary 2.5% 1.0% 1.7%

As indicated in Table 1, more than half of the Senegalese population have no formal education according to a 2002 census report (UNESCO, 2013) (See Table 1).

The reports’ analysts also note that, when children do enroll in school, many elementary students are over the standard age of 12 (ANSD, 2002). The net enrollment for primary school in 2002 was 45.6%, nationally (ANSD, 2002). Net enrollment rates increased to 66.1% for Senegal’s urban populations generally and rose to 67.4% for children in the region of Dakar (ANSD, 2002). The rate of educational enrollment narrows significantly at the post-secondary level, where only about 1.7% of

Senegalese had a college education in 2002 (ANSD, 2002) (See Table 1). The educational trends in Senegal indicate that many children are beginning their formal schooling late and are leaving before they reach a level where they can acquire the fundamentals of any particular skill set.

108 For those who do attend school, educational quality is also a concern. A study comparing educational characteristics in Senegal and four other francophone countries3 found that basic equipment was not universally available, there were often language barriers between students and teachers, and some students had to attend school in shifts to mitigate overcrowding in classrooms (ANSD, 2002). Africa’s educational institutions are engaged in an ongoing struggle to meet youths’ needs. The implications of this ongoing struggle are that YD initiatives by civil society have special significance for the millions in Africa’s young societies which are either unable to access formal education or do so in overcrowded, under-resourced classrooms (Michaelowa, 2001). These organizations can function as an alternative conduit for skill-building, as well as a source for social support. The current study solicited interviewees from seven of such organizations to gain enriched insights into the YD landscape of urban Senegal.

4.3 Study Sample

The informants for the study were participants in one of seven YD organizations that were selected based on a two-stage stratified cluster sample. All the organizations have one or more ongoing youth-specific projects and serve a minimum of 20-25 individuals between the ages of 15 and 35. Organizations were further

3 Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Madagascar

109 stratified on the basis of their authority structures, with two representing each of the three participatory models: youth-run, youth-led, and youth-serving.

4.3.1 Organizational Profiles

The findings of this study are based on interviews with seven youth organizations that exemplify the three models of participation. At least two organizations were selected as representative of each type of model. All organizations and informants are referred to by pseudonyms for reasons of confidentiality.

110 Table 11: Profiles of Organizational Sample

Primary President/ Scope of Thematic Organizati Model Contributing CEO Work Focus onal Age Partners Youth-Serving Organizations - Non-youth Intergovernm Disability ental Issues, Institution(s) Entrepreneur National -International N/A ship, Civil Society Vocational -Foreign Training Tailoring Government( Success s) Environment Non-youth - and Natural Intergovernm Resources, ental Agriculture Institution(s) and -International Internatio Agribusiness Civil Society 34 years nal , Youth and -Foreign Gender Government( Advocacy, s) Environme Education, -National ntal Civic Government Futures Engagement Youth-Led Organizations Youth Non-youth Development -International , Leadership, Internatio Civil Society Community Over 50 nal -National Service, years Government Civic New Day Engagement, Youth Conservation Communit -International Educational Youth y Civil Society Support, Local N/A Connectio -Local Community ns Government Service

111 -Local Civil Society -Members Youth-Run Organizations -International Youth Civil Society Visual and -Local Performing Government Local Arts, 6 years -Local Civil Entrepreneur Society ship Youth -National Beats Government - Youth Intergovernm ental Institution(s) Entrepreneur -International ship, National Civil Society 2 years Professional -Foreign Development Government( s) -Local Civil We Learn Society - Youth Intergovernm Professional ental Development Internatio Institution(s) , Job and 37 years nal -International Internship ProActive Civil Society Placement Youth -Members

112 4.3.2 Trends in Organizational Characteristics

The availability of public information in Senegal still leaves much to be desired. To the researcher’s knowledge, there is no available list even of YD organizations that are formally registered with the government of Senegal. Roth and

Brooks-Gunn (Heath & Robinson, 2004; A. C. Lewis, 2000; UNESCO, 2013) explain that even in developed countries like the United States, determining the prevalence of youth development programming can be difficult because there is still no standard way to define youth development programs. Whether due to a lack of transparency, the prevalence of informality, or the extensive changes to the operational structure of the national government, it is difficult to determine exactly how many YD organizations are currently operating in Dakar. A basic Facebook search of organizations registered as “Youth Organizations” and listing their contact address as being located in Dakar, Senegal identified 99 organizations operating in the area (Facebook, 2019).

The researcher worked with the West African Research Center and the Boabab Center, both of which are respected institutional hosts for researchers, as well as locals familiar with the YD environment in Dakar to identify a diverse sample of YD organizations for the present study.

4.3.2.1 Scope of Work

As detailed in Chapter 2, YD in Senegal is carried out by a variety of actors espousing divergent cultural models. In order to ensure that the perspectives being analyzed reflected a range, the sample included organizations with varying scopes of work. Three interviewees were part of YD organizations with an “International” scope

113 of work. Organizations designated as having an “International” scope of work have personnel and carry out YD initiatives in several countries. Two organizations conducted their operations as part of a “National” network. Organizations with a

“National” scope of work are overseen by a central office, which coordinates several smaller offices that are responsible for implementing programs at the regional or local level. The final two organizations had a “Local” scope of work. “Local” organizations are those with a single administrative presence in a specific location. Whereas local organizations may have more flexibility to concentrate on the needs of a specific target population, organizations with broader serving populations must adopt more generic policies towards YD. The influence of Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theory are especially prevalent in the program theory of organizations with a wider geographical scope of work.

The influence of Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theories has not been confined to the policy realm. The two perspectives on whether to understand youth as a threat to be controlled or a benefit to be nurtured inform the program theories of civil society actors as well (2016). As discussed later in the chapter, the desire to influence young people’s values and preconceived ideas about how youth should behave are unifying characteristics of YD organizations. As such, YD organizations’ scopes of work can be deterministic of the dominance of specific cultural models, as well as the level of autonomy staff members are able to exercise in the development of youth programming (Chaaban, 2009; Nandigiri, 2012). YD organizations with an “International” scope have multiple lines of accountability that

114 do not always allow them to exercise the same degree of flexibility in terms of tailoring administrative protocols to national exigencies, being sensitive to cultural contexts, or being able to quickly adapt program procedures to meet needs of youth identified on the ground (Boli & Thomas, 1999; Tvedt, 1998). The same realities can be true to a lesser extent for organizations with a “National” scope (D. Lewis &

Madon, 2004).

4.3.2.2 Primary Partners Partners were determined through discussions with the interviewees and triangulated by consulting formal, public documents from organizational websites and social media pages. Organizational partners involve a variety of actors. According to

Fatou Sarr (Edwards & Hulme, 1995), Senegalese civil society organizations regularly lack material support from domestic constituencies. The organizations often turn to the national government and/or public and private partners to compensate for shortfalls in funding and technical support. In Table 10 (above) the range of contributing partners is subdivided into the following categories: “Intergovernmental Institutions,”

“International Civil Society,” “Foreign Governments,” “National Government,”

“Local Government,” “Local Civil Society,” and “Members.”

Four of the organizations are supported by “Intergovernmental Organizations,” which are defined as international organizations whose membership consists of countries (2006). Examples of these include the UN and its affiliated agencies, the

European Union (EU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), etc. All of the

115 organizations had partnerships of varying degrees with “International Civil Society” partners, which are defined as international organizations whose membership consists of individuals. Some of the most popular “International Civil Society” partners in

Senegal include the F. Ebert Foundation, Ford Foundation, the Soros Foundation’s

Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), Oxfam America, Oxfam Great

Britain, the Interchurch Organization for Development Co-operation (ICCO), and the

Global Fund for Women (Volgy, Fausett, Grant, & Rodgers, 2008). Three organizations included “Foreign Governments” amongst their partners. “Foreign

Governments” can be defined as official foreign development assistance agencies, like

USAID or JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency). Partnerships can also play a role in the character of a YD organization’s activities and mission. Sarr (Sarr, 2006) argues that the support organizations receive from external partners can result in the organizations having to abridge their autonomy, adjusting their missions to align with partners, and contending with budgetary instability in the long-term. Obioma

Nnaemeka (2006) used the example of campaigns against female circumcision to demonstrate that, even with regards to issues where local and external partners have shared values when external partners are insensitive to the cultural contexts of local communities, partnerships are often ineffective.

Three organizations worked in partnership with the “National Government” of the Republic of Senegal. In Senegal and elsewhere in Africa, it has been found that resources for youth are often attached to political agendas (1988). This finding was echoed in the opinions of several interviewees who commented that they felt that

116 opportunities for young people and resources for YD were used as instruments to reward young supporters of the party in power.

Interviewees in two organizations disclosed having had partnerships with

“Local Government” at the regional or neighborhood level. Relatively few studies address the impact of local government partnerships with YD organizations. Danielle

Resnick’s (Chirisa, Maphosa, Mandaza-Tsoriyo, & Matamanda, 2019; Corrigan, 2016;

Muthee, 2010; te Lintelo, 2011) examination of the decentralization of urban Senegal contends that efforts of local governments are stymied by fiscal, administrative, and political “subversion” by the central government. The politicized contexts of local government affairs mean that there is variance in whether local government partnerships improve or impede YD organizations’ work. In a meso-level study of 350 of Senegal’s local governments, Martha Wilfahrt (2013a) concluded that their efficacy and the extent to which local elites engaged in individual opportunism varied based on the strength of local leaders’ social ties to the community.

Three organizations had partnerships with “Local Civil Society.” The Youth

Beats and We Learn organizations were supported by “Local Civil Society” in the form of collaborative events while the Community Connections participants discussed raising money from the general public to finance public service days. Finally, interviewees in two organizations had a system for collecting fees from members for certain program activities.

117 4.3.2.3 Thematic Focus Youth do not constitute a homogenous social category. Their needs, interests, and lived experiences run the gamut. Each of the organizations in the study had at least one program targeting young people between the ages of 15 and 35 years old, but they did so through a range of thematic programming. The researcher also found it to be of note that the two youth-serving organizations, in particular, were working to address broader social issues but designated at least one program specifically for issues concerning young people. The researcher elected not to limit sampling to a specific thematic area, e.g., by exclusively interviewing coordinators of afterschool or youth sports programming. Instead, the study sought to be inclusive of the perspectives of individuals representing a variety of organizational approaches that have significance for the contexts of young people in Senegal.

With respect to their YD strategies, each of these organizations discussed incorporating activities related to education, employment, and entrepreneurship. As discussed in Chapter 1, the impacts of youth disproportionality on young people’s economic well-being have been a unifying factor across Africa’s young societies.

Whether the goal was to provide guidance for out-of-school youth or to help university students improve their mastery of their coursework, the challenge of helping

Senegalese youths access economic opportunity seemed to be a major concern for the organizations included in this study. Information on how the thematic foci of individual organizations reflect Senegal’s social environment is addressed later in the chapter.

118 4.3.2.4 Organizational Age The age of an organization can also be a factor in access to resources, as well as the capacity to dispense them. Older organizations generally have a stronger public reputation, name recognition, and ongoing relationships with partners. Baum and

Oliver (2018) posit that organizations with longer histories become more embedded in their institutional environments, meaning that they have more dense relations with their populations and key institutions in their operational settings. As an organization ages and becomes more embedded, the organization gains greater public legitimacy, therefore increasing its chances of long-term success (1992).

Two of the interviewees did not provide the age of their organization or the year in which it was established. Of those organizations with information available on when they were established, there was a fairly wide gap. While two organizations were less than ten years old, three had operated for over three decades in the country.

The paradox of YD organizations is that young people are prepared for and encouraged to seek economic opportunities outside of their organizational structure. In other words, they are not necessarily expected to serve in the organization on a long- term basis. This likely impacts succession planning and continuity for organizations with youth leaders. Only one youth-run organization, ProActive Youth, had been in operation for more than a decade. It is important to note, however, that ProActive

Youth is a national branch of an international organization run by university students.

New Day Youth, a youth-led organization with paid staff and a non-youth leader, exhibited the opposite trend. The organization has operated for more than 50

119 years in Senegal and was illustrative of the relationship that Baum and Oliver (J. A. C.

Baum & Oliver, 1992) describe. New Day Youth participated in a network known as the “Big Seven,” which consisted of the seven largest, formally recognized YD organizations in the country. The organization also received a regular financial contribution from the national government and was provided with a technical consultant by the Ministry of Youth to ensure that its strategies aligned with the aims of the Ministry.

4.3.2.5 Leadership: President/CEO One of the main sampling criteria for the study was based on organizations’ participatory models. The decision-making structures for youth-serving and youth-run organizations are fairly clear, but authority in youth-led organizations is often more ambiguous (1992). One dilemma of studying YD organizations is that there is no commonly accepted measurement of the quality of youths’ participation in organizational decision-making. To give some context to the extent of youth inclusion, the researcher uses the proxy measure of whether the organizational leader is a youth or non-youth.

Although young people may be numerous in an organization, it does not necessarily imply that they have substantial decision-making authority. There is also often less social distance between younger YD organizational leaders and the membership. For example, the president of the Community Connections organization

120 was well known by members and lived in a dormitory on campus. Presumably, this living arrangement would facilitate frequent social interactions with members.

4.3.3 Organizational Sample and their Relevance to the Senegalese Context

4.3.3.1 Youth-Serving Organizations

4.3.3.1.1 Tailoring Success Both of the key directors of Tailoring Success identified themselves as being

“at fifty or past.” Like many organizations that fall into the category of youth-serving,

Tailoring Success organization has multiple programs and initiatives that serve diverse groups of stakeholders. This organization’s primary objective is to provide support to individuals with physical disabilities. The leaders of Tailoring Success work as part of a national network of organizations aimed at assisting “persons in the situation of handicap.” One such activity is a four-year project specifically targeting youth aged

16-19 years old. The project, which is in its second year, supports youths’ entry into the sewing and artisanal crafts industry. The project is open to all youth but requires that at least 15% of participants have a physical disability.

The issue of physical disabilities is salient in Senegal. Firstly, nutritional deficiencies in the neonatal stage are common in developing countries (Ho et al.,

2015; Youth Speak Out Coalition & Zimmerman, 2007). Such conditions can result in lasting medical challenges for both mothers and infants throughout their lives (Mora &

Nestel, 2000). Secondly, limited access to healthcare increases the risks of incurring medical complications or treatable illnesses becoming debilitating (Mora & Nestel,

121 2000). Finally, Senegal has not completely escaped the impacts of conflict. Citizens in the Southern region of the country, known as the Casamance, have been engaged in armed struggle with the government of Senegal since the early 1980s (Marsala, Faye,

BeLue, & Schoeck, 2017). A result of the conflict is that the landscape has been marred by landmines. One study estimates that 80% of farmland is unusable due to the threat of landmines (A. Fall, 2010).

4.3.3.1.2 Environmental Futures Environmental Futures is an organization established with the mission of addressing environmental degradation through research and action. This organization has an established history in Dakar, a cadre of staff, and functions as part of a national network of environmental activists. Although the key organizational staff is located in the capital city, its work takes place nationwide.

Environmental issues are also of paramount priority for many communities in

Senegal. The country is located in the Sahel region of Africa and has suffered heavy losses due to desertification and drought (Oppong & Kalipeni, 2005). Its position along the coastline means that it is also highly susceptible to land erosion (Bradley &

Grainger, 2004; E. C. Wood, Tappan, & Hadj, 2004).

Given the bureaucratic structure of the organization, the informant felt that their organizational role was not appropriate to answer certain questions on behalf of the organization. The informant was willing to offer some general commentary based on experiences with YD activities in the organization as well as youth empowerment

122 work external to the organization. Due to technical difficulties with the audio of the interview, comments from Environmental Futures informant are based on field notes taken during and immediately following the interview.

4.3.3.2 Youth-Led Organizations

4.3.3.2.1 New Day Youth New Day Youth is part of an international federation of youth-led organizations. The organization has operated in Senegal for more than 80 years. It has operations in all regions of the country and is numbered among the “Big Seven”—

Senegal’s seven largest youth organizations. The organization teaches personal development and life skills to children as young as five years old and allows them to continue YD activities through young adulthood.

At the national and international levels, this organization is administered primarily by adults over age 35 who aim to build the leadership capacities of younger adults by engaging them as mentees. The organization enjoys extensive financial and institutional support from both the national government and international civil society.

One of the informants included in this study is a staff member of New Day Youth who serves at the behest of Senegal’s Ministry of Youth, Employment, and Citizen

Construction. Another serves as a member of the National Youth Council and plays a significant role in one of the country’s largest associations for young women.

123 4.3.3.2.2 Community Connections

Community Connections is an organization created by former university students to help students in a specific community to access educational resources. This organization serves both rural and urban youth by facilitating their transitions from their local village to the university setting in Dakar, and vice versa. Community

Connections is directed by youth in the university setting with the ancillary support of older adults. These informants spoke both English and French. All questions were stated in French, but responses were made in a mixture of English and French according to the preference of the informants. Their English statements are included verbatim, and French statements have been translated by the researcher.

4.3.3.3 Youth-Run Organizations

4.3.3.3.1 Youth Beats

Youth Beats is a music-focused organization based in one of Dakar’s most populated neighborhoods. Music arts, particularly hip-hop and rap, have had a significant influence on Senegal’s YD culture and politics. Not only the industry rooted in urban youth culture, but, as detailed earlier, much of the sociopolitical mobilization in the city, country, and region has been led by popular music artists.

Since the country’s democratic transition, the youth-public sector relationship has been an unremitting theme of both genres of music (Mbow, Mertz, Diouf, Rasmussen,

& Reenberg, 2008; Ndour et al., 2018).

The informant of Youth Beats has been recognized internationally for the role played in founding this organization. When we met, I was informed that they kept in

124 close contact with the groups’ acting leaders but are not actively participating in the group currently because of other obligations. The researcher felt that it was important to include the perspective of this informant because of their role as group founder and to explore the possibility that youths’ SOC decreases when they are no longer in close contact with YD organizations. At the informant’s request, this interview was conducted entirely in English.

4.3.3.3.2 We Learn

We Learn was established less than two years prior to this study, but it has garnered support from at least one major intergovernmental organization. The founder and more than 90% of the staff of We Learn are under the age of 25. The mission of

We Learn is to improve educational access and the entrepreneurial acumen of African youth who are unable to continue their formal studies, especially due to financial hardship.

4.3.3.3.3 ProActive Youth

ProActive Youth is an international YD organization that focuses on sustainable development and peace. The organization was developed and administered by university students. It has a presence in more than 100 countries, at over 2,000 universities worldwide. In Senegal, local youths staff the national office as well as smaller regional offices. The ProActive Youth informant, who has been a staff of the organization for six years. The interview was conducted on the eve of the informant’s thirtieth birthday. All interview questions were stated in French, and the responses

125 were in French and English according to the informant’s preference. English comments were used verbatim. French comments were translated by the researcher.

4.3.4 Informant Subsample

Informants for this study were selected and solicited through referrals in coordination with research centers and individuals familiar with Senegal’s YD landscape. To encourage informants to respond authentically and build rapport during the brief time available for data collection, the researcher conducted individual or group interviews based on informant preference. While some informants preferred to participate in an individual interview, others requested to include staff and/or fellow group members who they felt could add to the inquiry.

To compensate for the study limitations in the field, all interviews lasted for a minimum of 30 minutes. Most lasted for over one hour. The researcher conducted a total of eight interviews—five individual interviews and four group interviews. With the exception of the Youth Learn organization, where the founder asked the entire staff to participate, group interviews included an average of two to three people. The findings of the study are based on the perspectives of approximately 19 interview participants. Collectively, these interviews produced a rich set of data to better understand the meanings both youth and staff attach to specific types of resources, the quality of youth participation in the organization, and definitions of successful youth development (Fredericks, 2014a; Nelson, 2014). All interviews were conducted in

French and/or English based on the preference of informant(s).

126 4.3.5 Archival Research Subsample

While the use of observations, group interviews, and individual perspectives represent a means of understanding the outcomes of how YD programs are implemented, they are not necessarily reflective of official program theory—or the ideal and intended strategy for program delivery. Organizational documents, such as informational pamphlets, as well as websites and social media pages, were also analyzed to provide contexts for the study and triangulate the statements made by interviewees.

4.4 What is YD?

The concept of YD carries several connotations. Hamilton, Hamilton, and

Pittman (Sofaer, 1999) indicate that YD has been used to describe: 1) a natural process of youth growth, 2) a principle wherein youth build on strengths, and/or 3) a range of practices—based on the principle of building on strengths—employed by various programs, organizations, and initiatives to support youth growth. In the first model,

YD is interpreted as an inevitable process of coming-of-age, whereby the role of capacity-building is implicit, and therefore secondary. This understanding of YD can be seen as paralleling the core principles of Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend scholarship, which is preoccupied with predicting a threshold and/or precipitating condition(s) for youth to impact the sociopolitical progress of their societies. In the second model, the emphasis is placed on the process by which youth gain skills. It poses youth efforts to acquire the capacity to impact their personal circumstances— and, by extension, their communities—as a function of innovation in the sense that

127 youth draw on cognitive and other forms of resources that they possess to optimize their ability to achieve their goals.

In their final model, Hamilton, Hamilton, and Pittman (2003) define YD in terms of its methods and institutions. This definition of YD alludes to interventions undertaken by entities intending to influence what strengths and subsequent capacities youth develop. This study defines YD according to the latter definition. As Chapter 3 demonstrates, African youth are not appeased by public sector approaches that treat their development as inevitable or a philosophical principle. YD is an active, deliberate process that involves a plethora of stakeholders (2003). Any effort to contemplate the state of youth that neglects to consider the role of the gamut of stakeholders in young societies is futile. It is important that scholars place a greater priority on considering a wider range of stakeholders, instead of confining their understandings of public resources exclusively to what governments provide directly if they wish to improve youth-public sector relationships. This study uses statements taken from direct exchanges with both youth and non-youth in civil society YD organizations to examine the tripartite relationship between the government of

Senegal, civil society YD organizations, and Senegalese youths. The aim of this inquiry is to better understand how engagement with YD organizations influence young people’s attitudes about their governments and communities.

4.4.1 The Structure of YD Organizations: Three Models of Participation

YD organizations vary widely in their thematic foci, and the values they aim to impart, but they are all characterized by their provision of at least one intangible

128 resource: participation (Hamilton et al., 2003). Diversity in the field of YD can be distinguished by three basic organizational models of participation: youth-serving, youth-led, and youth-run (Wong et al., 2010; Youth Speak Out Coalition &

Zimmerman, 2007). Youth-serving organizations are defined as those created and administered by older adults (N. T. Wong et al., 2010; Youth Speak Out Coalition &

Zimmerman, 2007). These organizations are often associated with relatively high levels of tangible resources and relatively low levels of intangible resources, particularly youth involvement in decision-making (See Figure 1) (Sproul, 1942).

Youth-led organizations consist of those administered by older adults with youth involvement in leadership and/or governance of organizational activities

(Huebner & Betts, 2002; Sullivan & Larson, 2010; Torres-Fleming, Valdes, & Pillai,

2010). The level of youth participation varies from organization to organization, but they are mainly characterized by their emphasis on youth engagement coupled with logistical, material, and emotional support from older adults (See Figure 1) (Gong &

Wright, 2007). These youth-led endeavors are often aimed at directing youth towards socially desirable behaviors that are understood as characteristic of social adulthood

(Kirshner, 2008). The youth-led participatory model is also characterized by negotiations between young people and their older adult counterparts. While the participation of youth in youth-serving organizations often constitutes an activity, youth-led participatory models treat young people’s participation as an orientation—or central aim—of their work (Wills, Appleton, Magnusson, & Brooks, 2008).

129 Youth-run organizations are those that are established and managed by youth themselves. These organizations are virtually absent from the scholarly literature.

However, their sociopolitical impacts have taken center stage throughout Africa’s history. The Somali Youth League, African National Congress Youth League—which later became South Africa’s main political party, the African National Congress

(ANC), and the South African Students Organization were all influential in anti- colonial movements and post-independence governance (Protacio-de Castro,

Camacho, Balanon, Ong, & Yacat, 2007). In more recent times, a youth-run book club in Angola aroused such fear amongst the ruling elite that they were imprisoned for being a threat to the state (Gavin, 2007). In Burkina Faso, the abrupt end of the president’s 27-year tenure is largely attributed to the youth-run, government watchdog group “Balai Citoyen” (translation: Citizen Broom) (Allison, 2015). In Senegal, a coalition of singers, rappers, and other popular culture figures attracted international notice when they launched the group “Y’En A Marre” (translation: We’ve Had

Enough) to mobilize young people to peacefully demonstrate their discontent with the sociopolitical and economic conditions in the country (Hefez, 2015). Despite their influence, their strong orientations towards autonomy mean that youth-run organizations are often equipped with relatively few tangible resources (See Figure 2)

(UNRIC, 2012).

130 Figure 2 Conventional Categorizations of YD Organizations’ Tangible and Intangible Resources (By Organizational Type)

Intangible High Resources Youth-led YD Youth-run YD

Low Youth-serving YD

High Low

Tangible Resources

Even in the case of the present study, one of the first questions the researcher was asked while making inquiries about youth groups was whether potential youth-run informants must be part of an organization or could they be an “association.” This question likely stems from the recognition that youth-run groups are often informal

“associations” with no public charter and few formal relationships with government authorities.

Each organization has been found to have its own inherent advantages and shortcomings (O’Neill, 1998; Sullivan & Larson, 2010). Both in terms of their expressed and implicit goals, scholars have found evidence of differences in how youth act and react in their communities based on their affiliations with certain types of participatory schemas (Sobeck, Agius, & Mayers, 2007). This research hypothesizes that these participatory models play a role in defining youth-public sector relationships. They condition young people’s understandings of what society expects

131 from them and what they have a right to expect from society—whether theoretically or in practice (Munford & Sanders, 2015; O’Neill, 1998; Ramey, Rose-Krasnor, &

Lawford, 2017). Rather than arguing that a greater or lesser degree of youth participation is subjectively good or bad, this study recommends that the roles youth play in organizations may result in variances in how they relate to the public sector and interact with the larger community (Kirshner, 2009).

Exploring the dynamics of Senegalese youths’ connections with YD organizations, and by extension, the government requisites a consideration of the types of resources YD actors attempt to make available to youth. Like many aspects of YD scholarship, there is no standardized convention for describing the array of resources facilitated by YD organizations. Rather than transplanting a model of YD resources based on a single scholar’s perspective, the researcher developed coding themes to identify the resources YD organizations provided by contemplating areas of thematic consensus across the literature. Below are brief descriptions of the four categories of resources that guided the a priori coding scheme in the analysis phase.

4.4.2 What YD Organizations Provide: Four Resource Typologies

YD organizations vary widely, as do the resources they impart to young people.

Scholars have categorized the resource outputs of YD initiatives in a number of ways.

Some enumerate the tangible and intangible benefits of YD in expansive lists, while others organize them in more concise ways (Kirshner, 2009; N. T. Wong et al., 2010).

It is the researcher’s position that there is no single, objectively ‘correct’ way to classify the benefits YD organizations provide. In order to present the findings of this

132 study in an organized way; however, it is important to employ a typology that can effectively articulate what YD organizations seek to accomplish.

Based on the researchers’ survey of the literature on youth vulnerability and the roles YD organizations play in mitigating their challenges, this study proposes that the resources YD organizations provide can be understood as addressing at least one of three types of intertwined vulnerabilities: institutional, economic, and relational. The first step to understanding how youth-serving, -run, and –led organizations’ influence on youths’ perceptions might differ is by examining how the organizations direct resources towards mitigating the vulnerabilities of those they serve.

4.4.2.1 Institutional Resources

Institutional resources are those aimed at “supporting young people in finding and making use of social institutions and services (for example, school, career services, sport clubs)” (Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2016). While some resources, such as information and training, may be provided by a YD organization directly, YD organizations also connect young people to a broader network of assistance in indirect ways as well (Haudenhuyse, Theeboom, & Nols, 2013, p. 477). YD organizations can help youth learn how to navigate formal institutional structures, directly advocate for young people’s inclusion in institutional activities, and/or help young people gain an audience with individuals in institutions who can assist them in acquiring the goods or services they need.

A hallmark of youth is the evolving context of these individuals’ relationships with the state and other legal entities (Anderson et al., 2018). Youth acquire the ability

133 to vote, eligibility to be elected to public office, the right to work, the capacity to independently enter into contracts, and assume full responsibility for their actions under the law. They must also learn to interface with bureaucratic procedures in a variety of settings, i.e., engaging with banks, applying for jobs, gaining support for entrepreneurial endeavors, or enrolling in higher education. Even engaging with information technology can be a new challenge in this regard. Institutions are often characterized as being rule-based, impersonal, and bureaucratic (Davis, 2003). Having access to goods and services within formal institutions requires some familiarity with the processes and protocols required to receive a specific product or service. YD organizations can play a role in helping youth overcome institutional vulnerability through the provision of institutional resources.

The challenges of learning how to interface with institutions in an adult capacity differ from the challenges that come along with the inevitable realities of growing older. Bruce Mallory (Peng, 2003) delineates the natural challenges of youths’ developmental transitions from institutional challenges in this way:

“Developmental transitions are associated with maturation and increased competence and are essentially independent of the rules governing social institutions. The achievement of developmental milestones in the first years of life would be one example… Institutional transitions mark a change in status for the individual as a function of moving from one institutional environment to another. Although such transitions often coincide with chronological age, they are mediated by nomothetic bureaucratic standards rather than broad cultural traditions” (p. 214).

134 Stated more simply, institutional challenges are distinct from natural developmental challenges like learning to walk or talk because it cannot be assumed that young people will, perforce, understand how to open a bank account or register to vote (1995). Given the rates of informality in Dakar, understanding how to navigate formal bureaucracies is not a foundational skill for most. This study examined how different types of YD organizations help young people decipher and respond to the institutional barriers they encounter.

4.4.2.2 Economic Resources

Economic resources can be defined most simply as monetary or financial contributions to youth by YD organizations. Economic resources can take the form of salary, stipends, or per diems. For the purposes of the current study, economic resources also include in-kind or material resources, like the provision of food, clothing, or other goods that young people would otherwise need to purchase independently.

Economic stability represents a critical element of achieving full participation in adult society. Both Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend scholars have taken an especial interest in the relationship between young peoples’ economic capacity and outcomes for young societies. The previous chapters discuss some of the obstacles that impact youths’ economic prospects in Senegal. Unemployment and underemployment are common for youth in Senegal and throughout the continent. Chapter 3 discussed instances in a number of countries where young peoples’ concerns about their economic well-being have erupted into public protest. Given the prominence of

135 economic well-being in the discourse about youth disproportionality, the present study examines what role YD organizations play in providing young Senegalese participants with access to money or in-kind resources.

4.4.2.3 Behavioral or Normative Resources

Concern with young people’s behavior is at the heart of much of the public policy attention given to youth (Wheeler-Brooks & Scanlon, 2009). The extent to which young people conform to dominant ideals can impact their ability to access employment, quality education, and participate in public decision-making—among other things. Chapter 2 discussed the relationship between YD initiatives and the privileging of particular cultural models within Senegalese society. Normative ideals of how young people should behave in the public sphere exist in all cultures. Some argued that the earliest perspectives on YD in the US focused almost exclusively on interventions intended to correct non-normative behaviors (Benson, Mannes, Pittman,

& Ferber, 2013). The dominant contemporary perspective on YD, which is referred to as Positive Youth Development (PYD), has expanded its mission to build strengths in addition to correcting perceived deficiencies (Jimerson, Sharkey, Nyborg, & Furlong,

2004; Lerner, 2009).

Whether indigenous or foreign, one concept that remains consistent across YD initiatives is that they attach their activities to messages about the range of behaviors the group considers desirable or normative. As Lerner and Thompson (Benson et al.,

2013; Moore, 2017) explain, with YD programming, “planned and systematic attempts are made either to (a) reduce (or ameliorate) the presence of an emotional, behavioral,

136 or social problem; (b) prevent such problems from occurring; or (c) promote positive, healthy behaviors among people” (p. 338). The transmission of behavioral or normative resources by YD organizations has been described in a number of ways.

Some organizations refer to building youths’ character strength, moral competence, values, etc. (2002).

Because behavioral/normative resources are abstract, the modes YD organizations use to provide them can be more difficult to identify. Some staff made references to instances when they explicitly tell the youth that they should think or act a certain way. In other cases, interviewees alluded to the provision of behavioral/normative resources when they explained why their organization engaged in a particular activity. For the purposes of the present study, behavioral/normative resources encompass resources related to the encouragement of positive habits or modes of behavior.

4.4.2.4 Relational Resources

Relational resources are those that facilitate positive, meaningful relationships between youths and others in their social ecologies—or everyday environments

(Farrow, 2016; Ma, 2012; Park, 2004; Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2003). Relational resources usually take the form of providing young people with opportunities for positive interactions with their peers, their elders, political leaders, etc. Rather than simply building relationships, relational resources are designed to promote shared experiences and co-production between youths and others in their communities through social interaction (J. N. Jones & Deutsch, 2011).

137 Scholars have underscored the power of relational resources in supporting youths’ transitions to adulthood (R. A. Young et al., 2008). SOC scholars have repeatedly identified associations between individuals’ attitudes towards their communities and relational resources (Lerner et al., 2014). The literature has not yet extensively explored the implications of relational resources for societies experiencing youth disproportionality, but these resources have been identified as playing a prominent role in bolstering youths’ resilience in other difficult contexts (Brodsky,

2009; McMillan, 1996; Nowell & Boyd, 2010). Relational resources are also an integral aspect of the process of nurturing resilience (Walsh, 2012). According to

Michael Ungar (Ungar, 2012), inefficacies in YD are attributable in some part to the prevailing view that sees “resilience as something individuals have, rather than as a process” mediated by families, government, and society (p. 1).

Relational resources can include mentoring programs, community service activities, provision of community-based facilities, hosting parent-child events, holding public forums, etc. (2012). Because relational resources are often intangible, they are sometimes discounted as immaterial. These resources are also difficult to operationalize and dependent on the contexts of one’s social ecology. What is an essential relational resource for one community might be objectionable to another person. For example, going door to door to greet community members could be interpreted as friendly to one group and invasive to other people. As such, assessments of the quality of these types of resources are highly subjective and dependent on the perceptions of the intended recipients. This presents a monumental challenge for

138 public sector actors. How can young societies with so few resources and so many stakeholders effectively generate relational resources? How can they create forums that enable youth to develop attitudes about government actors and their performance based on personal experiences rather than second-hand information? What indicators can they use to measure the presence, absence, and quality of the provision of these types of resources?

4.5 Procedure Overview

The primary goal of the study was to answer the following research questions:

Do YD organizations’ participatory models and the types of resources they provide to youth in a particular neighborhood in Senegal affect how they perceive their government and/or their geographically-defined neighborhood? Does the level of youth participation influence whether their perceptions of a successful YD initiative are congruent with those of the organizational administration?

To accomplish this, seven organizations located in the city of Dakar, Senegal were identified in consultation with the West African Research Center, the Baobab

Center, and others familiar with the YD landscape of Dakar. Interviewees in each organization were contacted, apprised of the purpose of the study, and asked to interview at a time and place that was convenient to them. Interviewees were asked basic demographic information, such as their name, organizational role, and what organization they were affiliated with.

Interviews were semi-structured to allow the researcher to use probing questions to delve further into comments made by interviewees that were relevant to

139 the research questions. Given the researcher’s explicit aim of contributing to the furthering of scholarly dialogues within the fields of Urban Affairs and Public Policy, as they relate to youth-public sector relationships in environments of youth disproportionality, interviews posed two questions to all interviewees. Interviewees were asked: 1) What does it mean to you to be a citizen of Senegal? and 2) What advice would you give to Senegal’s Ministry of Youth to more effectively meet youths’ needs?

All interviews were audio and/or video recorded. The recordings were reviewed and transcribed verbatim by the researcher. The sections that follow include descriptions of the transcription, translation, and analysis phases of the study.

4.5.1 Transcription

All interviews were audio and/or video recorded. Transcripts were subsequently produced by replaying the data using – voice enhancement software. All interviews were typed verbatim, including pauses, in the language of the speaker(s)—

English, French, or a mixture of the two. All transcriptions were performed by the researcher over a period of two to three months.

4.5.2 Translation

The effects of globalization have resulted in researchers broadening their research interests. One effect of this is that researchers can encounter the challenge of conducting social inquiries in non-native languages. One of the primary concerns about translation and transliteration in the qualitative analysis process is the loss of the fidelity of data when texts are converted to a secondary language (Fullick-Jagiela,

140 Verbos, & Wiese, 2015; J. N. Jones & Deutsch, 2011; Strickland & Ungar, 2012; R.

A. Young et al., 2008). The researcher’s approach to the dilemma of translation was based on the Strauss and Corbin (Regmi, Naidoo, & Pilkington, 2010) model, which advises that researchers minimally employ the use of translation and transliteration.

The researcher elected to analyze interview transcripts in their original language to mitigate concerns about the authenticity of the texts. An advantage of reviewing interview texts in the original language was that it enabled the researcher to benefit from an ‘outsider’ perspective wherein the researcher was able to take a more conscientious approach to interrogating word choice, use, meanings, metaphors, etc. that might be overlooked by a native speaker (1998).

The translation was undertaken in later stages of the analysis process in order to make the data comprehensible in the interrater reliability scripts and to incorporate quotes from interviewees in the manuscript. In cases where French words had an exact

English equivalent, French was converted directly to its English correspondent. In other instances where the meanings of words or phrases were more complex, words were transliterated, meaning that French words or phrases were converted to their closest English equivalent. Decisions on how to transliterate words and phrases were made according to four considerations: understandability, adherence to the “spirit and manner” of the original statement, and naturalistic flow of words (Welch & Piekkari,

2006). Transliterated passages were cross-checked using Google Translate to generate suggestions for appropriate words or expressions. While the quality of Google

Translate has not been found to be interchangeable with the work of human

141 translators, experiments have found that the program is able to generate high-quality results for small excerpts of text (Halai, 2007, p. 351).

4.5.3 Inter-Rater Reliability (IRR)

Although many of the codes explored in the study were derived from the literature, organizing nominal data can still involve judgment calls by the researcher.

Inter-rater reliability (IRR) constitutes a process intended to measure the extent to which a coding scheme is consistently applied and reproducible. The procedure for assessing IRR involves providing excerpts of study data to two or more raters in order to a measure of how frequently the raters judge data as corresponding with the same codes as the researcher (Aiken, Ghosh, Wee, & Vanjani, 2009; Balk et al., 2012; E. De

Vries, Schoonvelde, & Schumacher, 2018).

4.5.3.1 Raters

The IRR of the code themes included in the Findings chapter of this study was measured based on a comparison of interrater agreement between the researcher and two raters. The selection criteria for raters considered their familiarity with Urban

Affairs and Public Policy concepts and experience as researchers. Given some of the difficulties associated with conveying translated text in a way that parallels the syntax and word choice of American English, raters were also solicited for participation based on their experience interacting with individuals for whom American English was not their maternal language. All three raters had studied Urban Affairs and Public

Policy at the doctoral level, and each had held an affiliation with a university research center. All three raters regularly interacted with non-English speakers in both formal

142 and informal contexts. Additionally, all raters had visited the continent of Africa at least once.

4.5.3.2 Scripts: Production and Distribution

The researcher produced scripts based on excerpts taken from interviews with study participants. The scripts for each code were intended to provide raters with a range of representations of the code being evaluated. Some interview excerpts were selected that were deemed by the researcher as exhibiting close alignment with the code in question, while other excerpts were selected to test the raters’ responses to more ambiguous applications of the code.

Two raters fitting the researcher’s selection criteria were asked to by the researcher to participate in rating scripts. The scripts were distributed to both via email, and they were encouraged to contact the researcher directly with any questions or concerns. Both raters evaluated scripts independently over a period of two weeks and returned their completed ratings to the researcher via email. Raters were volunteers and did not receive compensation for their participation in the IRR process.

4.5.3.3 Rating Results

The present study reported IRR using pooled Cohen’s kappa statistic, which was obtained using Dedoose qualitative analysis software. The kappa coefficient, the predecessor of the pooled kappa statistic, was introduced by Jacob Cohen (Shweta,

Bajpai, & Chaturvedi, 2015) as a means of assessing rater agreement on nominally scaled data. The pooled Cohen’s kappa, which expands on Cohen’s model, is regarded as more versatile for studies such as the current inquiry where the researcher’s aim is

143 to summarize the interrater agreement for multiple qualitative items across a small sample of research subjects (1960).

The full results of the IRR amongst coders are displayed in the table below.

Table 12: Interrater Reliability of A Priori Codes

Code Rater 1 Rater 2 Pooled

Counts Agreement Agreement Cohen’s

Kappa

Resources 26 13 15 0.18

23 11 13 N/A Behavioral

Economic 15 8 9 0.17

Institutional 35 15 14 0

Relational 19 10 12 0.18

144

Table 13: Interrater Reliability of Emergent Codes

Pooled Code Rater 1 Rater 2 Cohen’s Counts Agreement Agreement Kappa

Government Perceptions

Positive 38 29 32 0.53

Negative 34 28 28 0.15

Indifferent 34 27 30 0.36

Community Perceptions

Positive 37 25 30 0.47

Negative 41 27 27 0.35

Citizenship Perceptions

Positive 41 24 25 0.25

145 Negative 30 24 25 0.60

Indifferent 27 22 23 0.25

Kappa values can range from 0, indicating lack of rater agreement, to 1, which signals 100% agreement between raters. Just as there are numerous techniques for measuring agreement among raters, there are multiple scales for judging the significance of a kappa value. Some of the most commonly used standards for assessing the level of inter-rater agreement are the Landis and Koch (1977), Cicchetti

(1977), Fleiss (1994), and Miles and Huberman (1971) recommendations. Landis and

Koch (1994), propose that kappa values of: <.20 = poor agreement, .21-.4 = fair agreement, .41-.6 = moderate agreement, .61-.8 = good agreement, and .81-1.0 = very good agreement. According to Cicchetti (1977) and Fleiss (1994), values of: <.40 = poor agreement, .40-.59 = fair agreement, .60-.74 = good agreement, and .75-1.0 indicates excellent agreement between raters. Miles and Huberman (1971) support a more conservative standard where IRR should approach .90.

The results of Tables 11 and 12 illustrate a stronger level of IRR for emergent code themes than a priori themes. While the researcher is of the orientation that all data provided by interviewees is meaningful, inconsistencies in rater agreement suggest that there is a need to further develop certain conceptual aspects of this line of inquiry. For example, categorizing what resources YD organizations are provided by their government and consistently categorizing the types of resources organizations

146 make available to youths could be instrumental in strengthening the findings of future studies.

It is also likely that the IRR reflects the logistical limitations of the study procedures. According to Stemler, one potential challenge of IRR is that “the people who have developed the coding scheme have often been working so closely on the project that they have established shared and hidden meanings of the coding“ (1994).

Stemler (Stemler, 2001, p. 3) suggests overcoming this barrier by ensuring that raters operate independently and resolve disagreements after giving ratings. Although distributing the scripts through email may have played a role in providing a clearer assessment of the reliability of codes in a context where there was little coordination between raters, providing more guidance to raters in advance of releasing the scripts intended to calculate the final IRR could also have potentially contributed to higher levels of agreement among raters.

4.5.4 Analysis

4.5.4.1 Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis (CAQDAS) Software

Analytical protocols for the present study were undertaken using the CAQDAS software, Dedoose. Dedoose is a web-based platform that has grown in popularity among researchers in recent years (2001). The software has been adopted in more than

120 countries, at 20,000 sites, by more than 50,000 people (Taylor & Treacy, 2013).

Not only is Dedoose designed by researchers as opposed to software designers, but the company has also managed to attract the attention of numerous research institutions because of its success at reducing the costs of rigorous mixed methods research

147 analysis (Dedoose, 2019). As a testament to its growing influence, Dedoose’s clientele now includes the University of Southern California, Columbia University, Vanderbilt

University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Stanford Medicine, Pfizer, and the RAND Corporation (Taylor & Treacy, 2013).

4.5.4.2 Content Analysis

The present study employed content analysis that incorporated both deductive and inductive coding approaches (Dedoose, 2019). The initial reading of the transcribed text applied a deductive approach in which the researcher coded text corresponding to a priori themes that were developed based on a review of the literature surrounding Youth Bulge, Demographic Dividend, YD, and SOC (Zhang &

Wildemuth, 2016). Codes evaluating resources, and sub-codes addressing institutional, economic, behavioral/normative, and relational resources were all derived in advance of data collection and analysis based on a review of the literature.

Although the researcher did not employ a ‘pure’ grounded theory methodology, the analysis was informed by grounded theory techniques that allowed themes to emerge organically from the data (Stuckey, 2015). Grounded theory analysis is predicated on the ideal of closely evaluating patterns in data in a way that contributes to the advancement of theory (Strauss, A. Corbin, 1998; Tuckett, 2005).

Given the nature of the current study and its interest in the potential differences between youth-serving, -led, and -run organizations, the grounded theory approach to analysis follows the principle of constant comparison (Birks, Chapman, & Francis,

148 2008). Constant comparison challenges the researcher to continuously interrogate the data, constantly noting nuances and divergences between interviews.

In each additional reading of interview transcripts, the researcher used the grounded theory orientation toward analysis to support an inductive approach to coding. Using the constant comparison technique, the researcher engaged in an iterative, open-coding process to identify emergent codes in the transcript data (Giles,

De Lacey, & Muir-Cochrane, 2016). Throughout the process, the researcher generated memos to document thoughts about the data and bring focus to the coding process in a way that concentrated not only on evaluating transcripts individually, but also assessing them in the contexts of the study as a whole (Strauss, 1990). Memos were instrumental in preserving essential details about the contexts of the interview setting, the interviewees, supporting the evolution of the coding process, and exploring the conceptual and theoretical meanings in the data (Birks et al., 2008).

In addition to generating memos, subsequent readings of interview transcripts allowed the researcher to identify emergent codes as well. For example, whereas the research question presented a query about how youths’ perceptions of their government might be affected by the types of resources they had access to. Reviewing the transcripts revealed that perceptions of the Senegalese government could not be conflated with interviewees’ perceptions of the meaning of citizenship. Separate codes were developed to represent each concept. Emergent codes included those examining perceptions of government, community, and citizenship, as well as the sub-codes assessing whether those perceptions were negative, positive, or indifferent.

149 Finally, the researcher’s analysis contemplated the word placement and use by interviewees. This process encouraged the researcher to think consciously about less explicit patterns in the data (Birks et al., 2008; Stuckey, 2015). For example, noting whether interviewees referred to themselves as Senegalese, African, or world citizens helped shed light on how their concept of the community might differ from the researcher’s preconceptions. While the researcher strongly supports the perspective that all data carry significance, research involves difficult choices concerning what will be included or omitted from the final manuscript (Welch & Piekkari, 2006). It is an unfortunate reality of any social inquiry that the ultimate product of a researcher’s work is subject to constraints. The section below details some of the principal limitations affecting the production of the current study.

4.5.5 Limitations

The primary limitation of this study is the resource and time constraints surrounding its production of both the researcher and informants. All aspects of this study were funded by the researcher, and—with the exception of filming—all research activities were undertaken solely by the primary investigator. While the researcher is eternally grateful to dedicated staff and members of YD organizations for their participation and candor, the demands of their work can present logistical difficulties for scholarly inquiry. These individuals must make an immense effort to be as versatile as the populations they serve. Staff and members are frequently involved in numerous YD initiatives that require their attention, their efforts to affect change involve frequent travel—both nationally and internationally. They invest heavily in

150 hosting events to keep youth motivated as opposed to routine meetings, and their principles of autonomy often mean that connecting with the appropriate authority figure is not always a straightforward process.

Senegal’s national government is currently in the process of restructuring the political, economic, and social policy of the country to align with its long-term developmental strategy known as the: Emergent Senegal Plan. The Plan, which is designed to articulate developmental goals from 2018 until 2035, has prompted major changes in policy and personnel throughout the country. The changes presented a challenge for accessing governmental archives, particularly those related to youths and youth-specific organizations.

Finally, the researcher worked diligently to overcome potential challenges to the validity of this study in all stages of the process. There were several challenges to authenticity. Senegal has a reputation for openness and freedom of expression; however, that image has been tarnished in recent years due to several instances of retaliation against politicians, journalists, and ordinary citizens (Patton, 2002). Chapter

5 focuses specifically on the socio-political climate of Senegal and how it has affected the character of the youth-public sector relationship in the country.

4.6 Conclusion

The issue of youths’ access to resources has been neglected by both Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend literature. This chapter explains why YD organizations are an ideal unit of analysis for understanding the prospects and challenges for young people in environments of youth disproportionality. YD organizations have a wide

151 range of activities but are consistent in their goal of influencing youth social behavior through participation.

Their participatory structures can be classified into three general categories: youth-serving, youth-led, and youth-run organizations. Youth-serving organizations are defined as those created and administered by older adults (Agence France Presse,

2017; Corey-Boulet, 2018; Kamara, 2017a; M’Bai, 2017). Youth-led organizations also involve a moderate to high level of decision-making by older adults; however, these entities place an explicit emphasis on youth inclusion in the governance of organizational activities (Sproul, 1942). Youth-run organizations are those that are established and managed by young people (Ho et al., 2015).

This chapter also profiles the YD organizations whose staff and youth participants provided insights that were the basis of this study. Collectively, these seven organizations and their informants are reflective of a wide range of facets of

Dakar’s social environment. Although a small sample, these YD organizations and their informants can provide an enriched understanding of the multiplicity of functions

YD organizations serve for young people in urban Senegal.

The YD landscape in Senegal is undergoing major transitions. Chapter 5 elaborates on the sociopolitical contexts of YD in Senegal. It includes key background information on the environment where Senegal’s YD organizations carry out their work. Chapter 5 also provides further detail on the national and local demographic profile, the infrastructure of youth-specific resource provision, and recent policy issues in Senegal and Dakar more particularly.

152 Chapter 5

CASE STUDY: DAKAR, SENEGAL

5.1 Overview

The seven YD organizations in this study are an integral part of Senegalese society. Their histories and understandings of the local and national YD landscape are products of their interactions within this geographical setting. This chapter focuses specifically on the demographic and political characteristics of Senegal. It describes the geopolitical significance of Senegal for the continent—and Western Africa, particularly. It also further expounds on the recent sociocultural import of Dakar for youth-specific policy and protest.

153 5.2 Research Setting

3: Senegal’s Age/Sex Structure in 2018 (Source: CIA, 2018)

The country of Senegal exhibits many of the conditioning factors cited by both

Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend scholars as catalytic to major social change

(See Figure 3). Senegal has a population of over 13.5 million legal residents within a

land area smaller than the state of South Dakota (O’Neill, 1998). As noted in the 2018

CIA World Factbook, youth aged 15-24 years comprise 20.33% of the population (See

Figure 3) (CIA, 2018). Children under age 15 make up an additional 41.51% of

society (See Figure 3) (CIA, 2018). The median age in this country is 18.8 years of

age (CIA, 2018). The school life expectancy—or average years of formal education—

for a typical Senegalese youth is nine years (CIA, 2018). An estimated 57.7% of the

154 population is literate. While 69.7% of males over the age of 15 can read and write, only about 46.6% of females are able to do so. Senegal ranks among the top 30 countries in terms of fertility rates (CIA, 2018; Diop & Gueye, 2011). A young woman here has an average of 4 to 5 children over the course of her reproductive years. These trends have contributed to a population growth rate of 2.39% as of 2017

(CIA, 2016).

Much of this growth is directed towards cities, Dakar particularly. The country is 44.4% urban and increasing at a rate of 3.53% annually (CIA, 2018). Comprising roughly one-fourth of the nation’s land area, Dakar—Senegal’s administrative and economic capital—has a population density of nearly 5,000 inhabitants per square kilometer (8,046 per square mile) (CIA, 2018). Approximately 42% of individuals living in “regular” (formal) households in Dakar are between the ages of 15 and 35 years (ANSD, 2015). Despite the large concentrations of young people, the country has never experienced a major violent conflict (ANSD, 2002).

5.2.1 National Youth Policy and Politics

Once the capital of France’s West African empire, pro-business policies have allowed Senegal to cultivate global partnerships—and substantial foreign investment

(Lambert, 2016). The country’s reputation for peace, relatively prosperous economy, and its strategic location on the westernmost tip of Africa, has made it an attractive haven for young people fleeing conflict and/or hoping to make the clandestine passage to Europe (Pison, 1995; R. M. Dilley & J. S. Eades, 1994).

155 Senegal’s age structure has not resulted in the types of widespread political instability that Youth Bulge scholars contend is characteristic of young societies

(Buggenhagen, 2012; Riccio, 2005). Senegal generally—and Dakar in particular—has been the site of some watershed moments in contemporary Africa’s political history.

The narrative of YD in Senegal is inextricably tied to the issues of political consciousness, expression, and civic action. Senegal is an ideal location for this research study because its history exemplifies some of the key complexities of youth- public sector relationships in Africa.

In 2000, youth mobilized around presidential candidate Abdoulaye Wade’s promise of sopi (means “change” in Wolof, Senegal’s most widely spoken ethnic language) and handed him a resounding victory at the polls (G. Fuller, 1995;

Huntington, 1996; Kaplan, 1994). His triumph communicated a powerful message about the potential of youth engagement in Senegal and throughout Africa. When he was elected, he became only the third President since Senegal’s independence in 1960

(Cornado, 2012). After 40 years of presidential rule by a single political party, Wade’s presidency marked one of the first peaceful democratic transitions to power in post- independence Africa (Bingol & Vengroff, 2012). Wade was 73 years old when he took office; he had unsuccessfully vied for the presidential seat for nearly 30 years (Kelly,

2012).

This strategy of youth empowerment has had a lasting impact on both YD and politics in Senegal (Cornado, 2012; Quist-Arcton, 2012). Despite his age, he was able to inspire an unprecedented vigor among young voters (Holloway, 2019). The same

156 vigor reemerged ahead of the 2012 election when youth coalesced around youth-run groups, like Y’en a Marre, to oppose the president’s attempt to seek a third term—or, as some feared, to install his son, Karim Wade, in his place (Foucher, 2007; Resnick,

2013b). Their relentless calls for change prompted some to question whether their actions signaled the start of an “African Summer” in the wake of the “Arab Spring”

(Demarest, 2016; Quist-Arcton, 2012).

These groups have continued to strive towards their goal of promoting a “New

Type of Senegalese” (Ayittey & Siddique, 2013; Juma, 2011; Leke, 2012). As Aliou

Sane, a leader of Y’en a Marre explained it,

“…a New Type of Senegalese. What does that mean? It means that the manifesto addressed not only the state and the role it should play, but it called on the citizen to take a hard look at himself” (UNRIC, 2012). This spirit of self-reflection and political accountability was echoed by several informants in the current study as well. The current president, Macky Sall, took office in the wake of this renewed youth sociopolitical consciousness.

Paradoxically, the attributes that have placed Dakar at the center of regional youth engagement have increased youths’ risk of marginalization. Such elevated risks for marginalization also raise concerns about the saliency of factors influencing SOC for these young people. Citing Senegal’s popularity among tourists, President Sall has prioritized national security. Early in his presidency, Senegalese police detained hundreds of individuals suspected to be involved in extremist activities as well as offenses unrelated to national security in an attempt to boost security (Nelson, 2014).

157 This ushered in a period of increased police presence in wealthy areas of the city

(BBC Staff, 2016; Laing, 2016).

The President has also been accused of using his office to retaliate against potential political opposition, a popular singer and several journalists were detained for comments they made in private groups via the social media platform WhatsApp, and he is suspected of having initiated the deportation of a Senegalese-born Youtuber living abroad (Gidda, 2016). Additionally, institutions, such as the Senate, the post of

Vice President, and the post of Prime Minister, have been eliminated entirely from

Senegal’s governmental structure with little public discussion or media coverage

(Agence France Presse, 2017; Corey-Boulet, 2018; Kamara, 2017a; M’Bai, 2017).

These actions have clearly taken a toll on SOC and perceptions of the Senegalese government. In a recent multi-country survey, 94% of Senegalese responded that they must be cautious when speaking about politics (BBC News Staff, 2012, 2018).

Dakar has not only been a theater for national grievances. Nearly one year after

Seba’s symbolic burning of a CFA franc note in Dakar, his organization, Urgences

Panafricanistses (Panafrican Emergency), released a video entitled “7 minutes contre le CFA” (“7 Minutes Against the CFA”) (Logan & Penar, 2019). This video is a collaborative venture featuring ten well-known musical artists who hail from Senegal,

Mali, Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, and The Gambia, where the CFA is still in use (Amul

Bayi Records, 2018; Redaction NOFI staff, 2018). With scenes from their countries of origin displayed in the background as they rap, the artists use lyrics to explain the history and criticisms of the CFA system (Redaction NOFI staff, 2018). Participants in

158 the project have explicitly voiced a goal of motivating young people to join in this conversation and participate in enacting change (Amul Bayi Records, 2018).

5.2.2 Youth-Specific Resources

Since 2006, Senegal has supported youth development (YD) initiatives as an alternative means of interfacing with young people, regardless of their educational status (Amul Bayi Records, 2018). YD organizations are also designed to transmit values to young people concerning their role in the community and/or government, as well as orient them to social expectations. Senegal has undergone major transitions in the last decade. In 2018, the national government revealed the Plan for Emergent

Senegal (PSE). This legislation is the guiding document for a restructuring of the country’s entire administrative structure. Senegal’s Ministry of Youth, Employment, and Civic Construction is the control center for the country’s new approach to YD. It is one of the few ministries to combine a titular focus on youth, employment, and civic education under the purview of one institution.

The Ministry’s struggles to keep abreast of the evolving policy interventions is evident. According to the Ministry of Youth’s website, Mr. Mame Mbaye Niang, who is simultaneously the Minister of Tourism, is at the helm (Anyidoho et al., 2012;

Diene, 2012). The website for the Government of the Republic of Senegal features a statute dated April 2019 naming Madame Nene Tall as its head (M. M. Niang, 2019;

159 Republic of Senegal, 2019c). The Ministry, in its current state, also exhibits a lack of transparency concerning its resources and activities.

4: Screenshot of Ministry of Youth, Employment, and Civic Construction Website (Republic of Senegal, 2019b)

Error messages, such as the one pictured in Figure 4, can be seen on multiple webpages throughout the site. This particular page, entitled “I Want to Create or

Integrate an Association,” should presumably provide information to individuals or groups interested in starting a youth-specific organization or developing a relationship with the Ministry. Other pages, such as those entitled “Internship,” “Training,” and

160 “U-Report,” contain only Lorem Ipsum—or placeholder font. Not only are pages instructing Senegalese youths on how to connect with the Ministry and/or resources absent from the website, but there is also no information on the budget nor the YD organizations recognized by the Ministry.

There is some information concerning the general structure of the Ministry and the roles of the Minister of Youth. The Minister of Youth oversees three main agencies: ANPEJ (National Agency for the Promotion of Employment of Youth),

PRODAC (Community Agricultural Domains Program, and PAPEJF (Support Project for the Promotion of Employment of Youth and Women) (Republic of Senegal,

2019b). Collectively, the Ministry and its agencies are accountable for the socioeconomic promotion of youth and their groupings, overseeing “socio-educative” youth activities, and participating in youth training. Their work also has an explicit responsibility to contribute to youths’ preparation to eventually “assume their responsibilities as citizens,” as well as transforming citizenship into a “motor of national development” (Republic of Senegal, 2019c).

The language of the decree governing the Ministry of Youth closely echoes that of Demographic Dividend scholars. Its explanation of the Minister of Youth’s role in YD accentuates the latent capacity of youth. It also demonstrates that the country does indeed recognize the importance of a flourishing youth-public sector relationship to youths’ willingness and ability to contribute to national goals. Although the new policy is still in its early stages, this study explores whether other actors in the YD

161 environment perceive governmental actions as corresponding with the philosophical principles they espouse.

5.3 Conclusion

The country is undergoing some major transitions to its administrative structure. The national government has recently unveiled the Plan for Emergent

Senegal, an expansive new vision for the country’s developmental future. Senegal is now one of the only countries to combine youth, employment, and civic education under the authority of a single government ministry. While there is evidence that the

Ministry is still catching up to its new responsibilities, this new development could represent a major change for Senegalese youth. Chapter 6 considers Senegal’s YD environment from the perspectives of youths and staff in seven local YD organizations. It examines the contexts of young peoples’ relationships with the

Senegalese public sector. It also considers informants’ perspectives on how their participation in YD organizations influences their attitudes about their government and communities.

162 Chapter 6

FINDINGS

6.1 Overview

This study explores the research questions: Do YD organizations’ participatory models and the types of resources they provide to youth in a particular neighborhood in Senegal affect how they perceive their government and/or their geographically- defined neighborhood? Does the level of youth participation influence whether their perceptions of a successful YD initiative are congruent with those of the organizational administration?

The data presented below are not an exhaustive catalog of youth and YD staff’s activities and resultant perceptions of community and government, but rather a starting point for understanding how YD organizations may facilitate a relationship between youths, their governments, and communities. It is the researcher’s intent that the findings of this case study represent the beginnings of a much more expansive dialogue about the roles of YD initiatives in fostering positive youth-public sector relationships. The informants included in the study represent a broad range of backgrounds and experiences within Senegal’s YD landscape. Through their responses, this study examines the roles YD organizations can play in the developmental trajectories of a disproportionately young society like Senegal.

163 The current chapter, first, compares and contrasts how youth-serving, youth- led, and youth-run organizations understand youth vulnerability in Dakar, Senegal. It identifies the resources and strategies the organizations employ to obtain and allocate resources to their target population. Secondly, the chapter details what interviewees’ comments revealed about their perceptions of government and community. The researcher interrogates how young people understand their roles in society as a result of participating in YD organizations. Finally, the findings explore how ideas about the expected outcomes of YD align and diverge among participants in differing YD organizations.

6.2 YD Resource Allocation Strategies

6.2.1 Youth-Serving Organizations

6.2.1.1 Tailoring Success

6.2.1.1.1 Institutional Resources

The local coordinator and youth project manager of Tailoring Success, who agreed to be interviewed by the researcher, identified their4 ages as being “at 50 or past.” Much of the organization’s work was centered on empowerment for individuals with disabilities, but the interviewees explained that their mission had expanded to include programming that specifically served other vulnerable groups as well.

4 In the interests of protecting the confidentiality of interviewees, the researcher uses gender-neutral terms, such as “their” and “they” as opposed to gender-specific terms like “he” or “she”

164 Tailoring Success’s youth project manager explained the organization’s focus on young people as being based on their understanding of the vulnerabilities of young

Senegalese as “transversal” or cross-cutting. The manager emphasized that Senegalese youth are not a homogenous group. Instead, addressing their needs requires both YD organizations and partners to recognize the intersectionality of the problems they face.

Because of their thematic focus on disability rights, both staff members were particularly concerned with the compounding effects of physical disability on already vulnerable young Senegalese. According to the local coordinator, inadequate access to institutional resources was a fundamental problem for youth, particularly those with disabilities. They asserted that the lack of resources for children and youth in terms of education, representation, and other public services was in itself a “handicap” that constituted as great an obstacle to the life chances of disabled Senegalese children and youth as their physical impediments.

Tailoring Success, Local Coordinator, (Non-youth): The [physical] handicap is nothing. Us, what we fight for [is] that the schools are accessible because the schools are not accessible. A handicapped person cannot go to

those schools. There are lots of barriers, so you have to lift those barriers. And that we compete, and that the best wins. That’s what we’re asking for, nothing else.”

Rather than physical disabilities, the local coordinator identified institutional barriers as the main obstacle to an equal playing field. The local coordinator’s comment that physical disabilities would be inconsequential if young people’s

165 institutional needs were adequately met is illustrative of the importance of Tailoring

Success’s YD strategy attached to institutional resources. Schools were just one of the public institutions that the organization used its networks and advocacy capacity to make available to young people.

The local coordinator of Tailoring Success asserted that Senegalese youth, especially those of whom were disabled and/or female, could be “doubly or triply handicapped” by institutional barriers if they were not integrated into society at the most basic levels. The first “handicap” or vulnerability involved the national government as an institution. The coordinator and youth project manager explained that, not only was obtaining resources for their serving population a problem, but that youths’ disabilities were not recorded or taken into account by the national census.

Tailoring Success, Local Coordinator, (Non-youth): “We are not counted. We don’t know the number of handicapped people at the departmental level of Dakar. Yes, that presents problems. And even to do projects, because if we had the number of people, we would know the number of children. How many…the number of children, their types of handicaps, which are the children who are not in school…” The lack of demographic information about youth with disabilities presented a challenge to facilitating institutional resources from either YD organizations or the government. Tailoring Success’s leaders advocated on behalf of Senegalese children and youth with disabilities to ensure that they were taken into consideration by governmental institutions. The organization had participated in calls for the national census to be redone or for a definitive plan of action to be presented for conducting the

166 next census more responsibly. According to the youth project manager, representatives of Tailoring Success have even played an advisory role in the development of

Senegal’s newly implemented Emergent Senegal Plan.

The failure to accurately reflect the number of individuals with disabilities on the census contributed to a second “handicap” of institutional invisibility, especially with regards to educational institutions. According to the Tailoring Success coordinator, there is one public school in Senegal and one school for children with disabilities.5 The interviewees explained that communities and families often stigmatized people with physical impediments. The challenges and accompanying expenses of sending a child with a disability to educational institutions that were not designed to accommodate their physical needs prevented many youths from attending school at all. The youth that did have access to formal educational institutions had to learn to adapt to facilities and conditions that were not always conducive to learning, and that put their health at risk in some instances.

In addition to advocating on behalf of children and youth, Tailoring Success also made an effort to include young people in institutional processes. At the local level, the organization collaborated with public officials and other organizations to overcome institutional barriers to accessibility. The local coordinator framed this approach as one based on ensuring both “access and accessibility.” “Access”

5 The remainder of schools are private, meaning that parents are often required to pay a fee for their children to attend them.

167 described young people’s capacity to be present in the institutional setting.

“Accessibility” related to how youth engage with institutional actors. The coordinator extrapolated on the distinction between “access” and “accessibility” by describing a public health partnership between Tailoring Success’s national office and a local government stakeholder:

Tailoring Success, Local Coordinator, (Non-youth): “For example, in the health structure, they [Tailoring Success’s local government partner] have said that there needs to be accessibility, access and accessibility of people in [the situation of handicap] in the health structure. The access physically to enter in the…in the health structure, but also the reception. Because imagine someone who doesn’t hear. How can they explain their illness or health problems?” In the case of the partnership the local coordinator was describing, the ultimate goal was to improve “accessibility” for a broad constituency of individuals with disabilities by training public health staff to accommodate their needs better. However, the local coordinator explained that “access” and “accessibility” were also extended to young women in the region.

The organization leveraged its relationship with the local government partners to ensure that the young women had “access,” or were physically allowed to interact with stakeholders in the planning of the local public health agenda. Secondly, the organization provided leadership and advocacy training to facilitate “accessibility” to propose solutions to local government leaders and public health actors. While the national activities, like census-taking advocacy, seemed to involve older adults within the organization’s administration primarily, the public health initiative was designed to

168 allow youth to advocate directly to policymakers. The coordinator described Tailoring

Success’s efforts to reform local health facilities as having both educational and participatory aspects. Young people were given a platform for expression, as well as ongoing support from organizational staff members.

Tailoring Success, Local Coordinator, (Non-youth): “We are, we are in the process of…really being with them. We informed them, and it’s, now, it’s them. At this time, it’s the real solutions that they are working on. We teach them to talk about real solutions…” In other words, Tailoring Success used institutional resources not only to support young people to gain entrée to formal institutions, but they also offered them guidance and prepared them to champion their own causes.

6.2.1.1.2 Economic Resources

Although Tailoring Success’s national network was engaged in advocacy and other types of work, the local branch of the organization that was the focus of this study also promoted youths’ inclusion through economic empowerment initiatives. A key goal of the local branch was to provide youths with the skills and confidence they need to become financially viable, irrespective of the level of education or physical challenges. At the time of the interview, Tailoring Success’s staff was implementing the second phase of a multi-year project focused on entrepreneurship in artistic enterprises as a means of supporting less credentialed young people. The project provided instruction in subjects, such as life skills, developing a business plan, financial management, etc. After youths were oriented to the essential concepts of

169 entrepreneurship, each presented a business plan to the youth project manager. Five of the most well-articulated projects were selected for business incubation.

With regards to tailoring, the local coordinator asserted that there was a

“complexe,” or embarrassment, amongst youths about becoming tailors. Fashion is a major element of Senegalese culture, but the occupation of producing clothing is not universally respected (Republic of Senegal, 2019a). Tailoring carries a stigma amongst some because it is a traditional occupation that does not necessarily require extensive formal Western education (Kirby, 2013; Mustafa, 2006). This idea was reiterated by a We Learn staff who, quoting the Ministry of Finance, noted that tailoring is the most common form of employment for out-of-school youth. The We

Learn staff stated the case as, “The youth who are in Senegal, if they don’t find work, they want to be tailors.”

Some also see the contemporary tailoring industry as a gendered occupation.

Tailoring became a source of economic empowerment for women at a time of financial crisis in Senegal when many men were losing their livelihoods (Mustafa,

2001). Tailoring is one of the few industries where female employers are commonplace, which challenges cultural notions of men as authority figures and breadwinners (Kirby, 2013). The coordinator’s observation about youths’ attitudes towards tailoring is noteworthy because it speaks to a more substantive dilemma about where the issue of self-actualization fits into the discourse about youths’ futures.

When presented with other options, tailoring seems not to be the employment of choice for youths.

170 In other instances, the coordinator explained that the economic opportunities available to youth in Tailoring Success were sometimes contingent on the resources available to the organization rather than the ideal goals of youth participants. For example, the organization maintained relationships with partners to identify job placements for youths. The availability of placements was conditioned on the needs and preferences of partners.

Tailoring Success, Local Coordinator, (Non-youth): “…Sometimes they tell us, ‘Bring us a young girl, of this age, to do this, at this determined level.’ If there aren’t [any girls] on that level, we can’t send [them].” Based on the coordinator’s example, in addition to one’s level of competence, partners might also have specifications concerning the age and gender of their ideal job candidate. The coordinator noted that some young people had been able to secure long-term employment with partners through this type of networking. Nonetheless, the example is illustrative of what the youth project manager referred to as the

“transversal”—or intersectional—nature of youth-specific resources. As noted above, there are numerous barriers to educational institutions for young people. Low literacy and lack of formal education were especially prevalent amongst young Senegalese who are disabled and/or females. Ensuring that young people were adequately qualified to take advantage of economic opportunities when they were offered presented a significant challenge for the organization.

171 6.2.1.1.3 Behavioral/ Normative Resources

As the interviewees described the external barriers to YD, they also made clear that their work also involves helping young people confront internal obstacles that could obstruct their progress. As older adult leaders of the organization, the Tailoring

Success informants occupy a distinctive position in the YD landscape. They are both native-born Senegalese who have experienced both the frustrations of being youths and of being older adults attempting to decipher the present generations’ behavior.

Both interviewees referenced their personal experiences growing up in Senegal with physical disabilities to relate to the challenges of the youth they interacted with. They acknowledged that the situation young people in Senegal face might be overwhelming at times, but they believed that the present generation lacked some of the character traits that they understood as contributing to their success.

Tailoring Success, Youth Project Manager, (Non-youth): “The youth

currently, they get discouraged quickly….with us, it wasn’t [like] that. We fought it. The more it was difficult, the more we resisted.”

The youth project manager identified life skills courses, which were an accompaniment to the tailoring and business incubation initiative, as one of the ways

Tailoring Success explicitly worked to impact the behavior of young people.

According to the project manager, one of the objectives of the program targeting youth was addressing the lack of confidence experienced by young people with less access to education and economic opportunities.

172 Tailoring Success, Youth Project Manager, (Non-youth): “If, for example,

you see a girl or boy who, for example, has a quality education, and then who wants a job, there is a certain confidence they have. And no matter where they are, they feel like they are not insignificant.

But, on the other hand, when you see, for example, people who didn’t have the chance like [the coordinator] and me to study. Where they can but beg, there is that embarrassment. That embarrassment to engage that is there.”

They characterized the life skills program component as instilling a type of confidence or dignity in youths that they might not otherwise have. The coordinator described their training strategy as being aimed at instilling their worldviews and values of self-sufficiency, intellectual competence, and intellectual resistance in the younger generation of participants.

Tailoring Success, Local Coordinator, (Non-youth): “When you see the young people who have gone through the courses. Yes! Those I trained, when you see them, they think like me. They speak like me. That's it! We help them to do for themselves.

My youth, who are mine. We take care of them. They know how to defend themselves. They know they are people like many people who need to have knowledge. And must not ... we have to defend ourselves by knowledge, by ideas. This is how they will respect you. That’s what we share with them.”

Both interviewees emphasized that their orientations concerning how young people should behave and interpret their social ecology stemmed from their

173 experiences as disabled youths in Senegal. It was notable that the interviewees’ expressions of desirable behavioral traits often employed the themes of defense and resistance. Although the Tailoring Success interviewees described working to improve the community and being engaged with various governmental entities, the staff members’ comments suggest that their perceptions of those relationships were not without their complications.

6.2.1.1.4 Relational Resources

The coordinator and project manager described the underlying goal of the organization as working to psychologically prepare youths to confront the “stare of the other” with confidence. “The stare of the other” was a phrase that was invoked several times by both interviewees. The “stare” represented negative attitudes towards youths with disabilities that came from a variety of sources in their social ecology. The coordinator asserted that even among close family, youths with disabilities are not immune to the prejudices embodied by the “stare of the other.” While well-meaning acquaintances might underestimate the capacity of youths with disabilities, others may stigmatize them out of ignorance. These relational difficulties affected both professional and personal well-being, according to the interviewees.

Although past their youth, the interviewees concluded that their own experiences in accomplishing the youth to adult transition were not entirely different from what Senegalese youths were experiencing in the present. They recounted repeatedly falling on stairs, enlisting the help of friends to reach their classrooms

174 without injury, being refused job interviews because of their physical impediments, and being stigmatized by family members.

Tailoring Success’s local coordinator used the example of marriage to extrapolate on how relational barriers can prevent disabled youths from achieving milestones to adulthood.

Tailoring Success, Local Coordinator, (Non-youth): “…Often the person, when you are handicapped, you’re a man. If you have a pocket [that is] a little full, they will give you a woman…women, it’s a little difficult…Be it they tell you that, ‘Her there when you come to the house…at my house, what is she going to do for me? She can’t do..’ or, rather, they will think that you are going to make handicapped children.” From the coordinator’s perspective, a family might permit a young man with disabilities to marry their daughter if he has a “full pocket”—or is financially successful, but young women are treated as liabilities. Potential husbands are either reluctant to marry them because they feel that the women are not able to manage a household or because they assume that the woman’s disability could be hereditary.

According to the coordinator, such prejudices can place young women in the

“strongest zone of handicap” where they are isolated within their homes and lack many of the basic skills to be independent.

Since its inception, Tailoring Success has created an organizational section specifically devoted to the needs of women with disabilities. Their interventions provided safe spaces to help young women to meet others with disabilities and, ultimately, to “integrate” into society.

175 Tailoring Success, Local Coordinator, (Non-youth): “…There are lots of women. There are women, lots of handicapped women who are in the regions that we have seen. It’s women of 25 years who have never left home, and they come [to Dakar] for the first time on the level of associations. And often, there are people who laugh. And even though they don’t even know the way home. But that, it’s really serious.” According to the coordinator, Tailoring Success facilitated rural to urban migration for young, disabled women who might not otherwise have had the chance to venture out. The women were often mocked for their lack of basic skills, like being able to leave and return home safely. The Tailoring Success organization placed them in a supportive environment where they can build confidence to reclaim their autonomy. The coordinator conjectured that the young women Tailoring Success served would not likely be able to participate as fully in other YD organizations because of barriers to attending meetings and/or low levels of literacy.

To further illustrate how relational resources could influence youths’ behavior at the most fundamental levels, the Tailoring Success coordinator recounted their experience interacting with a group of young, disabled women at an international conference. The informant, who also had a physical disability, recalled that the young women lacked the confidence to perform tasks like eating or taking care of their personal hygiene.

Tailoring Success, Local Coordinator, (Non-youth): “…Because I was well made up and everything. When they came, I told them, ‘But you, you can do more than me. You have to fight.’ And they started to make themselves up and

176 be interested in their bodies. And that, that really made me happy. And that, I cannot forget.” After being able to interact with someone with a physical disability who was able to take care of themselves and to dress well, the young women also began to take more initiative. The coordinator commented that there were few concrete benefits of the conference but that there was a marked difference in how the youths behaved based after receiving encouragement from the interviewee..

In both examples, the coordinator explained that the organization’s role in assembling people with similar life challenges could be transformative for young people’s psychosocial health. Young women who had previously not been able to participate in social life were able to interact with other people with disabilities. These types of meaningful and supportive relationships helped them gain the confidence they needed to lead more independent lives.

6.2.1.1.5 Defining ‘Success’

When asked to describe their vision for a successful youth participant, the interviewees described their goals in this way:

Tailoring Success, Local Coordinator, (Non-youth): “It’s the youth, who…Like all youths who don’t have a handicap, that they know lots of things like them. And that, you can no more judge through their handicaps, but through what is in their soul, that they express, that they represent. That’s what we want. That their handicap not be a handicap. That the stare of the other not be anymore…”

177 Tailoring Success, Project Manager, (Non-youth): “That the stare of the

other not be an obstacle.”

Their views of success reiterate the perspective that, while Tailoring Success made efforts to include youths with disabilities, the young people’s physical capacity was not their main concern. The organization’s initiatives sought to train, advocate for, and connect youths to resources, but the ultimate goal of the two interviewees centered on achieving more abstract gains for young people: acceptance, inclusion, and equity.

6.2.1.2 Environmental Futures

6.2.1.2.1 Institutional Resources

Like Tailoring Success, Environmental Futures had numerous thematic areas but devoted certain programming specifically to the needs of young people. Their main project serving youth and children centered on institutional inclusion and rights.

Their efforts involved advocacy, information campaigns about youth and child rights, and the provision of direct technical assistance to Senegalese youths to improve their quality of life.

The organization’s website describes the mission of the youth section as designed to help youths gain greater recognition from institutional actors so that they are better understood and valued. Environmental Futures’ institutional advocacy efforts took place at the highest levels of international governance. The group produced research publications and used them to make appeals to intergovernmental bodies, such as the United Nations General Assembly and the ILO. In addition to

178 participating in international conferences on the welfare of children and youth, the organization coordinated local groups and associations to meet and strategize on how best to mobilize the public around issues of importance to the two youngest segments of society. Their activities in Senegal varied based on the focus of local stakeholders.

Some regions were involved in creating awareness around the international conventions against the marriage of minors, while others concentrated on making educational institutions accessible for young people. According to a publication by one of Environmental Futures’ partners in Senegal, the organization had a strong reputation for including youth voices in their program planning and implementation strategies.

The interviewee for this study worked principally as an information technology

(IT) specialist for the organization. The informant explained that they do not participate in administrative decision-making for the organization, but that they participated actively in several of the organization’s projects related to climate change and agriculture. In expressing their views on YD and youth vulnerability in the

Senegalese context, the interviewee identified institutional resources as a key element of YD. The interviewee explained that, rather than choosing an enterprise for young people and recruiting them for training, the organizations should aim to expand the institutional access of young people who were already engaged in trades.

According to the IT specialist, entrepreneurial initiatives could present particular challenges for young people. They felt that supplementing youths’ training with business skills was especially important in Senegal. While the Tailoring Success

179 staff had briefly touched on the concept of business plans, the Environmental Futures informant went even further in explaining why guidance in this domain could constitute a meaningful institutional resource for Senegalese youths. The IT specialist explained that institutions like the Ministry of Youth do host competitions and initiatives to endow a select few youths with economic and other types of resources that could advance their goals; however, the supply of such opportunities is low and demand amongst young Senegalese to be selected is high. According to the interviewee, in some instances, young people with financial means might even pay someone to write a business plan on their behalf, which presents its own problems.

Firstly, despite being well-written, it is not a certainty that the young person will be able to explain a business plan composed by a third party. Secondly, the interviewee asserted that it might be even less likely that a novice entrepreneur will be able to implement the plan if it is selected.

Environmental Futures not only participated in the training of youths, but they worked with a network of hundreds of organizations, as well as political and community leaders, to promote the adoption and enforcement of laws that are intended to make youths less vulnerable to exploitation. For example, an ongoing concern in urban Senegal is that the conditions in some koranic schools, which offer Islamic education, are unacceptable. Young students do not always have access to basic life necessities, and some schools require young students to solicit alms and food from the public (Mustafa, 2006). To reduce some of the imminent risks to these youths,

Environmental Futures developed an initiative to create secure spaces where koranic

180 students could go to beg. The organization also has a long-term initiative that includes strategies like bringing members of rural communities to urban areas so that they can witness first-hand the conditions of koranic school students and return home to mobilize fellow community members to protect local children from this type of exploitation better.

6.2.1.2.2 Economic Resources

Concerning economic resources, the interviewee felt that YD organizations should be cautious about direct transfers of capital to youths because, absent other types of resources, they saw it as a short-term solution. Expounding on the example of youths who are successful at accessing cash contributions through entrepreneurship competitions, they explained that young Senegalese do not always fully grasp the distinction between a business loan and a personal loan. If young people are not given benchmarks or provided with administrative oversight, they may not necessarily be able to take full advantage of the opportunity provided to them.

Publications of Environmental Futures’ activities state that the organization recognized several sociocultural issues affecting Senegalese youth involved an economic component. Several list poverty as an obstacle to achieving respect for children and youths’ internationally mandated rights. The organization supported long-term solutions to economic well-being to address the financial hardships of youths and their families. Some examples of their work included encouraging individual savings among youths, supporting local micro-lending groups, and teaching youths how to launch fundraising activities to generate financial support for their

181 business ventures. Youth-specific initiatives also invest time and resources into teaching Senegalese youths how to commercialize their work. The organization assists youth participants in marketing their products and in connecting with trade networks that can help them reach a wider audience.

Both in their capacity as a staff member of Environmental Futures and through extraneous associations, the interviewee described having a personal affinity for encouraging youths to advance their interests in local, sustainable industries. Cash crops like baobab fruit, which has become a popular “superfood,” and fonio that has been marketed as an alternative to health foods like quinoa are attracting attention from international consumers (Zoumanigui, 2016). However, they explained that when

Senegalese youths envision economic opportunity, they often fail to consider activities like agriculture and the marketing of foods indigenous to Senegal.

6.2.1.2.3 Behavioral/Normative Resources

According to the interviewee, agriculture is also a domain that many youths have a “complexe”—or a reluctance—to explore. The IT specialist commented that many youths—and their parents as well—perceive a prosperous career as one that involves business attire. Similar to the stigma surrounding tailoring, farming is considered a traditional occupation that does not require extensive formal education.

They explained that rural families consider their children to have wasted their education if they return to rural areas to join their parents as agricultural laborers or attempt to start their own farm-based businesses.

182 The interviewee worked to combat negative attitudes about farming by participating in initiatives designed to promote the value of agriculture by visiting rural areas to encourage community farming activities. Environmental Futures also sponsored training on topics like producing and marketing juices made with fruits indigenous to Senegal. While the interviewee expressed a passion for interfacing directly with young people, the organization also focused on influencing community attitudes about youths as well. Environmental Futures dispatched delegations to areas throughout the country to bring awareness to issues like preventing violence, exploitation, and early marriage for those under the age of 18.

6.2.1.2.4 Relational Resources

As was the case in the Tailoring Success organization, the interviewee’s attitudes about relational resources were attached to their efforts to impact youths’ behavior. With regards to promoting agriculture, the interviewee explained that being transparent about their own identity had been a means of helping youths to recognize the value of Senegal’s agricultural potential, and of inspiring appreciation for the country more generally. According to the interviewee, they had earned their university degree abroad and had a lucrative career in IT. The informant identified their desire to make a social impact in their home country as the main factor motivating them to return and accept an employment opportunity with Environmental Futures. They explained that their participation in the organization’s fieldwork and sharing their independent projects on social media was a means of demonstrating to Senegalese youths that agricultural pursuits could be dignified. One could have an education,

183 dress fashionably, etc. and be a farmer. In their assessment, leading by example and interacting with local communities was instrumental to effective YD.

6.2.1.2.5 Defining “Success”

As detailed above, the interviewee defined success in terms of youths being able to take pride in their country. Although the IT specialist had been educated and worked abroad, they expressed concerns about young people migrating out of desperation at the expense of their dignity and safety. Additionally, the interviewee stated that successful YD initiatives should involve less politicization and stronger political will from the Senegalese government.

The interviewee explained that at present, resources provided by central and local government were principally directed towards helping young Senegalese

“divertir”—or entertain themselves. The informant cited government-sponsored YD initiatives like the cultural and sports associations as being inappropriate for addressing youths’ actual vulnerabilities. Instead, the interviewee asserted that a sign of successful YD would be when young people were able to obtain a level of self- sufficiency that allowed them to finance their own parties and entertainment.

6.2.2 Youth-led Organizations

6.2.2.1 New Day Youth

6.2.2.1.1 Institutional Resources

New Day Youth worked in close collaboration with Senegal’s national government. The Ministry of Youth provided the organization with a technical advisor whose responsibility was to ensure that the activities of the organization were

184 consistent with the objectives of the Ministry. New Day Youth was a partner in a network of the country’s largest YD organizations. The group received a regular budgetary contribution from the Ministry as well.

Like Tailoring Success, New Day Youth leveraged its governmental partnerships to champion greater inclusion for Senegalese youth within government institutions. One such effort promotes “generational parity” at all levels of government. The technical advisor explained that, under former president Abdoulaye

Wade’s administration, the government had focused on gender equity in political representation. New Day Youth’s goal was to accomplish an analogous scenario for young people. Although the organization did not anticipate that youth would achieve representation that reflected their proportional share of the population, they hoped that the national assembly6 and other governing bodies would be willing to work towards at least 30% youth representation.

New Day Youth, Technical Advisor, (Non-youth): “The study that was done showed that, precisely, young people are the ones who make the [difference for] elections, but they are not represented or deputies in the government or elsewhere. With [the former President], there was only one young person in the government. With [the current President], I think we don’t have them [youth]. Ok, it's the young people who make the [difference for] elections. In the municipal elections too, they also realized that there were

6 Senegal’s equivalent of Congress or Parlaiment

185 almost no young people, so we thought we would work in a very complex area. In the area of informing young people to be right in the decisions, in the positive part. To be chosen to be directly in the fight .…, our advocacy is the generational parity. Generational parity, we’re not going to ask for 75 percent, but at least [that youth] be 30 percent representation [at a] minimum. Thirty percent of youth at the national assembly level, of all the [institutions] where we go. It is a subject of advocacy. We are looking for a way to advance on this question before the next local elections and the next legislative elections.” New Day Youth’s focus on incorporating youths into the policymaking process seemed to parallel Tailoring Success. Unlike Tailoring Success, however, involving youth in the organization’s decision-making structure was a core aspect of the New

Day Youth organizational model. The organization’s youth advisor affirmed that New

Day Youth’s programmatic activities were specifically designed to promote direct interaction with child and youth participants.

New Day Youth, Youth Advisor, (Youth): “…So the idea, it’s to associate the youth in the elaboration of projects and programs that concern them and to accompany them in the implementation. And more, to let them do it, to trust

them.” Youth participated in all levels of the organization as part of a strategy of facilitating hands-on leadership experience. The organization reserved a place for a group of youth advisors in their international, regional, and national governance structures. Young people were also given leadership training opportunities and could

186 begin to exercise a measure of responsibility for younger members as early as adolescence.

Not only did these efforts relay the significance of the organization’s position on institutional resources, but they also seem to draw an association between the provision of institutional resources and a process-based model of fairness. The process-based model of fairness theorizes that institutional legitimacy and public acceptance of decisions are contingent on people’s subjective judgments of the process as fair (Lijadu, 2018; McAllister, 2018). Trinkner and Cohn (Tyler, 2003), for example, have presented evidence that adolescents’ beliefs that their perspectives are taken into account and that an authority figure is impartial lead to less cynicism towards authority figures and higher perceptions of legitimacy.

The New Day Youth technical advisor’s comments on the organization’s efforts in the domain of education and employment reflect a similar concern with process-based fairness and youths’ rights to self-determination. For example, the organization was in the process of developing a project to integrate youth in informal educational systems into the formal workforce. According to the technical advisor, one of the concerns New Day Youth aimed to address with the initiative was to ensure that young people were able to receive training and certifications that would be accepted by formal employment institutions.

New Day Youth, Technical Advisor, (Non-youth): “…When you have been in koranic school until the age of 35 years. You do not have the qualifications.

187 What will you do? Can you call on your koranic school? But how will we take care of all those young people who are in an extraordinary vulnerability? To find the right training, we have training centers, but now how are we going to give their training a certification? And now, we have created a pathway to inclusion. How are we going to accompany all these young people to be, themselves, the actors in their own inclusion, and how we will facilitate in this environment, their possibilities.” The issue of integrating koranic school students into formal education and employment institutions is also illustrative of how YD organizations’ institutional resources can inadvertently perpetuate cultural heterogeneity (2014). Koranic schools provide religious instruction based on Arab-Islamic values (Harding, 2010). They are common in countries and communities where Islam is prevalent (Diouf, 1998). The

New Day Youth organization’s presence in Senegal dates back to the colonial era when the French Catholic Church was advocating for koranic schools to be banned entirely (Akkari, 2008).

Koranic schools are still not considered formal educational institutions by the government of Senegal (Diouf, 1998). D’Aiglepierre and Bauer (André & Demonsant,

2013) posit that numerous children that are classified as out-of-school by national governments are enrolled in koranic schools. Employability for koranic school students is limited in the formal economic sector because they rarely teach French literacy and because any skill certifications or diplomas that a koranic school awards youth have no legal validity in secular institutions (2018). Instead, pupils of koranic

188 schools in Senegal aspire to gain entrée to traditional apprenticeships or sponsorship to join Islamic trade networks abroad (Bah-Lalya, 2015; d’Aiglepierre & Bauer, 2018).

Despite their formal exclusion, koranic schools are a part of the fabric of

Senegalese society (Easton, 1999; Sinatti, 2008). Koranic schools are not just dispassionate, informal institutions, they also have deep sociocultural meaning for some Senegalese. Many families practice simultaneity by registering their children in both formal and koranic schools in the hopes that when the child completes their education they can either obtain formal employment in a secular institution or sponsorship to become entrepreneurs in an Islamic trade network (Kuenzi, 2018).

The training initiative was still in the planning stages at the time of the interview, so the technical advisor did not provide extensive detail about the underlying program theory. However, given the somewhat conflicting relationship between koranic education and formal institutions, it raises questions of whether this type of provision of institutional resources might mediate youths’ strategies of simultaneity or contribute to cultural diffusion. For instance, to what degree will the curriculum of the new initiative align with the cultural values of koranic institutions?

What role will the organization play in the event that koranic schools are resistant to their alternative YD offering? More succinctly, the effort is a reminder that institutional resources may not only color how young people see their communities, but that certain strategies may also carry risks of impacting how the community reacts to youths as well.

189 6.2.2.1.2 Economic Resources

New Day Youth had the most consistent financial relationship with any level of government in Senegal. The technical advisor explained that their formal recognition by the Ministry of Youth entitled them to a “meager” financial stipend of

1 million CFA franc (approximately $1,500-$2,000) annually towards their activities.

The organization used its economic resources to finance training initiatives, public works, and community service projects that benefit the communities where young participants live.

The Ministry’s contribution represented only a small proportion of New Day

Youth’s budget. To place its symbolic significance in perspective, it is helpful to compare New Day Youth’s economic resources with the efforts of a smaller YD initiative. One example of the significance of New Day Youth’s resource capacity was illustrated by the organization’s youth advisor. A prevalent trend among youth staff of

YD organizations is that many also participated in at least one other YD initiative. In addition to working as a staff member of New Day Youth, the youth advisor informed the researcher that they also lead a YD initiative aimed at female empowerment. The experiences they shared about their efforts to obtain financial support for the empowerment initiatives demonstrated a notable contrast with New Day Youth:

New Day Youth, Youth Advisor, (Youth): “…It wasn’t easy. For two months, left and right, with my work, like I told you. Me, I was a representative [of New Day Youth], since, I had to make a little of my time to go meet people. We met at the [the other YD organization] up until midnight, one o’clock in the morning.

190 We had meetings. We tried to find solutions, up until three days until the activity we didn’t have the money…but the engagement was there. The determination was there.” This informant identified economic resources, in the form of costs to participants for transportation and food, as one of the key threats to the success of their empowerment initiative. According to the youth advisor, the aim was not to profit from the other initiative personally. On the contrary, launching this external program had required the interviewee and other collaborators to spend their personal monies traveling to attend planning meetings. Similar accounts of difficulties obtaining economic resources were reiterated by other YD organizations that had fewer relationships with the Senegalese government.

6.2.2.1.3 Behavioral/Normative Resources

According to the youth advisor, indifference to the organization’s capacity to provide economic resources was a function of the behavioral resources the organization imparted. Both interviewees had participated in the organization since childhood. They both reported believing strongly in the values the group espoused. New Day Youth’s technical advisor accentuated the structure and programming of the organization as being designed to facilitate a generational transfer of competencies and values. The youth advisor explained that prioritizing social benefit over individual profit was a key value that distinguished New Day Youth participants from young Senegalese more generally.

New Day Youth, Youth Advisor, (Youth): “Their mentality is different…The youths who had the chance to be a part of the movement and what we are, they

191 are more sociable. Willing to do without anything apart or in return. While the others [who are not in New Day Youth], they can’t understand doing something without being paid or something of the kind.” Despite being a champion of the organization, the youth advisor also expressed concerns that the transferal of certain soiciocultural values about gender relations had hindered the group’s effectiveness. The youth advisor explained that their work external to the organization was based on their concerns about the lack of female representation in New Day Youth activities. They felt that fostering values of success in young girls was a particular challenge for the New Day Youth organization. When asked to describe the ideal outcomes for young girls in the organization, the youth advisor spoke in terms of behavioral outcomes. According to the youth advisor, their vision of a successful participant was:

New Day Youth, Youth Advisor (Youth): “A girl who accepts to work hard at school. A girl who participates in debate. A girl who is not afraid to say what she thinks, and a girl who is also capable of making proposals. And that, a girl also who is capable to confront a situation… to discover their position on solutions, …who is not afraid in any case.”

The youth advisor’s assessment of the problem was not necessarily that New

Day Youth was actively suppressing the voices of young women, but rather that soiciocultural norms in Senegal encouraged females to be passive and to defer to males.

The youth advisor asserted that changing attitudes about females’ roles in the organization, and society more generally, would require New Day Youth to invest more effort in helping young women develop the confidence to take on leadership roles. Their

192 approach to empowering females in their work at New Day Youth and independently involved using positive messaging to help the youths develop attitudes conducive to effecting change.

New Day Youth, Youth Advisor (Youth): “We are working for the future generation. Today, everywhere, what we want where we go, we say to girls, “Don’t accept to be behind [boys]. If we say who wants that, you need to be assertive.”

The interviewee reported using their role at New Day Youth and in the external organization to encourage young women not to “be behind” or give first preference to the young men in the group. Instead, the advisor sought to motivate them to “be assertive” and to be vocal about opportunities that they wanted to take part in.

With respect to empowering young people more generally, both interviewees’ orientations to behavior change were similar to those of Tailoring Success and

Environmental Futures. Not only did they work to build competence and confidence for youth participants, but they also expressed a need for their partners to develop a changed mindset about young people’s capacity to accomplish positive things.

6.2.2.1.4 Relational Resources

With reference to Senegalese youths’ social ecology, the New Day Youth technical advisor concluded, “They are discouraged.” The informant stressed that relational resources, as they currently exist in Senegal, are inadequate; many of the youths’ relationships with public entities are inequitable and disadvantageous to young

193 people. According to this interviewee, youth constitute a major segment of the population but they still lack a voice in decision-making.

New Day Youth, Technical Advisor (Non-Youth): “…The youth are looking [at the country’s situation], and they are discouraged. They have voting cards. Normally, they can make the difference in elections, but why don’t they ever do it?” In the interviewee’s evaluation, youths rarely “make the difference” or play a decisive role in elections because a corrupt system suppressed their voices. The technical advisor’s assessment of young people’s relational resources depicted a social ecology where many of the youths’ relationships with older adults were asymmetrical and shaped by their vulnerabilities. With respect to the educational system, youths lacked information on how to proceed to access opportunities, which left them vulnerable in spite of their level of educational attainment. In terms of economic opportunity, the informant stated that international companies dominated the

Senegalese private sector but were not embedded in the communities. They did not play a substantial role in YD and rarely hired Senegalese nationals in their companies.

New Day Youth, Technical Advisor (Non-Youth): “…The companies don’t recruit anymore. What can we do? It’s a world affair, not just in Senegal. The companies don’t recruit anymore. The youth are there, they knock on the door, and they refuse an internship. At the limit, they [the youth] are exploited,

abused.” The technical advisor also explained that gender could play a role in the ways

Senegalese youths experienced their social environment:

194 New Day Youth, Technical Advisor (Non-Youth): “The young girl…15 to 20 years and who doesn’t work and who is not literate, she is in an extraordinary vulnerability because you are where you have some needs, and it’s the age also where the men are going to come knocking on the door.” Dakar is a popular destination for sexual tourism among older females from

Europe and the United States (Goensch, 2016). This is to say that, issues of desperation, unequal power relationships, and sexual exploitation touch both young men and women in contemporary Senegal.

Internal to the organization, the technical advisor described youth-adult relations as more collegial. They explained that to be an “adult” in the organization connoted a volunteer who participated in group activities in a supportive capacity.

“Youths” were those being mentored or involved in active learning as a part of the

New Day Youth programming. While it seemed to be understood that adults have the ultimate decision-making authority, they voluntarily yielded it to youths if the adults felt that the youths were capable of managing the situation. “At my age,” noted the

New Day Youth technical advisor, “I am never going to postulate with force in my association, on anything I think there is a competent youth who knows how to do it.”

According to the New Day Youth youth advisor’s perspective, gender was also a factor in the character of social interaction within the organization. The informant felt that youths were not only disadvantaged when they interfaced with the general public but that, in some cases, they were also overlooked by those within the organization itself. The interviewee emphasized that even within the New Day Youth organization, overcoming soiciocultural norms was an ongoing challenge.

195 New Day Youth, Youth Advisor (Youth): “With us [New Day Youth], the girl, each time she comes in second position. That is what makes the diff…All that we ask, there are the men in front. So, for us, we organized the activity. We asked that the girls be better represented, but finally, what do we see, they sent us but the men. They said, ‘The girls don’t want to come…’” The organization’s social media pages confirm the overwhelming male representation in New Day Youth. According to the youth advisor’s perspective, young girls were often relegated to being second-class participants in the organization.

Even when they actively worked to implement changes in organizational activities, local New Day Youth leaders still demonstrated a bias towards sending male delegates. The youth advisor attributed the underrepresentation of young women to the inadequacy of relational resources from organizational partners who underestimated them, from parents who exercise a higher degree of caution for their daughters’ safety than sons, and from the young women themselves who sometimes lack the confidence to express themselves freely. At the least, the comment is an indication that there is still more work to be done to ensure that adult leaders prioritize gender equity with as much enthusiasm as they promote generational equity in their program theory.

Nonetheless, both informants felt that youth-led organizations occupy a special role in helping acclimate youth to the changing dynamics of their social ecology so that they are able to achieve a healthy transition to adulthood. The New Day Youth technical advisor distinguished youth-led participatory models from others using this analogy:

196 New Day Youth, Technical Advisor (Non-Youth): “I think it’s the Prophet Muhammed who said that, ‘when you take a group where there are youths,’ He said that, ‘it’s not bad, but they can also get lost. Because they are not allied with the other generations, who have done and seen things. If there is a group where there are but adults, that is not good at all. It’s a group that is well ready to die. But those that have a group with a strong base of youths with adults to accompany, it’s that that is the best indication.’” From this perspective, youth-run organizations are at a disadvantage because they lack the wisdom of past generations. Organizations with only older members have a limited future. By contrast, organizations, where youth and adult participants can work together, is an ideal indication of an organization’s long-term operational survival.

6.2.2.1.5 Defining “Success”

According to the technical advisor, New Day Youth’s vision of YD success concentrated on increasing youths’ access to resources that permitted young

Senegalese to be:

New Day Youth, Technical Advisor (Non-Youth): “Sufficiently

autonomous, solidary, engaged, to go live the adventure of their personal plan.” The technical advisor’s views on successful YD described a scenario where young people were autonomous individuals with the capacity to explore their personal goals, while also maintaining a sense of collectivity. The youth advisor articulated a similar vision of success. The two informants felt that, ultimately, the mission of New

Day Youth was to cultivate youths’ individual values and capacities towards broad-

197 based change. Both emphasized that young Senegalese need to be trusted with responsibility and given a chance to contribute. According to the youth advisor, the way New Day Youth had helped them to develop individual values and contribute to change imparted a “duty” to facilitate the success of the new generations of participants.

6.2.2.2 Community Connections

6.2.2.2.1 Institutional Resources

Community Connections interviewees described having a different focus and experience in their efforts to access institutional resources. As opposed to pursuing broad-based institutional change for youths, the Community Connections organization focused resources primarily on helping participants navigate the challenges of the educational institution. There was no mention of interactions with national government entities. According to the external affairs liaison for the organization, the group had made efforts to petition the mayor’s office for financial support on some projects. The external liaison described the organization’s efforts to solicit resources from government institutions in this way:

Community Connections, External Liaison (Youth): “We write letters. For example, this association, our association of our --- we write some letter, some emails for our authorities. I mean the mayor. He can, like, help. With kind of support, the financial support, like, all the students in order to help them [sic]… and for the young students too, that they can give a little something to advance [their progress].”

198 Aside from writing letters and emails for project support, the youth of New

Day Youth did not speak of ongoing interactions with governmental authorities at any level. Instead, they facilitated access to institutional resources through partnerships with international civil society. The interviewees explained that the partners participated in the implementation of the organization’s community development activities in their home village. Although one youth participant described the contexts of the relationship in a positive light, interaction with international partners seemed to be somewhat peripheral for one youth participant:

Community Connections, Participant 1 (Youth):“There are lots of things, and often the associations there are in contact with the NGOs like…I’ve forgotten even, I… over there, there is an NGO in the village that helps us often on...on illness. How to avoid illness.” By contrast, Community Connections youths repeatedly reiterated the importance of the university dormitory room, where the interview took place, for their institutional success. The external liaison explained that the room was financed by their “grand freres” (big brothers) to accommodate youth from their home village who needed a place to live while attending the university. The Community Connections liaison explained that the logic of this institutional resource was,

Community Connections, External Liaison (Youth): “To permit them [students] to succeed in their studies and to really progress in their studies. So it’s here that we met, we became familiar through that association…It’s something positive.”

199 The Community Connections participants identified a wide range of benefits of this institutional support. One Community Connections participant explained that they had moved into the room less than 24 hours before the interview, and only passively knew one of the other Community Connections participants from childhood.

According to Participant 2,

Community Connections, Participant 2 (Youth): “…since I came in, we talked a long time. You cannot imagine. I didn’t even know him…They’re my ‘top,’ first friends that I have today here…that is through the association.”

Although the provision of housing clearly had a social aspect as well, another

Community Connections participant added that the dormitory represented a launching point for becoming acclimated to the university in a supportive, familiar environment.

Community Connections, Participant 1 (Youth): “The associations have permitted us to find each other. Because it’s difficult…It was my first time in Dakar. It was a little complicated because the environment in the village and the environment here, it’s different. It was through a friend, a friend who is located across from here that I could integrate into the university. First, that’s it. Find yourself, orient yourself. After, open your eyes to where you are in the university. You become an elder. Then you can handle things by yourself.” The Community Connections participants repeatedly alluded to their participation in several other YD associations, one informant had a scholarship that would have allowed them to have other housing options, but they explained that they felt that the benefits of living in the organization-sponsored dorm were greater.

200 6.2.2.2.2 Economic Resources

The acquisition and dispensing of economic resources in Community

Connections aligned more closely with the New Day Youth youth advisor’s secondary project. Community Connections informants described engaging in activities letter- writing campaigns to the mayor’s office to finance organizational activities. The liaison also reported participating in efforts like contributing to fundraising campaigns, paying membership dues, and selling membership cards to others to sustain their organizations’ projects.

According to the Community Connections Participant 1, the organization provided a way for the youth to give back to their communities despite their limited financial capacity. Instead of receiving financial or in-kind resources from Community

Connections, the participant’s account speaks of contributing their personal resources to the organization’s activities.

Community Connections, Participant 1 (Youth): “The youth, they are not

professionals, but they have a force, the force of work. So, how do we do? There

are awareness days. It costs us absolutely nothing because we don’t do anything

except contribute. We contribute 1,000 or 2,000 franc [CFA], lots of

2,000[CFA] francs. After, we organize awareness days…”

According to this participant, young people do not yet have professional employment that would allow them to contribute monetarily to their communities.

They compensate for their financial shortcomings through working diligently and by contributing 1,000 or 2,000 CFA franc (about $2 or $4) amongst themselves.

201 Collectively, lots of small contributions of $2 and $4 allow them to fund community projects.

At the village level, the money collected was used for community service projects like providing subsidized, in-kind services to community members, such as mosquito nets, doctor’s visits, and reforestation projects. In the university setting, the

Community Connections members were more emphatic about the relational aspects of their lodging, but activities like the dormitory, free tutoring, and mentorship of older university students from their home village also exemplified innovative ways that YD organizations used their resources to mitigate economic hardships as well. What was significant about the experiences of the Community Connections interviewees is that none discussed having any expectation that the organization would—or should— furnish financial resources to realize individual goals. Rather participants extrapolated on the organization’s role in helping young people do more for their communities with their limited personal financial resources.

6.2.2.2.3 Behavioral/Normative Resources

The organization was not necessarily looked to by the young interviewees to resolve all of their challenges, but the external liaison did credit the group with influencing how they addressed obstacles. The external liaison explained that there were many obstacles to acquiring economic resources for the organization.

Paradoxically, the liaison reflected that efforts devoted to identifying financial support for the organization had contributed to the development of positive behavioral traits.

202 Community Connections, External Liaison (Youth): “The financial aspect of the association, sometimes, like, we have many obstacles, many problems, but we have this, like, kind of social orienting available for us. Be social-oriented [sic]. Find a solution. [Not] only focusing on the problem but trying to find the solution. How to manage it, how to find some resources.” By working to generate funding support for Community Connections’ activities, the external liaison reported that participants acquired the type of social orientation that encouraged them to focus on identifying solutions as opposed to dwelling on problems.

According to another interviewee, the values of communitarianism and problem-solving were embedded in the very concept of organizational participation.

Community Connections, Participant 1 (Youth): “In Senegal, we don’t have a lot of resources. So only one person, [for] you [to] surpass [the odds] and go alone, it’s a thing very, very difficult—and rare, it’s very rare. There are people who do it, but it’s very rare. Since we don’t have lots of resources, so we have to help each other. It’s only through the associative life where we can really work together.” The preceding chapters of this study highlighted the intense demand for resources that exists in societies experiencing youth disproportionality, but the interviewee’s comments on the role of YD organizations in environments of disproportion presented the situation in a slightly nuanced way. Similar to the researcher’s previous arguments, Participant 1 reiterated that it was difficult for a young person to overcome the difficulties of the transition to adulthood independently.

From their perspective, however, the “associative life” was a medium for launching a

203 collective, rather than a competitive effort, to access resources. The values of collectivity were not only framed as a means of empowering young people, but the interviewees stressed that the organization also worked to reinforce the participants’ sense of belonging within the wider community.

6.2.2.2.4 Relational Resources

A common pattern amongst Tailoring Success, Environmental Futures—and, to some extent, New Day Youth—was to coordinate activities that allowed young people to be involved in processes that were dominated by older adults. By contrast, the youths of Community Connections spoke of how their association had facilitated informal relationships between youths and older adults by recruiting older adults to take part in an activity dominated by young people: soccer. The organization used soccer matches between “veterans” and youths, “to avoid the gap between the generations,” according to the external liaison. The liaison went on to explain that the games allowed youths and older adults to establish relationships that could help young people to benefit from the advice and experience of older community members.

As detailed in the literature review, Senegalese communities still maintain strong soiciocultural traditions that structure how youths and older adults interact

(Honwa, 2013; Look, 2010). Social distance can make it difficult for youths to address their seniors on equal terms. The external liaison asserted that “If not [for Community

Connections], you can’t invite a papa or a grandpapa to come play [soccer].” In other words, the organization provided a pretext for intergenerational interaction that would not likely occur under other circumstances.

204 Community Connections also organized activities that encouraged intercultural exchanges. In the participants’ home village, the group hosted cultural days that allowed members of each ethnicity to display their heritage. The liaison stressed that, as opposed to simple entertainment, the cultural showcases were a medium for building relationships between individuals of differing ethnicities:

Community Connections, External Liaison (Youth): “On that cultural day, everyone is going to show and to appreciate their culture equally. So it is something to discover, to know who the person is. Because if you know the person, that is going to permit you to live in cohesion, in perfect collaboration, in perfect synergy, in peace with the person. If you know their culture, if you know what they like, if you know maybe what they don’t like, you are going to avoid colliding and misunderstandings with them.” The cultural days constituted a forum for self-expression, where participants could display their cultural pride and learn about the cultural identity of others in the community. According to the liaison, having the opportunity to become familiar with what is valued by other ethnicities and what they find offensive could be instrumental in preventing interpersonal conflicts between individuals of differing ethnicities.

Participant 1 identified the dormitory at the university as an extension of

Community Connections’ efforts to meet the “need to know” about individuals from all walks of life. This informant rationalized that living with organizational participants with different cultural values helped to preempt misunderstandings along ethnic lines. Not only did Participant 1 see building their cultural competence as

205 having advantages in the short term, but they felt that it could be an asset for taking on leadership roles in the future.

Community Connections, Participant 1 (Youth): “In each room, there are students of associations. Or rather, students who are in the same environment. They are students who discuss. It’s very important because tomorrow, there will be certain ones of us who are going to direct, direct the country…If the youth don’t understand each other from the start, so after too, there will be problems in politics, or rather in the strategy.” Rather than seeing the opportunities to benefit from Community Connections’ relational resources as bringing them closer to those in their village or immediate social ecology, Participant 1 attached the opportunities for social engagement in the organization to larger goal of helping their generation to be more collaborative in terms of politics and national strategy.

Participant 2’s perspective on youth-adult relationships in the home village that they had recently left took a positive tone. When asked about the character of interactions between young people and adults in YD organizations, this Community

Connections interviewee made the observation that:

Community Connections, Participant 2 (Youth): “We in the village, I can say that we live in perfect symbiosis…The eras are together, and each one has their profile in the village…In any case, there is no conflict. Even if they debate, sometimes, sometimes they could have it, but to get out of it, it’s simply to communicate in advance. But also, it is necessary to sit around the table, and we get out [of disputes].”

206 Rather than a conflictual relationship, Participant 2 described a symbiotic relationship where each of the “eras,” or generations, had a unique “profile” or place in the village’s social structure. According to their assessment, when disputes could not be avoided, participants in the organization assembled “around the table” to discuss their disagreements and resolve their issues.

The external liaison added that democratic processes based on the rule of the majority were also important for avoiding generational conflict:

Community Connections, External Liaison (Youth): “There is not a major conflict of generations, but sometimes, the ideas can diverge. The ideas can be different. In the associations—in all associations—we are not in agreement with everything, but the majority is important.” In Participant 2’s experiences with youth-adult relationships, they stated that generational conflict was not a significant issue in YD organizations, but that sometimes older adults could be reluctant to support new ideas that come from youths.

Community Connections, Participant 1 (Youth): “Well, often there is not a difference [between the three types of YD organizations] …There is only, maybe a difference in the manner of proceeding…we can’t exactly change that that they did. But we can modern, modernize it.” According to Participant 2, older adults sometimes resisted making substantial changes to their YD approaches. Instead, youths could only “modernize” or make superficial adjustments to what program administrators have done in the past.

207 6.2.2.2.5 Defining “Success”

All three interviewees reported supplementing the resources of Community

Connections through engagement with other associations, like the university’s English

Club. Yet, they all expressed enthusiastic support for the organization. Participant 2, who had only recently left the village to attend university in Dakar, expressed their satisfaction with the organization by declaring that:

Community Connections, Participant 2 (Youth): “The association, I can’t say that there are any negative effects. No, that doesn’t even exist, negative effects in the association. No. In any case, up until the present me, I don’t see anything [negative].” According to this informant, there were no drawbacks to being involved in

Community Connections. Participant 2 elaborated on this conclusion by stating that:

Community Connections, Participant 2 (Youth): “We are like a type of family. Them, they are my brothers, but we don’t even have the same bloodline. But we are like brothers. When I go back to the village, we’ll call each other. When they go back, we will call. At every instance, we discuss…It’s through the association that we know each other.” Participant 2 accentuated the ways in which the organization had permitted them to develop meaningful relationships at the university. The external liaison also echoed their appreciation of the familial bond that the organization had facilitated.

According to the liaison, Community Connections was instrumental in helping them to further their personal development, as well as providing them with a conduit of social engagement with their home community.

208 Community Connections, External Liason (Youth): “And we participate equally in the well-being of that association so it’s something that has benefitted us [and] that has permitted us to have all these relationships in the university— it’s a fraternal relationship and all. But equally to succeed here [at the university] in studies and to participate in the local development with the numerous initiatives there [in the village].” In enumerating the benefits of the organization, the liaison noted that they and their colleagues were able to participate in supporting the organization, their involvement had helped them to develop relationships in the university setting, they had a familial bond with the organization itself, and they were able to succeed academically while remaining involved in their home community. Not only was the liaison’s evaluation of the organization reflective of the extent to which Community

Connections had bolstered their personal success, but their statement also took consideration for how the organization had increased their capacity for social impact.

6.2.3 Youth-Run Organizations

6.2.3.1 Youth Beats

6.2.3.1.1 Institutional Resources

Although the Youth Beats informant is no longer participating in the daily administration of the organization, they had been instrumental in securing material and promotional support from at least one foreign government, as well as collaborations with international donors. When asked about the availability of institutional resources for young people from the Ministry of Youth, the co-founder identified two interrelated barriers to access. Firstly, the co-founder of Youth Beats explained that

209 they had received many “personal” benefits from the Ministry. The interviewee extrapolated by saying that the Ministry sponsored centers and other facilities that provided entrepreneurship support, but that young Senegalese were not always apprised of what resources were available. The co-founder went on to say that the lack of information about institutional resources was not necessarily coincidental. The

Youth Beats co-founder framed the dilemma of gaining entrée to institutional resources in this way:

Youth Beats, Co-Founder (Youth): “They [the Ministry of Youth] are doing a lot. Maybe they’re doing their best. They have a lot of… centers, they have information places. To support youth, to support entrepreneurship. But young people do not know about that. And mostly also, that is kind of by politic. So basically, if you know somebody who knows somebody. Or like, if you’re like,… If you’re like part of the young association of the party. They will like be more willing to support you than to support someone else. So… but also I mean like, I’m not saying that they’re not doing anything, and what they’re doing is very important, they’re doing an amazing job.” In this informant’s assessment, access to institutional resources for young people was contingent on political affiliation and personal relationships. Despite the positive experiences the co-founder had had acquiring personal resources, they expressed an orientation of indifference about maintaining an institutional connection with governmental entities. Instead, the co-founder identified Senegal’s business- friendly environment as an important institutional resource for young people.

According to the interviewee,

210 Youth Beats, Co-Founder (Youth): “But personally, on my level, I’ve never like wanted anything from them, from the government in general. I’ve been… I’m, I’m a natural-born go-getter. Let’s say it like that. And I know also a lot of young people are like natural-born go-getters. Like, all of my friends... They, they may never had a grant or like maybe never been supported by the government. And they’re doing this stuff anyway. But also, the government has helped in another way. How it has helped… How the government has helped… It has helped the government has helped, like in the way of setting up the environment for entrepreneurship. And you know it’s so important.” Youth Beats’ efforts to compensate for insufficient access to domestic resources were predicated on their ability to develop a business model based on the principles of social entrepreneurship. One of the central goals of the organization was to contribute to the professionalization of Senegalese dance, rap, and hip-hop artists. Youth Beats charged an annual membership fee in exchange for training and professional certification in subjects like songwriting and DJing, gave aspiring professionals access to a recording studio, and functioned as a venue for visual and performing artists to market their work. According to their social media pages, Youth Beats hosted concerts to allow artists to showcase their skills as well as entrepreneurship training events to youth free of charge.

The organization also cultivated partnership networks that extended beyond the local or national contexts to other YD organizations and international partners. One such effort involved attempts to facilitate musical collaborations between hip-hop artists in

Senegal and other parts of the world. The informant’s experiences with this type of

211 networking seemed to be more than transactional but rather to involve a collegial—or even familial—relationship. The co-founder described their networking activities in this way:

Youth Beats, Co-Founder (Youth): “….. my work on hip-hop, I’m trying to like connect hip-hop from the Diaspora from Africa… from the African Diaspora and like from the continent. So that’s what I’m working on… with like artists from Uganda and South Africa, from Ghana, from the Republic of the Congo, even from the States and some folks from the Asian continent. So basically, I’m trying to connect Black people from all around the world to see what we can do together. Because we have a lot of similarities. And it’s important to work together for me.”

Aside from direct international collaborations, the Youth Beats informant explained that they felt a responsibility to improve peers’ access to institutional resources by sharing information about assets outside of the organization itself.

Youth Beats Co-Founder (Youth): “…We [youth] are online, but we’re not connected, a lot of people. First, like we know what’s going on. We have our systems like resources that improve our lives and groups that have access to resources. We like should support them. I have like 4,000 friends on Facebook, over 2,000 followers on Instagram and Twitter, I have to share with them. I have to tell them like, ‘This is what’s going on.’ Maybe some would share, but they don’t know how to do it, they don’t know where to start, they don’t have access to information, so they just don’t know. So we need to like tell them, this is what’s going on, and you have to go and do this to get this. So go get it. So basically, that’s how we do it.”

212 The informant explained that Senegalese youth know how to use the

Internet; they are “online.” The problem, according to the interviewee, was that

Senegal’s young people are not “connected,” meaning that they are not adept at using technology to network and collaborate with others who could help advance their goals.

6.2.3.1.2 Economic Resources

Economic empowerment was one of the key foci of Youth Beats. Like other

YD organizations in the study, their strategy involved long-term skill-building as opposed to making direct financial contributions to participants. Youth Beats did provide a number of in-kind benefits to participants as well. The organization gave youth access to a recording studio, cultural library, performance stage, and restaurant.

In addition to providing young people with the facilities to pursue their passions, many of their YD initiatives were designed to assist young artists in professionalizing their art and music. For a small membership fee, youths were given the opportunity to take training courses to develop or improve their skills in songwriting, rapping, using turntables, etc. The organization was also well-known for hosting and promoting concerts, festivals, and workshops that allowed performance and visual artists to gain exposure for their work.

Although Dakar has garnered a reputation as a leader in Africa’s hip-hop and rap industry, it was still a difficult career field for most. Upon meeting, the Youth

Beats co-founder explained that their decreased participation was due in part to their need to pursue other economic opportunities. They also recalled that at the start of their involvement in the organization, their parent had expressed concerns that their

213 engagement might be an obstacle to realizing their economic potential. When asked to elaborate further on why the interviewee thought their father had reservations about

Youth Beats, the co-founder recounted that:

Youth Beats, Co-Founder (Youth): “I mean I was basically… my… when I was in high, high school and university, my first years of college. I started…. Youth Beats…He was like, ‘What are you doing. You, you’re like sacrificing your life.’ I was like, ‘No, dad. I know what I’m doing. I’m giving back to my community. Even though I’m not doing like the maximum in school, I know that I will still have my diploma.’” The comments of the Youth Beats co-founder paralleled those of the

Community Connections interviewees in that the informant framed the organization as a conduit for contributing to others as opposed to accruing personal financial gains.

Put another way, YD organizations were not necessarily looked to as long-term career options by young people. Instead, they served as a means of building skills and making a social impact while preparing to pursue other enterprises.

6.2.3.1.3 Behavioral/Normative Resources

Whereas the Community Connections interviewees identified the organization as having bolstered their social engagement, the Youth Beats interviewee reported participating in the organization based on pre-existing behavioral traits. They ventured that if they were not a part of Youth Beats or the numerous other YD initiatives they associated with, they would “somehow be connected to engagement.” One possible rationale for this perspective is that the interviewee, as well as some of the organization’s most popular participants, were also affiliated with the wider NTS

214 (New Type of Senegalese) movement (Rosenmayr, 1988). The NTS movement emerged in the 2010-2011 era of youth-led political change (Gueye, 2013; Nelson,

2014). The basic precepts of the movement encouraged young Senegalese to be more conscious of their roles in society and to become more active in pursuing positive social change (Nelson, 2014). Youth Beats used the medium of music and other art forms to promote the values of NTS. The events the organization hosted or publicized featured artists who were prominent in the NTS movement or who espoused similar messages in their songs.

Volunteerism was also a major tenet of both the NTS movement and Youth

Beats. The Youth Beats co-founder repeatedly discussed the importance of “giving back.” Aside from professional development work, the organization engaged youth participants in activities like community clean up days, as well as maintained a program to assist ex-offenders with reintegration through volunteerism.

6.2.3.1.4 Relational Resources

The interviewee was emphatic about being embedded in the community. The informant’s perspective on the boundaries of their community, however, extended far beyond their immediate neighborhood or the city of Dakar. The Youth Beats co- founder described participating in virtual communities, as well as working to facilitate connections with a global community of artists. The informant talked about involvement in various YD organizations, using social media to share information with their peers, and actively pursuing connections with hip-hop and rap artists around the world. Moreover, the interviewee asserted that their African identity fostered a

215 sense of community and belonging in a broader social grouping of individuals of

African descent. The Youth Beats co-founder was of the opinion that the significance of being young and Senegalese was that they are “connected to Diaspora and also the rest of Africa. So like, I don’t feel no difference between like somebody from like

Dakar to like in Louisiana.”

While the interviewee’s work with Youth Beats and other YD endeavors had helped cultivate strong relationships with peers both in Dakar and beyond, their observations conveyed a degree of social distance with older adults in Senegalese society. Whereas older adults who were interviewed focused on young people being disengaged, this interviewee refuted such a notion:

Youth Beats, Co-Founder (Youth): “…People want to portray like young Senegalese as somebody sitting in the corner having tea. It’s not what I’ve seen. It’s not principally what I’ve experienced in Dakar. I’ve experienced a lot of moving. I’ve experienced a lot of dynamism.”

Instead, they identified older adults as being less involved in the community.

Youth Beats, Co-Founder (Youth): “…What I’m like saying… to be like older people…. they’re not giving back that much. I feel like giving back. It’s not the same like everywhere. They have a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge. They have like more than like 50 years of experience. They should give back to their community. They should give back to other people. And, for me, they’re not giving back. We should have like a program or something like that’s called….Like, I don’t know. That is called like something. I don’t know… ‘all the people giving

216 back’ or something like that. You know where they [older adults] come like, volunteers, in the organizations… like small organizations and like in neighborhoods… Find some way to give back to the community. And it’s important for me.”

The Youth Beats interviewee even conjectured that a diminished SOC might be symptomatic of becoming an established adult. The informant conjectured that as adults acquire more responsibilities, they become more concerned with personal interests and devote less energy to collective goals. As the interviewee stated the case,

Youth Beats, Co-Founder (Youth): “Because you [the researcher] and I have like the strength and, how can I say it…, and the energy to be engaged. I guess when you’re getting old, you have like other responsibilities. When you get married and have kids, you’ll be like, ‘Uh bro. This is time now to give to my son, and also my… to give to my sons and daughters something to eat.’ You know what I mean, my family. You’re not gonna help nobody.”

The co-founder’s statements would seem to make the proposition that, rather than YD organizations being facilitators of SOC, young adulthood is a stage of life where individuals are more likely to be concerned with the values of collectivity. In spite of their thoughts concerning the current generation of older adults, the interviewee stated that they intended to remain engaged in socially beneficial activities throughout their lives. In fact, the Youth Beats co-founder described active community involvement as an element of how they envisioned spending their senior years.

217 6.2.3.1.5 Defining “Success”

Like the youths of Community Connections, maintaining a connection with

Senegalese society into the long term was at the heart of the Youth Beats co-founder’s attitude about engagement. They commented that:

Youth Beats, Co-Founder (Youth): “…In like 20 or 30 [years], when I retire. I’m not thinking about like staying home and just reading my newspaper. I’m thinking about, like, doing something for the community.”

The interviewee’s comments contain allusions to personal accomplishments, like retiring and having a home, but the markers of success were also attached to a desire to contribute to the community. If the co-founder is representative of a broader trend where young people strive for economic success as well as social impact, the potential benefits to Senegalese society could be transformational. Whereas theorists have measured Demographic Dividend concepts in terms of productivity resulting from private economic activity, the interviewee’s statements highlight that the benefits of disproportionately young societies can extend beyond enterprise.

6.2.3.2 We Learn

6.2.3.2.1 Institutional Resources

We Learn’s core mission centered on helping youth develop their leadership skills. One aspect of their mission involved providing alternatives to leadership for youths who lacked access to formal educational institutions. The founder explained that numerous Senegalese youths found themselves in situations where they felt obligated to leave school to help with household expenses. The resulting lack of

218 educational credentials constituted a barrier to both pursuing further education or finding stable employment. We Learn’s programs were designed to address these vulnerabilities by making information and training more accessible to out-of-school youths.

Technology plays a major role in We Learn’s YD strategy. The organization sought to make information available to young people by using an online platform.

Courses in subjects like entrepreneurship and finance were available to youths free of charge through the online system. Although the organization is based in Senegal, the project manager for the online platform explained that the ultimate goal was to extend the resources it provided to young people throughout Africa. Individuals who successfully complete the online courses became eligible to apply for the fellowship program, where youth were given more extensive training in negotiation, developing a business plan, etc.

In the case of Senegalese youths, learning to interface with cyberspace could present an obstacle for many. The founder echoed the perspectives of the Youth Beats co-founder by commenting that engaging with technology in meaningful ways still represented a challenge in Senegal. Although youth used the Internet, young

Senegalese were not always aware of tools that could help them create or grow a business. According to the interviewees, even some of the We Learn staff, who had had post-secondary training, had difficulties performing basic computer functions, like sending emails when they began working for the organization.

219 Even with regards to other YD organizations, We Learn worked to share information to help staff members better incorporate technology into their work. As a new organization, We Learn founder explained that the organization must think creatively about how to offer support to other youth-specific organizations:

We Learn, Founder (Youth): “Even if we don’t have the money to help them financially if we can go to their events to train them…if we can help them with ‘digital communication’…and the social networks permit us to launch support just of ‘public policy’ that is really important in our program so the youths can engage.”

We Learn was not able to provide financial support, but the founder explained that staff members used their knowledge of technology to bolster other organizations’ institutional capacities. Their efforts focused on supporting other YD organizations with “digital communications” and being able to leverage social networks to engage young people in the public policy process. We Learn’s emphasis on digital communication, and social networks as a medium for youths’ engagement in public policy somewhat parallels the efforts of Youth Beats. Although the two organizations lack deep institutional partnerships with governmental entities, both invested in sharing information and encouraging young people to engage with public institutions in other ways.

Professional development activities, like computer training and opportunities to make professional presentations, to increase staff’s access to formal institutions, was also a priority for the organization. The We Learn staff were transparent about

220 their diversity of social and educational backgrounds. Two interviewees explained that, prior to joining We Learn, they were limited in their ability to engage with formal institutions by their lack of fundamental computer skills. A staff member selected from the first cohort of We Learn’s fellowship initiative recalled that:

We Learn, Fellowship Manager (Youth): “…Before, I couldn’t send an email. That’s the truth. Now, I do it. I’m not bad with documents; I’m developing my logistic capacities.” The founder’s assistant explained that,

We Learn, Founder’s Assistant (Youth): “I couldn’t even use the computer and everything. Yes, it’s thanks to [We Learn] that I developed my competencies.”

Both interviewees credited the organization with increasing their level of professional skills. The fellowship manager credited the founder’s patience and willingness to dedicate time to seeing them succeed with being motivation to improve.

The We Learn interviewees facilitated skill-building that could help youth access institutions, but they placed less emphasis on their efforts to directly engage with institutional entities, like the government of Senegal. One of the interviewees shared an account of an interaction with a representative of one of Senegal’s main political parties that seemed to support the idea that the indifference to partnerships between young Senegalese and the government may not be only on the part of youth leaders.

221 We Learn, Project Manager (Youth): “I remember when we discussed with the coordinator of --, the representative of --…what he told us was that he was pleased to see youths, who are dressed in suits…youths who are dressed in gladiator suits working to change things… He saw that us, we were engaged in what we do, in what we do and everything, without waiting for help from anybody.” The politician’s playful sarcasm about the We Learn staff’s attire points to a more meaningful statement about the character of institutional resource provision in Senegal. Firstly, suits or business attire, in this context, connote an external symbol of conformity with the norms of Senegal’s formal institutions, like the government or banks. Not only was the politician acknowledging their pleasure at seeing the staff dressed in a way that would be considered acceptable for interfacing with governmental and business leaders, but the description of their suits as “gladiator” suits alludes to their role as warriors in the fight for development.

In other words, the politician was commending young people for their apparent ability to gain access to institutional resources and to direct them toward change without assistance from governmental entities. This was the sole encounter with

Senegalese political figures that We Learn informants spoke of. We Learn’s website and social media pages did show at least one event with Senegal’s then Minister of

Youth in attendance; however, there was no indication that the meeting with the politician described above or any others had led to any substantial collaborations of any kind.

222 Nonetheless, the We Learn founder expressed openness towards institutional collaborations in Senegal and beyond. The founder spoke of the value of partnerships both as a means of familiarizing others with the organization’s work and of receiving advice and guidance to further We Learn’s implementation strategy. According to We

Learn’s leader:

We Learn, Founder (Youth): “I believe that if we also have partners in…in Senegal, you see, in Africa, and also in other countries also, that could help us above all. Because it would permit us to also expose them...expose them to what we do, and also, to give us feedback. And also, if they are interested, to support us in methods. To support us in strategies, that’s important.”

6.2.3.2.2 Economic Resources

The impact of economic vulnerabilities on young people was a primary concern of We Learn’s work. According to the founder, the concept of We Learn was inspired by a meeting with an acquaintance who had left school to take financial responsibility for younger siblings following the deaths of their parents. The interviewee asserted that their experiences with We Learn revealed that numerous young Senegalese were contending with similar issues.

We Learn, Founder (Youth): “Usually, the people that we meet, the first problem that they have,…it’s not school fees and everything, but it’s the family.”

When asked about how the Senegalese government should strategize to meet the needs of young people, We Learn’s founder refuted the notion that the provision of economic or material resources to individual youths would be effective. Instead, the

223 informant stressed that young Senegalese were part of larger familial units. As such, young people’s individual expenses, like fees for school, were only one element of their disadvantage. The founder cautioned that, one must also consider their overall well-being and that of those closest to them.

The online platform manager spoke about economic hardships based on their experience living in the “banlieu”—the impoverished outskirts of Dakar. The interviewee drew a direct connection between the economic opportunity provided by

We Learn and their decision not to resort to clandestine migration to Europe.

We Learn, Online Platform Manager (Youth): “I see young people who take

[the boat to Europe]…who are unemployed because there is no job… Because they are a bit desperate… For example, me me, I live in the banlieu. I had my Bachelor. After the time I got my Bachelor, I hadn’t found a job. But thanks to [We Learn], I got one…Because I wanted to do like the youths because I had a

friend who had…who left. Since then, we haven’t had any news of him.”

Despite their recognition of the financial hardships Senegalese youths must overcome, the We Learn organization also pursued a long-term approach to providing economic resources to youths. The organizations provided numerous opportunities aimed at developing young people’s marketable skillsets. An aspect of the organization that differed from others is that the We Learn founder reported recruiting at least one key staff member directly from the ranks of the organization’s program participants.

224 Even with the organization’s expanding network of partners, the interviewees asserted that their continued commitment to the organization went beyond the prospect of personal profit. Instead, the initial task of beginning We Learn’s new venture required a group effort. Similar to the responses of youths in other organizations, the

We Learn interviewees spoke of gathering their own economic resources to support the goals of the organization. The We Learn founder reminisced about the organization’s first year, “…You remember? But we did the fellowship. We all contributed. We even had a hard time paying a photographer!”

6.2.3.2.3 Behavioral/ Normative Resources

We Learn’s efforts to promote employment and entrepreneurship were underpinned by YD programming designed to bolster youths’ leadership capacities.

The fellowship manager outlined the organization’s values and strategy for leadership development as attached to their desire to promote collectivism. The fellowship manager, who made a brief presentation on the organizational values and goals, informed the researcher that:

We Learn, Fellowship Manager (Youth): “So our objective is what? It’s to get the youths to connect…so that they can discuss, change, and can mutually have solutions.”

For example, the organization had recently developed an African youth summit when the interview was conducted. The goal of the initiative was aimed at bringing young people from various countries on the continent together to think critically about

225 solutions to the problems in their respective communities. We Learn interviewees were hopeful that the summit would empower youths to explore issues that were relevant to their own cultural models. Nonetheless, the fellowship manager also acknowledged that We Learn prioritized sustainable development as a unifying value for this and other YD initiatives.

The issue of behavioral resources in Senegalese YD is especially pertinent to the debates surrounding the position of African youths in the globalized environment.

Organizations like We Learn emphasized the importance of helping youth articulate solutions that were appropriate to their own cultural contexts but within the parameters of theUN’s sustainable development model. Prioritization of sustainable development goals, which were developed by the UN, was not exclusive to the We Learn organization. The interviewees in the Community Connections organization and

ProActive Youth also identified sustainable development as a guiding principle in their YD programming.

With regards to the staff, the founder described their behavioral values as being grounded in their commitment to We Learn’s vision for social change. Rather than participating in We Learn strictly to acquire resources, the founder defined the organization as being operated by young people who had made personal sacrifices to take part in the group’s work. The founder described the staff members as,

We Learn, Founder (Youth): “…Youth, who want something, who sacrifice many things, who said ‘Papa, I’m staying with [We Learn].’ Despite [that We

226 Learn] sometimes had difficult situations. But they continued to have faith

because there is love. Love and passion [for the organization].”

6.2.3.2.4 Relational Resources

Much of the discussion about the social ecology of Senegalese youths revolved around peer to peer relations. Few of the interviewees’ comments addressed their perspectives on the relationships of youths with others in society, such as local and civic leaders or older adults more generally. In one of the rare mentions of the nature of youths’ relationships with older adults, the We Learn founder described youths’ contributions to national development as stifled by older adults in power.

We Learn, Founder (Youth): “…When the youth want to launch, you can note it. They go right away to tell them, ‘Step aside, this is for the grown-ups.’” This negative assessment of how older adults respond to Senegalese youths’ attempts to participate in public life also showed evidence of influencing We Learn’s orientation towards YD. Several interviewees reiterated that it was imprudent to “wait for the government” to engage with them in their efforts to improve conditions for youths. Despite YD organizations’ efforts to empower young people to have positive impacts on society, these indications of social distance between older adults, policymakers, youth-run YD organizations—and perhaps Senegalese youths more generally—requisite some degree of concern. At a minimum, the perspectives shared by YD interviewees raise the question of whether YD actors view themselves as one element of a larger YD landscape, or if these groups understand their work as occurring parallel to—or even in the absence of—state-sponsored YD activities.

227 6.2.3.2.5 Defining “Success”

The We Learn fellowship manager defined the organization’s “first vision” as

“to create leadership.” Empowering and facilitating youth-to-youth connections constituted a major element of this vision. According to the We Learn founder, the organization’s initiatives were designed to give young people a forum “to profile their potentials so that we can have partners of other youths.” Not only did the organization aspire to increase youths’ access to tangible resources or to equip them with skills and networks, but the online platform manager also identified We Learn as a medium to

“help people who don’t have confidence in themselves to have a vision.”

The founder expanded on their vision of success by articulating a hope that their peers would draw inspiration from seeing the transformational effect of We

Learn on the organization’s staff. Rather than seeking to create a social distance between the staff and participants, the founder explained that they wanted We Learn participants to perceive them as peers. The founder rationalized that if Senegalese youth saw the We Learn staff members speaking confidently, that the participants would be more likely to feel that their personal goals were attainable as well.

6.2.3.3 ProActive Youth

6.2.3.3.1 Institutional Resources

ProActive Youth was an organization created by and for university students to provide professional development opportunities. Similar to interviewees in Youth

Beats and We Learn, the ProActive Youth team leader was sparing in their discussion of institutional partnerships, generally and with various levels of the Senegalese

228 government, more particularly. When asked about access to youth-specific resources provided by the government of Senegal, the ProActive Youth informant’s attitudes about institutional support echoed that of the Youth Beats and We Learn interviewees.

ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “…We don’t wait all the time that

the government does it, do that, do that,…No, no, we are rather here because we want to do something.”

The interviewee went on to explain that, although Senegalese youth are dynamic and the government has made efforts to assist young people in realizing their goals, access to domestic institutions remains an obstacle.

ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “…The problem is especially on the level of access. Voila, the youths are here. They have projects, they have ideas, but there are efforts now on the side by...the public administration that they are doing, but it is not sufficient. Voila, there is the mayor’s office that tried to help. Yes, but the mayor’s office can’t help everyone. There is equally the government that makes efforts, but the problem is access.”

The ProActive Youth team leader characterized the governmental efforts to provide resources as being “on the side” or peripheral to the efforts of other entities providing youth-specific resources. The interviewee’s comments identify two paradoxical barriers to youths’ access to institutional resources. While the “mayor’s office”—or local government—was understood as lacking the capacity to provide sufficient resources to young people, the “government”—or national institutions—were described as having resources but being inaccessible to young Senegalese.

229 Secondary information from the organization’s social media and website showed no indication of partnerships with the government of Senegal. ProActive Youth operated through a network of numerous national branches and university chapters. At the international level, the organization worked in partnership with multitudinous private enterprises. Institutional partnerships with governments and intergovernmental entities were less prominent in ProActive Youth’s listing of global partners. The vastness of the organizational structure made it difficult to determine whether the distance from governmental entities is specific to Senegal, or if it represented a wider trend.

With regards to youth participants, the organization focused primarily on assisting young people in accessing formal employment. ProActive Youth operated as an intermediary between companies and youth participants to facilitate professional development opportunities. ProActive Youth’s activities placed a special emphasis on helping young people explore opportunities abroad. While the complexities of entering the workforce domestically can be manifold for young people, the added logistical barriers to working internationally can be even more daunting. One of ProActive

Youth’s main YD activities was aimed at facilitating internship placements and offering participants the chance to build their skills at conferences and through community service activities. Once youths were selected for an opportunity, the organization helped mitigate some of the institutional barriers involved in the process by working with youths to ensure that they obtain the appropriate legal permits and visas before departing.

230 The team leader recounted that they had had a long-standing desire to make positive contributions to society, but that the institutional support provided by ProActive

Youth had made the difference in their capacity to actualize their goals.

ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “I can say that before I became a

[ProActive Youth] member, I was there. I wanted to help people…I wanted to see how to have a positive impact on my community and for the region and everything. So I had tried even to enter other associations with [ProActive

Youth], the difference is [that] I have a target, a larger target.”

The informant went on to add that, unlike other organizations they had been affiliated with, involvement in ProActive Youth had allowed them to travel throughout

Senegal to participate in projects.

6.2.3.3.2 Economic Resources

ProActive Youth’s activities emphasized a long-term approach to furnishing young people with economic resources. As a non-profit organization, ProActive Youth sought to provide young people with international placement services at a relatively low cost, but many of the opportunities were part of a fee-based structure that required a financial investment from youths traveling from abroad. According to the website, some of the placements did offer compensation to youths while other positions were unpaid with varying degrees of support from the host organization. For example, some opportunities offer youths the use of a computer, free living accommodations, and/or free meals to subsidize their participation.

231 The team leader confirmed that the Senegalese branch of ProActive Youth had hosted numerous volunteers from various countries abroad. The interviewee explained that visiting youths worked on community service activities, such as teaching English and received certificates to make their skills more marketable to potential employers in the future. Although the team leader attested to having had a positive experience with the organization, they explained that Senegalese participants had more difficulties obtaining work placements. Despite ProActive Youth’s international status and long tenure in Dakar, the team leader also reported some economic scarcity with regards to local YD programming. The interviewee explained that they and their colleagues sometimes contributed their personal monies to travel and participate in projects on behalf of their organization.

ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “[ProActive Youth], although volunteers, we know that the government can’t help [everyone], so we mobilize. We take our personal means and materials and things that we have at [ProActive Youth]. We go to the regions of Senegal to see what we can do…how we can help society.” The team leader spoke positively about the skills and experiences gained from participation but commented that those outside of the organization did not always perceive the organization as beneficial to their success. Like the co-founder of Youth

Beats, the interviewee explained that the lack of immediate economic benefits from

ProActive Youth had led those close to them to question their continued participation in the organization.

232 ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “…Lots of people told me, they told me, ‘But it’s necessary to leave [ProActive Youth] and go find work,’ but it’s, it’s a passion in fact for me.” 6.2.3.3.3 Behavioral/Normative Resources

ProActive Youth’s ultimate mission was to empower young people to explore their leadership potential. The organization tailored their approach to leadership development to address the needs of three separate work cultures: private enterprise, non-profit organizations, or entrepreneurship. Nonetheless, the organization’s overall orientation towards YD exhibited some unifying values as well.

Similar to youth-run counterparts, ProActive Youth emphasized the importance of global citizenry. While the structure allowed participants to develop many of their own activities in a way that was relevant to local needs, the organization’s approach to behavioral resources was still undergirded by some universalizing values as well. The sustainable development goals put forth by the UN constituted guiding principles for organizational programming. According to the website, the selection of host organizations and community service projects was contingent on the alignment of the YD activities with the principles of sustainable development.

Although the values disseminated at the international level reflected some degree of homogeneity, the team leader asserted that the organization also worked to cultivate cross-cultural exchanges of ideas across countries, branches, and chapters.

The interviewee had attended several conferences and forums, including one in Egypt.

233 Additionally, their position as team leader had enabled them to work alongside volunteers from countries like Ghana, the Ivory Coast, the United States, and several

European countries. The informant attested that these exchanges provided them with opportunities to learn about “good case practice” and to understand how other governments engaged with youths to accomplish development projects.

6.2.3.3.4 Relational Resources

Based on the interview with the team leader and media published by ProActive

Youth, the organization placed a high value on horizontal—or peer to peer— relationships. From the interviewee’s perspective, facilitating conversations between young people could be the key to reaping demographic dividends.

ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “[In Egypt] I tried to discuss with other youths. And I came to understand that there are things that they do in other countries and that in Senegal, we don’t do. So there are things that we do in Senegal now, and that they don’t do in other countries. So the exchange between the youths. It could, it could really be a very determinant factor for helping the Senegalese youths.” Like other youth interviewees, the team leader did not report having any direct interactions with Senegalese public administrators. Despite the social distance with governmental entities, the interviewee explained that their ability to interact with peers abroad and learn from others’ experiences had impacted their perceptions of what they expected from their own government in terms of relational resources.

ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “In Senegal, there is lots more strategy. We put many communication strategies and everything, but the only difference is the commitment. Yeah, after, I saw that the Egyptians, they did the

234 same project. They were successful, but they are not more intelligent than the Senegalese. The difference is that they [the Egyptian government] are lots more engaged.”

Although the ProActive Youth informant was strongly in favor of incorporating more comparative policy and best practices into Senegal’s YD strategy, the team leader reasoned that relational resources were also an important factor in the sustainable development of the nation. Using the metaphor of a familial relationship, the informant stated that Senegal’s YD strategy must necessarily motivate both the government and youths to “take ownership” for their communities.

ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “…And as if you have your own

daughter…you take care of your daughter, of your child and everything, because you know it is your child. You’re not going to wait for someone to come and take care of your child. So it’s what they [other countries’ YD strategies] do, them,

the ‘take ownership.’”

The ProActive Youth informant conjectured that the reluctance to interact with youths in their technological communities had also contributed to the relational disconnect between youths and public administrators. According to the team leader’s observations,

ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “They [the Ministry of Youth] use

maybe only one channel of communication…And unfortunately, often, they put the information on only one platform, and when the person does not have access to that platform, that becomes really difficult to have the information. So it’s

235 very complicated. It’s why I said that the Senegalese youth, even in their

globality, don’t have access to information.”

6.2.3.3.5 Defining “Success”

When asked to describe the elements of successful YD, the team leader explained that having individuals with certain behavioral traits is key.

ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “It’s the human resource. To have a person competent, people who are engaged, people who are volunteers, who

are really ready to demonstrate [it]. To help even if you don’t pay [them]. When you have that person, you are going to work maybe during six or seven months, one year, without having money, but after, maybe, the results will come. You

have to really target that person who has a community engagement.”

The ProActive team leader’s description of what drives a successful YD initiative parallels that of other YD organizations in that it places a significant value on behavioral resources. Rather than identifying financial or other material resources as the foundations of effective programming, the interviewee identified participation from individuals with a strong sense of community as essential. Their perspectives further echoed those of the youth interviewees in that their evaluation of YD effectiveness gave greater consideration to what contribution an individual can make to the organization, as opposed to what resources the organization provides to the individual.

Whether staff or members at large, how youths envisioned success in a YD organization seemed to vary to some degree from those put forth by their

236 organizations. For example, youth interviewees, including the ProActive Youth team leader, reported participating in other initiatives in order to address areas of YD that were not in the purview of their organizations. In this particular interview, the team leader offered a more explicit statement about diverging views of success in YD.

Building on their comments about the importance of having YD participants with a strong SOC, the team leader explained:

ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “When you have youths who are

there, and you train them in many things…not only to realize some objectives because we have our own objectives and the objectives of the organization. So, we will try to find an equilibrium between the personal objectives and the

objectives of the organization.”

The team leader’s distinction between the organizational goals and youth’s personal goals treats diverging visions of success as something to be expected. What is more important is that participants are able to achieve an equilibrium that can advance both collective and individual goals. In other words, an effective YD strategy must be flexible enough to accept that youths do not necessarily need to subscribe to all of the collective values and objectives of an organization wholeheartedly in order to make valuable contributions. What is key, however, is that youths are provided with space for pursuing their personal aspirations as well.

6.3 Perceptions of Government

Given the cautious attitude that many Senegalese report having towards political conversation, the researcher sought to direct questions concerning

237 interviewees’ perception of governmental entities in a way that would encourage them to be forthcoming about their views. Rather than asking their thoughts about the present government, interviewees were asked what advice they would give to public administrators interested in connecting with young people. The question both allowed the researcher to understand better interviewees’ perceptions of what resources they felt were lacking for young people, as well as to gain insights into what those involved in YD organizations perceived the role of government to be with regards to ensuring young people’s quality of life.

6.3.1 Youth-serving Organizations

6.3.1.1 Tailoring Success

The coordinator and youth project manager stated that their work required that they work in coordination with a number of governmental ministries. Their perception of these exchanges, however, was that there was room for improvement on the part of public administrators. With regard to the dissemination of information, the coordinator explained that Tailoring Success had to put forth the effort to “go towards information” that could help them conduct better outreach to their target populations.

In cases where there where the organization was able to partner with local government to involve young people in the policy-making process, the coordinator explained that they felt that there was still not complete support from governmental partners. The coordinator referred to the example of the partnership with local government that allowed youths with disabilities to propose solutions for improving

238 “access and accessibility” in health facilities to explain their perspectives about the

Senegalese government’s role in YD.

Tailoring Success, Coordinator (Non-youth): “It’s us, with our partners, but the government has to do their part though. It’s your rights they have to apply. That, it’s the major work. We... we fight for that, that it is effective.” According to their assessment, even the instances where Tailoring Success was able to partner with governmental entities on YD initiatives, the organization still had to be persistent to ensure that their efforts were sustainable. One major element of ensuring sustainability was advocating for public administrators to apply fundamental measures, like ensuring that existing laws were consistently enforced. Despite

Tailoring Success having a national presence and having the capacity to provide an array of institutional resources, the interviewees described a situation where both felt that they lacked a voice in the developmental process. According to the local coordinator, their relationship with the Senegalese government could benefit from improvements. In the informant’s opinion,

Tailoring Success, Local Coordinator (Non-youth): “…There is a question of political will….If everyone did what they should do, really, we wouldn’t be there screaming left and right…If they really applied the law, we wouldn’t need to go see this minister [of government] and that minister [of government]. In my view, they should come to us because we take the inclusive aspect. It’s them that should come to us, ask us, ‘How would you like [this]. How would you like that to be.’ But it’s us who are running after [them], but it’s not normal.” Whereas other interviewees suggested that the limitations to improving the situation of young people in Senegal was related to the government’s resource

239 capacity, the Tailoring Success coordinator identified lack of political will as a hindrance to youth resource provision. In the coordinator’s assessment, if the government and other partners would perform their roles effectively, much of the time spent “screaming right and left,” or aggressively advocating for change, would be unnecessary. Based on the coordinator’s observations, concern with the status of young Senegalese should motivate the relevant government agencies to seek out organizations like Tailoring Success, as opposed to the staff of Tailoring Success having to constantly pursue them.

6.3.1.2 Environmental Futures

The IT specialist for Environmental Futures expressed a perception of the

Senegalese government as needing to make more effective use of the resources they already expend on young people. The interviewee assessed the government’s YD strategy as being insufficient—or at least incomplete—to facilitate fundamental change. This informant articulated their attitudes about governmental performance in the domain of YD using the example of some of the YD strategies of the Senegalese government with which they were most familiar. The first of these strategies was the community sport and cultural associations (ASCs) located in each neighborhood of

Dakar. The interviewee explained that the ASCs were best known for sponsoring athletic and social activities for young people. While the informant asserted that, they did not consider the ASCs as being inherently bad, but the associations overlooked some of the more substantive needs of Senegalese youths, like sociopolitical and economic inclusion.

240 The interviewee also cited the need to reevaluate the way entrepreneurial initiatives targeting youths were carried out. The IT specialist explained that resources for entrepreneurial ventures were sometimes allocated through contests where young people presented their projects, and a select few were funded. Among the problems with this system, the interviewee felt that the process could be too complex for average youths to participate, in some cases the sum of financial support awarded to winners was inappropriate for the type of venture they were proposing, and the number of youths who received help from such contests was trivial in comparison with the demand. Moreover, the interviewee proposed that furnishing financial resources without ongoing guidance was ineffective, and, ultimately, unsustainable.

The interviewee also identified political favoritism and short-term political agendas as a barrier to YD. From their perspective, young people were sometimes placed in a position where they found it necessary to sacrifice their political voices in exchange for resources. The perception of the Senegalese government as allocating resources for YD in a way that suited their political goals was not unique to this interviewee. Whether the political nature of YD strategy in Senegal is real or imagined, the lack of transparency surrounding how YD initiatives were implemented seemed to cast a shadow on this and other interviewees’ perceptions of the government’s authenticity with regards to YD.

241 6.3.2 Youth-Led Organizations

6.3.2.1 New Day Youth

The New Day Youth interviewees’ perceptions of the government’s role in YD somewhat paralleled those of the Tailoring Success interviewees. The technical advisor for the organization explained the relationship between New Day Youth and the Ministry of Youth as analogous to a teacher-student situation. The Ministry of

Youth defined the overall YD strategy for YD organizations it coordinated with and provided them with staff persons, like the interviewee, who were trained to ensure that initiatives generated by an organization were in alignment with the Ministry’s goals and objectives. The technical advisor asserted that the theory of YD expressed by the

Ministry was well-articulated but that their strategies were not necessarily effective in practice.

New Day Youth, Technical Advisor (Non-youth): “There are some good things that are written, but concretely, there is absolutely nothing that was practiced. What the state took as an alternative was to put in place a certain number of agencies that are there to facilitate the youths’ inclusion and employment…But in terms of sustainability, that program has to be better focused to touch lots of youths and democratically. That shouldn’t be programs that they [policymakers] have politicized.” Although themselves a staff of the Ministry of Youth, the interviewee’s evaluation of the Ministry’s YD strategy did not differ drastically from those of other interviewees in the study. The technical advisor’s comments parallel those of the

Tailoring Success staff in that they point to their perception of a gap between the

242 expressed goals of governmental entities and how they actually approach YD in practice. It is also revelatory that the technical advisor also acknowledged the potential for politics to play a role in the inefficacies of Senegal’s YD strategy.

Rather than assessing the merits of the theory of the Ministry of Youth, the youth advisor felt that lack of transparency and inclusion had impacted youths’ faith in the processes of YD administered by the government. This interviewee asserted that, in their experiences, the failure to consult with young people in the earliest stages of program development communicated to youths that older adults did not trust them, and, moreover, it led to questions about procedural fairness.

New Day Youth, Youth Advisor (Youth): “Me, what I would say, is to ask the Minister [of Youth] to trust the youth…The youths have understood today the challenges that we have to confront, and [we should] ask them sometimes if they have initiatives to ask the Ministry of Youth to accompany us in that initiative… sometimes, when we see that there are programs and projects for the youths and that the youths are not involved in them at the start, the scaling up, and the implementation… …There are those in the government who say ‘The youth are not easy.’ But it’s not that. You need to listen to them and tell them, ‘Maybe it’s not like that. It’s like this that that works.’” According to the interviewee, the combination of lack of trust in Senegalese youths and lack of consultation with young people when developing initiatives have contributed to negative perceptions of government’s YD efforts. The youth advisor stated that when governmental entities fail to incorporate young people into projects at every stage of development, there is a perception among youths that the government’s

243 YD initiatives benefit some young people and not others. The youth advisor explained that, even within the New Day Youth organization, they felt that some staff members’ political aspirations affected their work.

New Day Youth, Youth Advisor (Youth): “Sometimes we have a tendency to say to people who politick, ‘You, all that you do is politick. That’s not it. There is community development. What interests us is how to proceed to develop our community.’ Sometimes, there are people, them, that it’s how to proceed to find a way to, or rather, how to proceed so that the President calls you.. to give you a [position].”

In addition to reiterating the perception that political agendas play a role in YD strategy, the youth advisor’s perspective also seemed to give an even stronger indication that they hold a negative association between politics and community development. The youth advisor’s statement that those who focus on politics have to be reminded that the organization’s concern is with developing communities would suggest that the values of those who ‘politick’ are incongruent with positively impacting communities. Given that the New Day Youth organization itself participates in programs and initiatives encouraging young Senegalese to become involved in political processes, it is important to consider how these attitudes about the incongruence between politics and actual development can be improved.

6.3.2.2 Community Connections

The Community Connections interviewees also identified inclusion and outreach to youths as areas where they felt that the Ministry of Youth’s efforts needed improvement. According to the external liaison, a step towards improving the situation

244 of Senegalese youths should involve creating mechanisms within the government to give young people a voice in YD policy-making.

Community Connections, External Liaison (Youth): “I propose that there is an assembly representative of youths that can make decisions for youths because we can’t make decisions for someone without their presence. So, it is necessary first that there are youths at the heart of the Ministry [of Youth]. Youths who know. I didn’t say, for example, ‘Him,-he’s-my-brother-I’ll-take-him’ [type of] politics anyway…Not a political choice, but a choice [where] you go in associations… We invite them to take part in decisions that are made for all the youths.” Given the liaison’s caveat concerning their desire for a non-partisan group to represent youths, it is unclear whether the liaison was unaware that there was a

National Council of the Youth of Senegal (CNJS) under the purview of the Ministry of

Youth or if they simply perceived the group as irrelevant to YD. It is unclear how the youths of the CNJS were selected or what particular role they played in directing youth-specific policy. The group did not have a website, and information concerning their policies and procedures was not available from them or the Ministry of Youth, but the CNJS has maintained an active Facebook presence since January 2017.

Whether the external liaison was unaware of the CNJS or disregarded them, notwithstanding, their statements demonstrated that having a youth-specific organization was not automatically an indication of inclusiveness for the interviewees.

The external liaison also expressed what the researcher found to be a common sentiment among youth interviewees, their perceptions of the role of government in

245 YD was not solely a financial matter. Instead, the interviewee emphasized the intrinsic value of intellectual exchange and participation for young people.

Community Connections, External Liaison (Youth): “Even if they [the Ministry of Youth] don’t have the financing for all the associations, but the act of having the ideas. The ideas could help anyway. It’s not only the financial aspect that can make an intelligent project successful…They can direct the person without even giving them the money so that they are successful. They can show them the path and that they manage with that. If you give a person money, if the money finishes, what are you going to do?” The interviewee’s description of their perception of the role of government identified the Ministry of Youth as an agency actively coordinating ideas and facilitating collaborations with YD organizations. Secondly, the comments demonstrated consciousness of the possibility that the government might have financial constraints on their ability to carry out YD strategies but emphasized a desire to see the cultivation of better relations with YD organizations as a means of overcoming limitations.

Another Community Connections interviewee stressed the importance of communication and of ensuring that youth-specific initiatives are relevant to the needs of Senegalese youths, as well as the national interests more generally. According to the interviewee, better communication between youths and the government was important because it could enable public administrators to become more familiar with

Senegalese youth, their aspirations, and needs. Their definition of communication between youth and government also encompassed a desire for greater youth inclusion

246 in YD policy processes. In emphasizing the importance of learning from young people and including them in public decision-making, the interviewee explained that:

Community Connections, Participant 1 (Youth): “When you do something for me, without me, you’re doing it against me. Right? So when you want to help someone, you have to know him first. Know what the youth need. What we need in Senegal. And helping people is not giving them money. It’s not that, right? Helping somebody is helping him to help himself. It’s simple, right?” Put another way, the interviewee was making the assertion that before judging the merits of the YD initiative itself, the act of developing YD initiatives without consulting with youths has the potential to foster a negative perception of government’s YD efforts. This particular comment by the interviewee reinforces the significance of inclusion in youths’ evaluations of governmental performance. The comment should also prompt YD actors, as well as youth-focused theorists, to consider not only what is available to young people in environments of disproportionality, but also how it is made available. Like the external liaison, participant 1 also identified a transparent decision-making process as a more significant element of their perception of governmental performance than even the availability of economic resources.

Participant 1 went on to explain that “learning” Senegalese youths was essential in creating a demographic dividend for the entire country. From their perspective, educational institutions needed to adopt policies to “reorient education towards sectors that really exist in Senegal.” Instead of continuing with a system of education that obliged young people to assemble in urban centers in order to receive

247 professional training, they argued that more attention should be given to creating educational programs that helped equip young people to be better qualified to take up professions that are in demand in their localities.

According to Participant 1, the lack of communication and transparency about

YD in Senegal created a final dilemma for young people. Their perceptions of the government were just that: perceptions. Because the informant could not “see the government up front,” they could only develop opinions about their political leaders’ attitudes towards YD based on their lived citizenship. Alternatively, Participant 1 also reported being unsure if Senegalese public administrators recognized that, despite youths’ concerns for their quality of life, young Senegalese were proud of their nation.

Participant 2 explained that they perceived political leaders as having a fundamental advantage in developing a plan to better support young people.

Community Connections, Participant 1 (Youth): “I think that the government, they have, they have already passed the youth phase. I don’t think that they skipped that step, so they know very well the existing realities, except, often, the contexts have changed…But even if the context changed, the President, he has to know the question of the needs of many, of many [of the resources], that they have to give to the youth. So there needs to be a dialogue between youth and, and the government.” Unlike other policy domains, all policymakers and political leaders could draw on personal experiences of having been young people at some point in their lives.

While Participant 2 recognized that the contexts of past generations could not be assumed to be as relevant to the present generation, remembering the challenges of

248 young adulthood could serve as a point of reference to help youths and governmental actors to find common ground.

6.3.3 Youth-Run Organizations

6.3.3.1 Youth Beats

The issue of communication also featured prominently in the co-founder of

Youth Beats’ perceptions of governmental performance. The co-founder felt that the information centers and other youth-specific services provided by the Ministry of

Youth represented what they took to be public administrators’ “doing their best” to meet the needs of young Senegalese. Rather than undersupplying material resources or services, the interviewee felt that lack of communication with youths about what opportunities were available was a factor in youths’ abilities to access public goods and services. The Youth Beats informant reiterated the perceptions of other interviewees regarding the influence of political agendas on the government’s performance in the domain of YD. According to the interviewee, the extent to which young people were made aware of YD initiatives or were successful in obtaining support was dependent on their acquaintances and affiliations.

The interviewee felt that their networks helped them keep abreast of YD initiatives, but they highlighted the importance of the Ministry of Youth making a greater effort to inform a greater segment of the youth population about their activities. From their perspective, creating awareness about YD opportunities had the potential to signal to young people that their government was making efforts to support them.

249 As detailed above, this interviewee also expressed some indifference to governmental performance more generally. Although the co-founder reported having successfully acquired resources from the government of Senegal, the informant described themselves and other youths in their social networks as being “go-getters” who pursued their personal goals regardless of whether the government provided them with opportunities or not. Indifferent perceptions of government could be interpreted as a trend that has the effect of decreasing youths’ expectations and demands on governmental authorities. Conversely, what began as a disregard for government performance could develop into a more profound disconnect between youths and the public sector. Whether one seeks to achieve a demographic dividend or avoid a bulge, delving into the implications of indifferent perceptions of the public sector merits greater scholarly attention.

6.3.3.2 We Learn

The We Learn founder characterized the work of the government as commendable, while also noting that the lived experiences of Senegalese youths were not homogenous. Over the course of the interview, the staff cited studies written by the government of Senegal, the exchange with a Senegalese politician, and a desire to benefit from feedback with the government. Taken together, these factors indicate that the organization maintained some degree of interest in YD efforts undertaken by the government of Senegal.

When asked about advice the We Learn staff members could offer to the

Ministry of Youth about how to improve their approach to YD, the founder described

250 their perception of the difficulties of engaging with the government of Senegal as emanating from institutional and sociocultural barriers. Firstly, the founder identified that the complexity of protocols for proposing YD initiatives as “restraining to creativity.” The interviewee felt that the merits of an innovative idea could be overshadowed by institutional exigencies concerning the proper procedure for presenting ideas to governmental agencies.

Secondly, the founder felt that Senegal’s leaders followed an ideology of YD that was not conducive to facilitating meaningful exchanges between youths and the government. The interviewee described this mentality as a “monopolization” of ideas wherein those in authority expected young Senegalese to listen and comply rather than to share their own thoughts.

We Learn, Founder (Youth): “It’s like a patriarchy. That is to say that those that are high up, the old and those people who are of age, they don’t like that we [youths] contribute. They don’t like when we propose something that is going to make them account for what they have said [before].” From this perspective, the founder depicted a reluctance among Senegal’s leaders to include young people in the public policy process or to be held responsible for the previous promises they had made to the public. To demonstrate the contrast between their perceptions of Senegal’s leadership and more proactive leaders, they highlighted how figures like President Paul Kagame in Rwanda and of President

Emanuel Macron of France. They explained that both leaders had held direct discussions with young people to solicit their perspectives on what types of assistance they felt were needed from the government. The founder’s comments portrayed

251 Senegalese politicians as hostile to input from Senegalese youths. According to the interviewee, young people were still committed to exercising their citizenship despite the political climate.

We Learn, Founder (Youth): “The youths have started to be ‘community organizers.’ They say, ‘Get up, we are going to march.’ Region to region, we [youths] discuss, but that march can’t go far because there were prefects and the [public] order. That is to say that the state also played a role of always settling scores whenever the youths are, are against them, or rather against their decisions.” This interviewee, like others in the study, shared a perception of development as something that people were willing to pursue in spite of the government, as opposed to doing so with their support. According to the founder, young people do contemplate public issues collectively, but that when ideas run counter to the interests of those in power, governmental authorities use the mechanisms at their disposal, i.e. local prefects and rules regulating the public order, to impede young people from publicly expressing their concerns. While they felt that alternative media and technology had made other resources available for youths to be heard, many of these independent efforts were short-lived when they ran counter to the ideology of the party in power.

The founder’s perception of government was also notable in that they made a slight revision to their statement to distinguish between youths being “against” politicians and youths being in disaccord with politicians’ decisions. Even when policymakers are unable or unwilling to adopt YD policies that are endorsed by young people, fostering an environment where young people take issue with decisions and

252 not decisionmakers could have significant implications for societies experiencing youth disproportionality. Although such a task was beyond the scope of the current study, future research to study if—or how—YD organizations might play a role in how youths understand YD policymaking could be informative for both theorists and practitioners.

Other interviewees at We Learn echoed the sentiment that young people should not “wait for the government” to lead the effort to improve YD in Senegal. Instead of discussing their attitudes about the performance of the Senegalese government and its particularities, they limited their comments to thoughts on how youths could improve their developmental outcomes regardless of whether they were included in state- sponsored YD initiatives. They stated that young people should focus on educational attainment and maintain their resolve to help the continent progress.

6.3.3.3 ProActive Youth

The team leader for ProActive Youth also held a perception of the Senegalese government as a facilitator of ideas. They explained that, in light of their conversations with youths from other countries, government’s prioritization of “exchange” seemed to be a factor in the success of state-sponsored YD initiatives. The Youth Beats co- founder suggested that public administrators invest more effort in publicizing the government’s YD initiatives to youths. The Community Connections and We Learn interviewees articulated a desire to see the government spend more time learning from young Senegalese. However, the ProActive Youth interviewee emphasized the need

253 for the government of Senegal to foster peer to peer interactions between young people globally.

Internships and greater access to financial resources were also named as potentially improving YD outcomes. Nonetheless, the team leader viewed monetary assistance as futile without being buttressed by other resources.

ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “The other thing [that could help youths], it’s maybe the access to financing, but the financing, if the money is finished.. you will again ask, ask, ask…It’s better that you exchange projects [to] like try to see how to exchange good case practice.” The prevalent expectation for the role of the Ministry of Youth—and the government of Senegal more broadly—was of a facilitator of ideas and initiatives. The interviewees reported varying degrees to which they felt that they were supported by their political leaders, and all had suggestions for improving the current YD policy in the country. As was the case with their assessments of YD organizations, youth interviewees' perceptions of government focused on the extent to which they were included and were afforded the potential to make a contribution to their societies as opposed to the possibility of receiving financial gains.

6.4 Citizenship and Sense of Community (SOC)

With respect to both community and government, the interviewees were open about aspects of their social ecology that could be improved. Several pointed to negative community attitudes about youths or lack of political will as barriers to improving Senegalese youths’ well-being. Despite their disillusionment with sociopolitical conditions at the time they were interviewed, what was clear across

254 interviews was that youths were eager to make a social impact and that they were hopeful that Senegal’s public administrators could adopt new YD strategies to improve the situation of young people in the country.

With the exception of one interviewee, all participants in the study were nationals of Senegal. When they were asked to describe the meaning of being

Senegalese, the most frequently used description was “pride.” Youths, in particular, felt that their pride at being Senegalese as the motivation to participate in accomplishing positive social impacts. Challenges were equally prominent in interviewees’ attitudes about the meaning of citizenship in Senegal. Although the researcher initialized this study by contemplating SOC within the bounds of neighborhoods, the interviewees made clear that they conceptualized their attachments to the community in more expansive terms than their immediate neighborhood or even the national boundaries of Senegal.

6.4.1 Youth-Serving Organizations

6.4.1.1 Tailoring Success

Both Tailoring Success staffs were older adults. To gain insights on their perspectives about contemporary youths, they were asked to compare the meaning of young adulthood in their generation with the present cohort of Senegalese youths. The youth project manager articulated the difference between the two generations as being related to a shift in the nature of the challenges youths face.

Tailoring Success, Youth Project Manager, (Non-youth): “There is a big disconnect because [for] us, it was the beginning. There was the pride of being

255 successful…Even though there is still the stare of others…That didn’t discourage us…But currently, the current youths, it’s something else, they get discouraged quickly.” The delineation of the history of African countries into the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial period is not only employed by Africanist scholars, but the three eras also carry significance for those living in African societies as well. Both interviewees had experienced young adulthood during the period in which Senegal became independent from France. The youth project manager identified their main challenge as demonstrating their intellectual capacities to those who stigmatized them on the basis of their physical disability. Although the project manager felt that stigmatization, i.e., the “stare of others” was still a problem, they felt that the difficulties of developing new and relevant competencies were major obstacles for present-day youths.

Tailoring Success, Youth Project Manager, (Non-youth): “The current youths, the training. They have to feel that it’s detached in relation to reality, and sometimes, when you meet with obstacles, that you can’t conquer, well. Whereas with us, that wasn’t it, we fought it.” Put another way, the youth project manager’s depiction of the barriers that

Senegalese youths faced in exercising their citizenship remained substantial, however, they asserted that youths’ attitudes about their problems differed from the project manager’s own generation. As result, the coordinator of Tailoring Success’s message to youths about community and citizenship reflected both the potential adversities that came along with the stigmatization of those with disabilities that they felt was prevalent

256 in Senegalese society as well as encouraging them to work tenaciously to overcome obstacles.

Tailoring Success,, Youth Coordinator, (Non-youth): “We tell them that, nothing, they [those with prejudices about disabilities] won’t forgive us anything. Always, there are handicaps that are there. They watch our handicap, so you have to fight…In any case, if we want them to accept us, it’s that. It’s that battle.” Over the duration of the less than two-hour interview, the interviewees made reference to fighting and battle 20 times. The interviewees also expressed some positive views about the social ecology of Senegal, but the undertones of struggle and opposition are also important to acknowledge. Although the Tailoring Success interviewees were not Senegalese youths, their perspectives also prompt the question of whether improving relationships between allies of youth, like the coordinator and youth project manager of Tailoring Success, could ultimately have a positive impact on youths’ attitudes about their government and community as well.

6.4.2 Youth-Led Organizations

6.4.2.1 New Day Youth

The technical advisor for New Day youth also identified a contrast between the resilience of the independence generation and what they saw as a lack of engagement within the current generation.

New Day Youth, Technical Advisor (Non-youth): “I think that we saw in the ‘60s a youth that demanded a lot. The independence, for example…During the independence, we had a youth who were dynamic and more or less engaged, but who were in a good mental state. But that has changed.

257

Now, the world, in theory, has lots of things for us to have information and communication that should permit that the youths be even more useful to do more than the past generations. .... I see a certain degree of dynamism also, that is good, but at the same time, I see that they are still much more distracted.” Rather than lacking resources, the technical advisor described the obstacles to

Senegalese youths being able to exercise their citizenship as emanating from their approach to using what resources they had available in an efficient manner. The interviewee went on to argue, however, that the meaning of citizenship and maintaining a healthy sense of community within younger demographics was not solely the task of youths.

New Day Youth, Technical Advisor (Non-youth): “Tell me what youth you want to build, and I will tell you what country you will be. It is important for our country that the people say, ‘Look at our youths all over the world. They are not going in a good direction. How can we reclaim them, re-center them around the essential, around their citizenship, around the love of their country, around the problems of their country so that they say to themselves, ‘To work to develop, I need to.. I need to learn, I need to be trained, I need to go, I need to be engaged…’ We [all] need to be together around these challenges.” Despite their openness about the state of youths in Senegal and the difficulties they face accessing resources, the youth advisor for New Day Youth spoke positively about their attitudes towards being counted amongst the population of Senegal’s youths.

New Day Youth, Youth Advisor (Youth): “Maybe like the other youths, I can say that I am a young Senegalese. Maybe I was lucky… to be born in Senegal,

258 the country of Teranga.7 And more, of a family where there are Muslims and Christians, and that there is tolerance, and that people live in community, and that really, all over, take each other for sisters and brothers, especially in the case of youths…Really, it’s a pride for me…” 6.4.2.2 Community Connections

The youths of Community Connections also expressed positive sentiments towards being, not only Senegalese but also being Africans and world citizens. Whereas older adults identified their experiences in the independence era as a point of distinction with the significance of citizenship for Senegalese youths, the interviewees of

Community Connections perceived their task of overcoming challenges as paradoxical—or even a continuation—of the struggles their elders had fought to overcome. The external liaison of Community Connections articulated their attitudes about the significance of being a young Senegalese in this way:

Community Connections, External Liaison (Youth): “To be a young Senegalese, it is a pleasure. To be a young Senegalese also, it motivates us…Because we find ourselves in a situation, maybe, like the elders saw a difficult situation. And that motivates us to change the view for the generation to come…Everything is interconnected....You know, we are proud of being young Senegalese. We are proud of being Africans. We are proud of being, like, world citizens in general… A young Senegalese, yes, they have to work for the functioning of their country, but they have to also strive for peace all over the world. Because without an impact in the world, Senegal is not in peace.”

7 Teranga means hospitality in Wolof

259 The Community Connections youth participant 1 elaborated on the pride- motivation paradox. From their perspective, many young Senegalese have a strong sense of community. Moreover, they understand that surmounting obstacles on behalf of their families, communities, and future generations constituted a part of their role as citizens. Despite their concerns about the hardships involved in accessing resources, the interviewee was confident in their explanation of what role youths played in society.

Community Connections, Youth Participant 1 (Youth): “Being a youth in Senegal is first, like, God willing…But also being a you[th].. young here is meaning always facing challenges… when you’re young, the only thing that you can do for yourself, for your country, for your family, is facing challenges, and this is the kind of mentality that all the youth, all the young people here in Senegal, they have it. All the youth, they have the kind of mentality. Always, I have to succeed in my life.

Even though they are not all in school…The youth are very engaged. Each one defends an interest that is very very interesting for them. So for their family maybe, or rather for their locality maybe, or rather for the, for the country…When you do for the family, you do for your locality, and for the locality, it’s for the community, and for the community, it’s for the country. So each one works to develop a part of life…When we say durable development, durable development is not only about yourself. Not about your…your, your generation. It’s a kind of intergeneration that you have worry about….”

Contrary to the older adults who were interviewed, the youth interviewees perceived themselves as determined to succeed as both individuals and as members of an interdependent community.

260 6.4.3 Youth-Run Organizations

Even in youth-run organizations where the interviewees’ perspectives seemed to center more heavily on interacting with other young people than with older adults or public administrators, youths described their attitudes about being Senegalese citizens in positive terms. Like young interviewees in youth-led organizations, interviewees in all three youth-run organizations reported having a strong connection with their communities and an accompanying desire to participate in improving their environment.

6.4.3.1 Youth Beats

The Youth Beats co-founder described being Senegalese as a source of pride that signified a reciprocal relationship between them and their community. Although the interviewee was no longer active in the Youth Beats organization, their comments reflected an ongoing desire to play an active role in their society.

Youth Beats, Co-Founder (Youth): “It means a lot of pride. Like, I guess, like everybody, like they just have a relationship with their country. I’m like proud and have a lot of…close relationships with my country…Growing up here means also a lot of engagement. A lot of…. social engagement. Like helping and being helped by other people. Because also we here in Senegal have what we call ‘teranga.’” The co-founder explained that they saw themselves as one of a generation of

“dynamic” Senegalese youths who were working to improve themselves and their communities. The interviewee went on to say that, although they had family abroad and had had opportunities to relocate, their first priority was making a positive impact in their home country.

261 6.4.3.2 We Learn

The We Learn interviewees emphasized that the meaning of being a young

Senegalese was not the same for all youths. While some young people had access to resources and support to pursue their goals, others had not been as fortunate. According to the We Learn fellowship manager, the lived experiences of youths rendered the question of what it meant to be a Senegalese youth a deeply personal evaluation.

We Learn, Fellowship Manager (Youth): “It all depends, I think it’s very personal. It’s not objective… I had lots of people who helped me, lots of people who were by my side, who guided me, who counseled me…I think that someone who is like me really feels good to be a youth. And of those of them who have problems, health problems, problems of education, it’s a bit more complicated.” The founder addressed the complexities of being youths for those who lacked access to resources. They explained that the disengagement of discouraged Senegalese youths was evidenced by several social trends in their home community, which was outside of Dakar. They argued that illegal migration, disregard for civic responsibility, and suicides were all byproducts of the low quality of life experienced by youths in

Senegal. They conjectured that as many as 20 to 30% of Senegalese youths had chosen to take clandestine passages out of Senegal because of their frustration with their socioeconomic situations. Despite the efforts of the national government, the founder believed the lack of opportunity had impacted youths’ respect for the social contract.

Moreover, the inability to meet familial expectations had also resulted in youths resorting to suicide.

262 6.4.3.3 ProActive Youth

As many of the other interviewees had done, the team leader of ProActive

Youth’s assessment of what it meant to be a young Senegalese extended beyond their attitude about the government at the time. Instead, their comments reflected a contemplation of their relationships with the larger community.

ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “For me, it’s a pride first to be a citizen of Senegal. Because particularly, I was born here, I grew up here. I studied at a Senegalese school. The experiences that I could have in life I had in Senegal, so for me, it’s a pride today.”

When asked if being a young person in Senegal held a different significance, the interviewee expressed optimism in the potential of young people but felt that there were many challenges as well. Ultimately, however, the team leader echoed the sentiments of other youth interviewees by explaining that youths in the country had a desire to make a social impact.

ProActive Youth, Team Leader (Youth): “The youths have lots of potential, but maybe it’s problems that present themselves. Even though it’s really a youth that is very dynamic, a youth that is very organized, who want to do something for their society.”

6.5 Conclusion

The YD organizations included in this study employed an array of strategies to facilitate the dispensation of resources to the youths they served. While their capacity to provide each of the four types of resources varied based on their internal assets and their institutional relationships, each organization strived to offer institutional,

263 economic, behavioral, and relational resources to young people. Statements by interviewees also pointed to varying assessments of which resources should carry the greatest priority for the development of young Senegalese. Whereas older YD staff emphasized the significance of providing young people with opportunities for direct participation in the policy process by working alongside public administrators, younger interviewees concentrated more intently on achieving social impact at the grassroots level. Ultimately, however, all the interviewees identified behavioral values, such as engagement and entrepreneurial spirit, as either being derived from participating in YD organizations or as a factor that attracted interviewees to take part in YD initiatives.

Regardless of the extent to which interviewees were able to engage directly with the government of Senegal, they were transparent about aspects of the government’s

YD strategy that could be improved upon. In fact, interviewees within organizations that had greater access to institutional resources from the Ministry of Youth and various other governmental agencies were more candid about the disadvantages of the official approach to YD. The tendency for organizations with older adults in leadership roles to have a closer proximity to government entities would seem to parallel the findings of

Cohen and Chafee (Bhattarai, 2016) that were addressed in Chapter 2. Although YD organizations with older adults may have a more intimate understanding of the

Senegalese government and its policies, the interviewees’ civic knowledge did not necessarily equate to a positive perception of the government and its representatives.

The perception that some of the government’s ineffectiveness with regards to

YD was attributable to the prioritization of political agendas was also pervasive.

264 Ultimately, the attitudes amongst YD actors about the government’s role in improving the lives of young people were not only based on a desire for tangible resources, but they also exposed an underlying mistrust in public administrators’ authenticity.

Concerns about the true motives and the political will of representatives of the

Senegalese government was further emphasized by the frequency with which interviewees identified communication and transparency as being among the aspects of the country’s YD strategy that they would like to see improved.

The interviewees’ perceptions of the performance of the Senegalese government in the domain of YD were not necessarily determinant of their attitudes about the meaning of being a part of Senegalese society. Despite their attitudes about the degree to which they felt that YD initiatives were supported by the government or that the

Ministry of Youth’s YD strategy was appropriate to the needs of young people, youths described young Senegalese as “dynamic” and expressed “pride” at being part of

Senegal’s youth population.

The interviewees’ perceptions of the meaning of being youths in Senegal exposed some divergence in attitudes about the roles of youths in society among youths and their YD allies. Older interviewees felt that their experiences in the independence era had instilled resilience in their own generation. Although recognizing that contemporary youths faced many challenges to achieving the milestones of adulthood, they felt that younger Senegalese’ orientation towards challenges differed from older generations. Younger interviewees articulated a more optimistic attitude about their own

265 generation. Two even saw their context as analogous to the struggles of the past generation of youths.

Similarly, several interviewees identified negative social attitudes about youths as being a barrier to YD outcomes. The “stare of others,” mentalities that relegated females to “second place” positions in leadership, and stigmatization of youths who lacked a certain level of educational attainment were all cited as factors impeding youths’ capacities to participate fully in Senegalese society. Nonetheless, community engagement and making a social impact weighed heavily in the minds of young interviewees when discussing their feelings about their community. Whether staff or participants at large, the youth interviewed for this study reported feeling inspired by the current situation of young people in the country to strive to improve life for themselves, their society, and future generations.

266 Chapter 7

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

7.1 Discussion

“The value of the youth development organization in the future will be determined by the organization’s collaborations, connections, capacity, and contribution to the common good, rather than by its resources or client base” (2013).

The youth-serving, youth-led, and youth-run organizations included in this study represent a microcosm of Senegalese youths’ diverse needs. Each group occupied a singular space within urban Senegal’s YD landscape and had a nuanced approach to appealing to youths. What was consistent across cases, however, was that interviewees emphasized the significance of participation in assuring the well-being of youth, and ultimately, society as a whole. Some participatory structures ostensibly gave older adults greater decision-making power; however, empowering young people to exercise their own agency was a priority for both youth and their YD allies.

7.1.1 Participatory Structures

Examining the structure and practices of youth-serving organizations holds intrinsic value for theorists and practitioners because their participatory structures most closely parallel that of governmental entities. Governments, whether national or

267 local, are designed to represent the interests of citizens of all ages—even in societies where youths dominate the population. While some initiatives may specifically speak to the needs of youths, they often face similar challenges as youth-serving organizations in determining how best to offer youths opportunities for meaningful participation, given the constraints of their organizational culture. Although barriers like age segmentation that create social distance between youths and adults, and the resulting negative perceptions between the two groups, can place strains on efforts to foster cooperative relationships, the continued existence of organizations like

Tailoring Success and Environmental Futures suggest that the fractures between youths and adults are not insurmountable.

Over the course of the study, it became apparent that youth-serving organizations that focus exclusively on youth issues are an increasing rarity in urban

Senegal. Instead, organizations originally designed to serve all ages are making efforts to incorporate youth-specific programming into their repertoires (Wheeler, 2000, p.

51). For example, the International Federation of the Red Cross is amongst the ranks of Senegal’s most influential YD organizations (Ream & Witt, 2004). Both Tailoring

Success and Environmental Futures exhibit similar trends. Each of the organizations maintained a focus on their thematic issues, but the organizational administrations had created well-developed programs that specifically targeted young people.

Although the administration of both organizations was staffed by non-youths, an examination of the organizational publications and exchanges with interviewees showed evidence of an emphasis on the importance of working to integrate young

268 Senegalese into decision-making processes. Additionally, despite their organizations’ focuses on thematic issues, the interviewees were conversant in how the vulnerabilities of youths might differ from those of other segments of their serving populations.

Tailoring Success and Environmental Futures interviewees placed especial attention on the importance of institutional resources for their approaches to addressing the vulnerabilities of Senegalese youths. What was notable about their strategies was that the groups negotiated an intricate balance between inclusion and exclusion. Their goals were aimed at ensuring that young people and their interests were represented in formal institutions, and most especially amongst policy decisionmakers. However, the interviewees in both organizations acknowledged that certain institutional settings remained inhospitable to incorporating young Senegalese into their work. As such, programs designed by the two organizations to assist young people did not always involve direct participation from youths throughout the process.

For example, Tailoring Success interviewees leveraged their relationships with various partners within the Senegalese government to call attention to social issues relevant to the lives of young people. Where possible, the organizational leaders initiated partnerships and trained youth participants to engage directly with policymakers in local government. Environmental Futures was the home base for an international network of non-governmental organizations. The national organization collaborated with others in the network to conduct research on issues faced by young

Senegalese, engaged in national and international advocacy around youth concerns,

269 and cultivated partnerships with other well-resourced organizations to implement youth-specific programming. Although many awareness campaigns and the dissemination of research findings involved discussions between older community leaders and organizational staffs, Environmental Futures’ archival materials stressed that incorporating the perspectives of youths in their research and advocacy narratives was a guiding principle of the organization’s work.

Whereas interviewees in other YD organizations highlighted the importance of self-actualization, interviewees for the youth-serving organizations described their YD strategies in more pragmatic terms. Firstly, not targeting young people exclusively meant that both Tailoring Success and Environmental Futures were limited in their ability to adapt certain aspects of their activities to youths’ preferences. Instead of pursuing initiatives because they appealed to youths, the interviewees spoke of their challenges with attracting young people to initiatives relevant to the organization’s purpose. Tailoring Success interviewees reported the existence of a “complexe” or reluctance amongst youths to adopt tailoring as a profession. Similarly, the interviewee for Environmental Futures reported having to confront negative perceptions of agriculture in order to convince youths to participate in the organization’s YD initiatives.

Secondly, although the interviewees were hopeful that the climate for YD and inclusion would change, their efforts to help youths gain access to institutions that might otherwise be closed to them entailed orienting youths to existing systems. In addition to advocating on behalf of young Senegalese, both organizations had

270 developed initiatives to train young people how to make their advocacy efforts appeal to policymakers. According to the local coordinator at Tailoring Success, a part of their work was not only developing partnerships that allowed young people to take part in policy processes but also to teach them how to design and propose “real” solutions that would be taken seriously by leaders.

The age identity of the leadership in youth-serving and youth-run organizations is rather unambiguous. The participation and power dynamics of youth-led organizations, however, have a tendency to be more complex. Although both youth- led organizations corresponded to the researcher’s definition of a youth-led organization, there was a notable divergence in their organizational structures. The leadership profiles of the two organizations included in the present study demonstrate how the character of youth participation can lead to variance in organizational culture and resource capacity.

The interviewees of New Day Youth emphasized the significance of fostering frequent interchanges between Senegalese youths and older adults, but there also seemed to be some intrinsic hierarchies in the organizational dynamics as well. It was evident from exchanges with interviewees and from the organizational publications that older adults, particularly males, were well-represented in the upper echelons of

New Day Youth’s national administration. Both interviewees had been members of

New Day Youth since childhood but took on staff roles after more than a decade of participation. According to the interviewees, the organization observed a mentor- mentee model of YD. Youth were given responsibilities that were deemed appropriate

271 for their age, and, for more demanding tasks, they worked alongside older adults to acquire the skills necessary to act autonomously in the future.

Like New Day Youth, interviewees identified positive interactions with older adults as an aim of Community Connection’s work. In contrast to New Day Youth, the president of Community Connections was a youth residing in the university dormitories. Interviewees demonstrated an apparent familiarity with their organizational leader and their efforts to support the organizational mission. The organization facilitated informal interchanges between youths and older adults through sports activities, as well as cultivating an environment where “veteran” students assisted their less experienced peers. Community Connections interviewees expressed the dynamics between youths and adults as having some hierarchal aspects as well.

For example, older adults were referred to as “elders,” while older members of the organization were “big brothers.”

With regard to the youth-led organizations included in the current study, the promotion of youth participation and inclusion was more heavily weighted towards the provision of relational resources. In both the New Day Youth and Community

Connections organizations, interviewees described the “generational transfer” of institutional memory and ideals as a component of their organizational goals. For example, the technical advisor of New Day Youth described an approach to YD wherein they only spearheaded initiatives in situations where younger participants had not yet developed the knowledge necessary to undertake such responsibilities. The

Community Connections interviewees detailed how the organization helped foster a

272 healthy—even familial—sense of community by creating spaces for meaningful social interactions.

What was notably different between New Day Youth and Community

Connections was their proximity to Senegalese public administrators. Whereas the

New Day Youth organization was officially recognized by the Ministry of Youth and, according to the youth advisor, was frequented by those hoping to realize political aspirations in the future, the Community Connections interviewees reported having less direct engagement with government leaders. The tendency of the Senegalese government to prioritize organizations dominated by older adults in their YD strategy is telling. Not only is the pattern evident amongst the sample of organizations in the current study, but none of the “Big Seven” are youth-run organizations. The researcher has stressed that there is no perfect model of youth participation but, based on the variability in strategy and outlook amongst YD organizations, the importance of fostering a diverse array of relationships with youth-serving, -led, and -run organizations cannot be understated.

Perhaps one impediment to establishing relationships with youth-run organizations is the issue of organizational succession. As young people, the staff and participants in youth-run organizations are still susceptible to many of the environmental vulnerabilities as the peers they aspire to support. All three of the youth-run organizations in the study had facilitated YD initiatives for hundreds of youths, yet and still, the interviewees’ descriptions of their experiences taking part in

YD endeavors revealed vulnerabilities, both personally and in their capacities as YD

273 staffs. The interviewees in Youth Beats, We Learn, and ProActive Youth were transparent about the hardships they faced relative to their participation in YD activities. The founder of We Learn, and team leader of ProActive Youth described occasions where they and their colleagues had to amass their personal economic resources to support YD initiatives. The co-founder of Youth Beats, founder of We

Learn, and youth leader in the ProActive Youth each reported experiences where those close to them perceived their involvement in YD organizations as a distraction instead of a potential benefit. Despite the difficulties, the interviewees spoke positively about their organizations and their passion for the work that they did. The founder of We

Learn explained that, rather than seeking to disguise their flaws, their hope was that youth participants could draw inspiration from seeing individuals who were not so different from themselves taking on roles of responsibility and striving to improve themselves and their communities.

One result of the challenges they faced relative to their participation in their respective YD organizations was that the interviewees did find it necessary to pursue opportunities external to the YD organization that was the subject of the present study.

Despite expressing high esteem for ProActive Youth, the team leader explained that youths in YD organizations sometimes have to develop a balance between their personal goals and the goals of the organization. Whereas youth-serving interviewees focused on how they facilitated institutional resources and youth-led interviewees emphasized relational resources, an element of balancing personal and organizational

274 goals in youth-run organizations related to the cultivation of behavioral and normative resources that they could draw on in whatever initiative they chose to pursue.

As such, interviewees’ efforts to take an active role in society were not limited to the organizations that were the subject of the researcher’s study. In all three organizations, interviewees spoke of their work with extraneous projects or of staff who had taken on new roles with other groups. Since the conclusion of the data collection phase of the study, the co-founder of Youth Beats, founder of We Learn, and the team leader of ProActive Youth have all accepted employment opportunities in other institutions. They report either maintaining a leadership role in their YD organizations simultaneously or applying the values of social engagement they acquired in their YD organizations to other pursuits.

Although they articulated a strong interest in contributing positively to their communities and fostering connections with other young people, the interviewees were less optimistic about building positive relationships with public administrators.

In surprising contrast to the older adults who had closer relationships with governmental entities, interviewees in youth-run organizations displayed few strong feelings—either positively or negatively—towards governmental performance in the domain of YD. Interviewees in each organization conjectured that the government of

Senegal was probably “doing their best,” but felt that it was better to be proactive in their YD efforts than to “wait for the government” to support their work.

Despite the apparent fissures in the relationships between public administrators and Senegalese YD actors, interviewees in every organization were able to articulate a

275 vision for the government’s role in the national YD strategy. The recommendations ranged from suggesting that public administrators “give back” through direct participation in youths’ community service activities to advising leaders to be more sensitive to the contexts of Senegalese youths’ needs, to exercising more political will in enforcing the existing social policy.

A frequent response amongst interviewees was to express a desire to see the

Ministry of Youth position itself as a facilitator of the YD strategy. Interviewees explained that infusions of material resources into YD initiatives would be inadequate to what they perceived as an effective YD strategy. Several interviewees identified financial contributions in particular as “short-term” solutions, where they were not accompanied by meaningful engagement from the state. Instead, they described the particularities of facilitating in terms of providing more information to YD organizations about young people in need of assistance, arranging forums to provide youths and their allies with opportunities to develop innovative solutions together, or simply to include youths in all aspects of existing efforts to develop YD policy.

Even when interviewees asserted a measure of disappointment with the performance of their government, they drew a distinction with their pride in their status as nationals of Senegal and their SOC. “Pride” was the most frequently used word to describe the significance of being—or having been—a young Senegalese.

Both amongst youths and older adults, the interviewees reported their perceptions of the significance of citizenship as transcending the socioeconomic realities of youth disproportionality or their impressions of the extent to which they felt that young

276 people received adequate support from their public institutions. Not only did youth interviewees have a tendency to evaluate the efficacy of their YD organizations on the basis of whether they felt that their participation bolstered their capacity to make a social impact, but several interviewees extrapolated on the meanings of Senegalese citizenship by invoking their attachment to their families and communities. For example, the youth advisor for New Day Youth identified the tolerance and acceptance that they received from their community as factors that gave their status as a Senegalese youth meaning. The co-founder of Youth Beats asserted that, even though they had a spouse living abroad, the “teranga” they had experienced from childhood motivated them to maintain a home base in their home country.

The findings of the study suggest that there are challenges that must be confronted by the government of Senegal in order to construct a sustainable YD strategy that will ultimately translate into broader opportunities for national development. It should also be a source of encouragement for leaders that the gulf between youths and leaders is not an inevitability despite the size of the youth population. Nonetheless, failure to make a conscientious effort to engage with YD actors and develop transparent, consistent modes of communication with youths can result in missed opportunities for bridging the youth public sector relationship.

7.1.2 From Youth Development to National Development in Young Societies:

Rethinking Praxis

“If you do something for me, without me, it’s against me.” (Community Connections,

Youth Participant 1, Youth)

277 A vibrant, independent civil society is a cornerstone of a thriving democracy, and hybridized systems of service provision have become increasingly common practices of 21st-century public management (Secrétariat Général, 2004). Despite the shifting character of how citizen’s demands for services are met, governments must still recognize their responsibility to support the efforts of civil society actors, as opposed to superimposing their agendas on some and working parallel to others

(Meagher, De Herdt, & Titeca, 2014). Governmental participation in public service delivery is one way in which states communicate their priorities to citizens and signal their awareness of the concerns of the population. In young societies like Senegal that must contend with a history of foreign intervention, poverty, and ethnic disharmonies, scholars argue that public service delivery can be a means of promoting nation- building and social cohesion (Batley & Mcloughlin, 2010).

The perils of governmentless governance are especially ominous for societies that are experiencing youth disproportionality (Van De Walle & Scott, 2011). Youths in these societies represent the bulk of the country’s productive potential. This means that they are at the core of national and local development strategies. According to the interviewees in the current study, there is a reciprocal desire among youths to contribute to local and national development. While youths may want similar things as their governments, failure to solicit their perspectives in the policy process can still lead to lackluster results in terms of national development.

As the responses of interviewees in the study demonstrate, a sense of attachment to one’s community and even pride in one’s country does not invariably

278 translate to an unswerving faith in the social contract—nor civic knowledge. Even in cases like those of the interviewees in Senegal, where young people have a desire to contribute to national advancement and YD organizations independently build their capacity to do so, the need for coordination remains. The dilemma is that, without open lines of communication where governments can transmit their expectations to young people and receive feedback from youth in return, reaping dividends from youth disproportionality will be difficult—if not impossible.

Interviewees did express concerns about the economic conditions in the country but, what interviewees consistently defined as the most crucial assets for their personal development and that of their nation were engagement, communication, and increased positive interactions with their policymakers. Rather than perceiving YD organizations as extensions of the government’s efforts to reach Senegalese youths, the failure of the government—both local and national—to foster a strong youth- public sector relationship with open communication fueled a perception of Senegal’s approach to YD as hands-off and opaque.

It is understandable that public administrators are not able to interface with all young people on an individual basis, but youth-serving, youth-led, and youth-run organizations can furnish governments with an incomparable chance to ensure that young people are engaged and included. By contrast, failure to cultivate productive working relationships with YD organizations—and, by extension, young people— risks creating a “hollow” state culture where governance proceeds in the absence of government (Meagher et al., 2014). There is still much work to be done in order to

279 decipher the specificities and multifaceted needs of societies experiencing youth disproportion and the YD actors that support them. In the section that follows, the researcher offers perspectives on how the scholarship pertaining to issues affecting young societies can be advanced beyond the study at hand.

7.2 Directions for Further Research

The issue of youth disproportionality is not novel to Senegal. From the demographic trends that prompted China’s One-Child Policy to America’s struggles to transform a society of “Baby Boomers” into the “Greatest Generation,” the dilemmas of managing population growth have resonance throughout the world. Numerous nations on the continent of Africa are at a critical—and possibly decisive—juncture.

The resource constraints countries are experiencing require them to be deliberate about how they leverage both physical resources and public relationships. Public policy scholarship has much to offer in both regards.

Not only does public policy grapple directly with dilemmas involving the social contract, but the field has also been shaped by the desire to facilitate more conscientious approaches to public planning and building connections. Interviewees, in the present study, placed heavy emphasis on their desire to be included in the policy and decision-making processes in meaningful ways. Governance and inclusiveness are growing themes in policy literature, incorporating more studies on how these issues apply to environments of disproportionality would be resourceful to praxis.

The field of public policy is uniquely positioned to help public administrators better analyze their social contexts. Further research should seek to provide more

280 guidance to leaders on how to account for youth-specific access to resources both on the individual and organizational levels. Studies focusing on innovative practices in

YD or highlighting successful strategies could be invaluable to the African context.

Research documenting the perceptions of decision-makers within ministries of youth on their roles in society and how they engage with youth could also add an additional dynamic to understanding the potentials and barriers of bridging relational gaps between youths and public administrators.

Most importantly, scholarship must follow in the steps of YD organizations and place youth voices at the center of their work. It is important to understand what young people expect from their governments and society before they become disengaged. Whereas this study focused on the vulnerabilities of young people in a broad sense, efforts to concentrate more narrowly on how gender, family responsibilities, and other factors impact how young people engage with government and YD initiatives could also be informative to both scholarship and practice.

Additional research questions aimed at gaining insights into youths’ lived experiences could include: How do African youth define their role as citizens in environments of disproportionality?; What do they see as the role of the state in their development?;

How can young societies improve the channels of communication between youth and public sector entities?; and, How can they work toward a singular, yet pluralistic goal?

281 7.3 Conclusion Developing a viable approach to meeting the needs of today’s young adults demands an understanding of their importance to the functioning of society as a whole, of how vulnerabilities can manifest themselves for this segment of society, and of the ways in which the contexts of those vulnerabilities can be exacerbated for young people living in environments where they constitute a disproportionate share of the population. Despite the poignancy of the subject, scholarly attention to the distinctive character of young societies is relatively new. The emergence of social inquiry about the implications of young societies has primarily centered on determining whether a large population of youth and children represents a threat or a benefit.

Whereas theorists in the two scholarly traditions project that a lack of public resources can perpetuate civil unrest, and the presence of resources could generate economic prosperity, the present study has presented the argument that the issue of youth disproportionality is far too important and complex to be reduced in such a way.

Having a large proportion of young people in a society is neither automatically an advantage nor a disadvantage, but rather, it is a challenge.

7.3.1 Youth: Varying Definitions

Delineating what constitutes “youth” is one of the primary contentions of youth-specific scholarship. The term “youth” in any environment comes with many connotations, expectations, and unique vulnerabilities. A basic definition of “youth” is one who is in a state of transition between childhood and adulthood. Stated another

282 way, youth is a relative term. Rather than fully capturing what youth is, scholars most often describe it in terms of what it is not: childhood or full adult status. This lack of clarity or precision surrounding what—or who—is “youth” has fostered substantial variance in policy regarding who is categorized as a member of the youth population and the appropriate way to account for their needs in the legal and social spheres.

The terms “youth” and “adult” are highly context-dependent. At the most fundamental level, an adult denotes an individual who has reached the point of biological maturity. The advent of adulthood in the context of biological processes is most commonly viewed as corresponding with the completion of puberty. In the contexts of psychology, an individual’s adult status is associated with the formation of relatively stable emotions, mature awareness of self, consideration for others, and ability to make complex decisions independently—amongst other things (B. G. Peters

& Pierre, 1998). In the legal context, the age of majority marks the period when one can reasonably be expected to understand and accept responsibility for their actions

(Levinson, 1986).

The common factor in all of the definitions of what it means to be an “adult” is that they are bound up in expectations of what a person should have achieved or attained at a particular point in their lives (Hjalmarsson, 2009; James, 1960). At the social level, the meanings of “youth” and “adulthood” can be even more elusive and culturally-driven. The social definition of adulthood involves many milestones and ideals about what intrinsic and extrinsic qualities signal that a person is eligible to participate fully in society. It can implicitly describe normative attitudes about an

283 individual’s productive or resource capacity; refer to an individual’s acquisitions or life achievements; and/or whether due to material, legal, or social constraints, connote an individual with inchoate rights—and potentially, civic responsibilities. Exactly what the qualities are and the extent to which one must embody them before achieving adult status is not always self-evident.

If “adulthood” emphasizes characteristics an individual should possess,

“youth”—one could argue—tacitly signifies deficiencies. Youths are beyond the stage of childhood. They are possibly even “adult” in certain contexts of the word.

However, their categorization as youth indicates a lack of some key aspect or aspects attributed to those with full adult status. Based on this understanding of what “youth” is, the term, by definition, connotes some form of vulnerability. Recognizing the integrality of the relationship between youth and vulnerability is important because, in public policy practice, how the term “youth” is defined can be deterministic of individuals’ level of access to public resources (Walther, 2016). Conceptualizations of youth influence whose voice is heard as well as the degree to which the various types of youth vulnerability are accounted for within scholarly dialogues.

7.3.2 The Dynamics of Young Societies

The adversities faced by young adults in environments where youth and children make up the dominant segment of the population have attracted special attention from scholars because of the spatial and temporal contexts of such demographic trends. The demographic dominance of youth and children—referred to as youth disproportionality—is especially salient for numerous nations on the

284 continent of Africa. Africa is currently the fastest-growing and second most populous continent in the world (Arnett, 2001). In terms of the future demographic outlook of the continent, it has been predicted that 25% of all people, and 47% of all the world’s children, will be of African origins within the next three decades (Youth Division of

African Union Commission, 2015).

The median age for Africa’s populace is approximately 21 to 22 years old

(Lazuta, 2013; You et al., 2014). Individuals between the ages of 15 and 24 years typically make up about 19.25% of the continent on average (CIA, 2018). In 2018, more than half of all Africans were youth or children (see Table 1 and Table 2). In the country of Senegal, the research setting for the present study, individuals aged 15-24 accounted for 20.33% of the population, and the median age was 18 to 19 years old

(CIA, 2018).

The magnitude of the youth’s share of the population creates a situation where millions of individuals are expressing the same needs simultaneously, but their public sectors are least able to provide them (CIA, 2018). Approximately 86% of contemporary youths are born in low and middle-income nations, where public resources are stretched beyond capacity (Hvistendahl, 2011). African countries have been especially susceptible to the financial ramifications of youth disproportionality.

Senegal, along with over half of the countries in Africa, is classified as a Heavily

Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) by the World Bank, which means that they are ranked amongst the most income-poor nations in the world (M. Sommers, 2010).

285 The competition for resources in impoverished nations can deepen existing vulnerabilities for youths and place the relationship between young people and their governments in jeopardy (IMF, 2019; World Bank, 2018). Firstly, the inadequacy of resources in environments of youth disproportionality can amplify the typical hardships of young adults and their public sectors. Scarcity can also leave vulnerable youths ill-prepared for the dictates of adulthood, which can fuel self-propagating cycles. For example, if governments are unable to support the costs of public education, children and youths will face a greater likelihood of being undereducated.

Without formal training or marketable skills, young people will be more susceptible to situations of informality, which places them at greater risk of exploitation and instability. Informal employment rates are as high as 88 to 99% for African youth in certain countries (ILO, 2012).

Secondly, designations like HIPC further denote that nations are not only cash- poor but also that their public policy priorities are not exclusively based on domestic need. Instead, the dictates of international creditors place additional limitations on nations’ capacities to reach all of those in need (Hvistendahl, 2011; Slackman, 2008).

Policies of privatization and economic liberalization that discourage state-led intervention can exacerbate gaps in service provision. Moreover, it can create distance between the state and its citizens at a time when a significant proportion of the population is just beginning to develop key elements of their civic knowledge and define their roles in society.

286 7.3.3 Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend Theories

Studies aimed at understanding the implications of youth disproportionality generally align with one of two theoretical orientations: Youth Bulge Theory or

Demographic Dividend Theory. Youth Bulge Theory emphasizes the potential for youths to react negatively to the lack of public resources in environments experiencing youth disproportionality. Demographic Dividend theorists, by contrast, have underlined the possible economic opportunities a cadre of young, labor force-ready individuals can bring to a nation. The two theories are sometimes framed as polemic; however, they share some important characteristics that serve to inform the situation of young societies in Senegal, Africa, and elsewhere. The strength of both theoretic approaches is that they call attention to the distinctiveness of the phenomenon of youth disproportionality. They also raise provocative questions about the significance of resources and public policy decision-making for the lives of young people living in young societies.

Scholars associated with both bodies of literature emphasize the role of resources in collective outcomes for young societies, but their preoccupation with outcomes has overshadowed attempts to explore the dynamics of resource inputs, as well as the significance of youths’ relationships with their government and communities. Both Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theory have also been criticized for reinforcing a duplicitous image of young people as simultaneously a threat and an asset to society. Moreover, while the major premise of both theories is that contexts—place, and space—are key elements of understanding a young society’s

287 developmental trajectory, the knowledge produced by scholars on both sides of the spectrum often omit more than cursory attention to the sociopolitical, cultural, and economic conditions of the locations they research.

Even when scholars incorporate socioeconomic and political indicators that speak to the contexts of a particular research setting, the indicators are rarely suited to respond to the question of the extent to which young people are actually able to access resources in their societies. Exploring indicators of well-being that are specifically designed to account for the quality of life of young people is admittedly difficult to do.

The lack of financial resources and the strength of informal cultures in nations experiencing youth disproportionality can limit public administrators’ capacities to conduct regular or comprehensive surveys of their populations. For researchers, the lack of transparency with regards to some aspects of public administration can render certain data inaccessible for analysis. Despite these challenges, it is important to understand that, in the case of Senegal, and other young societies in Africa, treating the issue of accessibility of youth-specific resources as the exclusive domain of national or local government is fallacious.

Civil society collaboration is a cornerstone of youth-specific resource provision in environments of youth disproportionality. Supporting and implementing

YD initiatives has become as much the domain of foreign and intergovernmental partners as it is Senegal’s Ministry of Youth, Employment, and Civic Construction.

The current study proposed examining the roles of civil society youth development

(YD) organizations that are devoted to furnishing resources to young people as a

288 starting point for a deeper discussion of inputs, processes, and contexts of development into the Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend literature.

7.3.4 Youth Development (YD): Inputs, Processes, and Contexts

The Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend literature place heavy emphasis on understanding the potential developmental outcomes of a burgeoning society of young people. The present study makes the argument that both theories should also dedicate more attention to the factors that condition young people to act in either constructive or destructive ways. YD initiatives have the explicit purpose of preparing young people to function within a society. Unfortunately, the subject of YD and the roles of YD’s civil society actors are not often directly cited in either theory’s enumeration of resources that could impact young societies’ developmental futures.

Scholars have conducted studies to identify the impact of educational attainment, economic opportunity, and indicators of democracy on the fate of young societies, but none have, to the researchers’ knowledge, examined the association between the level of activity of YD organizations and developmental outcomes in young societies

(Barakat & Urdal, 2009; Cincotta, 2008b; Rentería, Souto, Mejía-Guevara, & Patxot,

2016; Marc Sommers, 2003).

There are merits in focusing on instances of collective action by youths, but scholars and practitioners must also give consideration to the less visible ways in which youths and their allies are working to obtain resources. The absence of YD organizations from the discourse about plausible outcomes for young societies constitutes a major gap in the scholarship. YD endeavors by both civil society and

289 governments are especially significant in environments of youth disproportionality because they specifically address issues of youth well-being and access to resources.

As youth scholars have underscored, youth is a life stage that is marked by heterogeneity (Barakat & Urdal, 2009; Cincotta, 2008b; Rentería, Souto, Mejía-

Guevara, & Patxot, 2016; Marc Sommers, 2003). YD organizations speak to that heterogeneity. While some may focus on out-of-school youths and others on protecting the rights of disabled youths, the diversity of YD organizations is reflective of the society in which they are situated. YD organizations often find it necessary to position themselves as bastions of innovation that are flexible enough to adapt to the dynamism of youth culture to remain relevant. As such, simply examining what types of YD organizations and initiatives exist in a given community can be instrumental in helping policymakers to increase their awareness of the types of concerns young people have.

Although the current study was small in scale, exchanges with interviewees indicate that YD organizations are not only conduits of resources, but that they also help young people define their roles in society. Questions of when, how, and to what purpose youths should develop can differ vastly across cultures. In Senegal or Africa, more generally, approaches to YD are attached to culturally driven perspectives on authority and public participation. Approaches to YD in Senegal are reflective of an array of cultural models, each of which is embedded in the history of the nation itself.

As sociologist Leopold Rosenmayr (1993) pointed out, African metropolises like

Dakar, Senegal are illustrative of a singular type of pluralism where tradition and

290 globalized cultural models parallel each other. Like many other countries on the continent, resource allocation and public participation in Senegal’s indigenous systems of YD varied across ethnic traditions. Senegal’s colonial experience was characterized by attempts by France to consolidate and homogenize certain aspects of society in their arbitrarily defined territory. Whereas one’s age and lineage were key elements of determining one’s status in pre-colonial social hierarchies, cultural assimilation and achievement in Westernized educational institutions became considerations for the degree to which one could participate in colonial society.

While both paradigms for YD have survived the test of time in present-day

Senegal, the independence era saw a hybridization of the two cultural models for YD.

Youths have a history of inserting themselves into the political discourse of the country. However, there are still few avenues available to them to engage in key decision-making processes at the domestic level. Young Senegalese are encouraged to make their voices heard in international politics. Paradoxically, they are cautioned against transgressing the social hierarchy in the domestic arena.

Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend theorists have the tendency to frame developmental outcomes for young societies in binary terms: youth compliance with policy agendas or resistance to them. Exchanges with YD actors in youth-serving, youth-led, and youth-run organizations in this study demonstrate that YD organizations can provide safe spaces for young people to express both compliance with and resistance to policy simultaneously. YD organizations can assist youths in developing and implementing innovative visions for bettering their societies while

291 also supporting young people in their attempts to gain full participation in public processes.

7.3.5 SOC in Adverse Circumstances

The researcher has repeatedly emphasized the premise that socioeconomic contexts constitute a framework for understanding youths’ collective behavior in environments of youth disproportionality. The manuscript was deliberate in demonstrating that Dakar, Senegal is but one illustration of how the implications of youth bulge have manifested themselves on the continent of Africa. The topics of scarcity and socioeconomic hardships were discussed by interviewees. However, the significance the interviewees ascribed to being a part of a wider community could not be fully conveyed through secondary materials.

These findings are as much a cause for optimism as they are for alarm. In the case of Senegal, YD organizations seemed more than willing to continue affecting social change with or without their civic leaders, but there is evidence that there is room for a relationship. Despite what they have experienced thus far with respect to access to various types of resources, no informant described the situation as insurmountable. It is the genuine hope of this researcher that this study can represent a starting point for scholars and practitioners looking to make a change.

Access to resources will undoubtedly play a role in Senegal’s fate, as well as that of other young societies on the continent. The realities of scarcity and resource limitations of governments are not lost on youths. For many, it is a part of their daily lived citizenship. However, the researcher is of the opinion that, ultimately, SOC and

292 relational resources represent invaluable building blocks for cultivating stronger, more youth-inclusive nations.

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