14 The Outcast Majority and Postwar Development: Youth Exclusion and the Pressure for Success

Marc Sommers

Youth and the Status Quo stability is unfounded. Most female and male youth, it turns out, are peaceful, including in times of war. Across today’s developing world, unprecedentedly This chapter explains why the approach to youth large youth populations are evident alongside a exclusion isn’t working, and what can be done to second predominant phenomenon: profound and transform it. The chapter draws mainly from the persistent exclusion of youth. Rare is the case where national governments, or their international case of war and postwar Africa, where the distance development partners, introduce a viable solution between youth and governments and international to address these dual challenges. Much too often, development agencies tends to be pronounced, and colossal cohorts of youthful citizens are considered where inaccurate stereotypes about young people security threats, to be counteracted with a mix pervade. The changes that are required necessarily of state repression and employment programs move governments and international development for a tiny fraction of the youth population. The agencies out of their comfort zone. The reason is approach is unintentionally counterproductive simple: the extensive exclusion of youth underscores and heavily gendered. It is also often based on how the status quo doesn’t work. The proposed assumptions drawn from suspect evidence. The solutions of governments and development popular conception of demographic youth bulge agencies promise to be inadequate or misguided, populations as threats to social cohesion and largely because their target group — excluded youth

3 4 • Marc Sommers

majorities — usually has no say in the initiatives or social disturbance (Goldstone 2002; Mesquida that governments and agencies implement. The and Weiner 1999; Urdal 2004; Zakaria 2001). state violence that occurs concurrently with this Related to this assertion is the idea that many male lack of voice merely fuels the disconnect. youth are apt to rebel violently when given the chance (Cincotta et al. 2003; Collier et al. 2006; The chapter concludes with a series of proposed remedies, mainly focused on the international Kaplan 2000), in particular those in countries development actors that promise to address youth with strong urbanization levels (Goldstone 2010). exclusion by enhancing inclusiveness, relevance Quantitative correlations have been highlighted, and receptivity in the development response. The in short, to propose that when unusually large chapter draws from the findings, analysis and numbers of male youth are around, societies can reform framework of my book The Outcast Majority: become dangerously unstable and political conflict War, Development, and Youth in Africa (Sommers can result. 2015). Further research has questioned this assertion. Among the key issues is that many youth bulge countries have never had major conflicts while Peaceful Youth? others have emerged from conflict and never Why are most youth peaceful? The exact reverse returned to it (as in Sub-Saharan Africa: Sommers has been a much more common perception: that 2011). In addition, when wars do take place, “only youth (male youth in particular) are threats to a minority of young men participate in conflicts” their own societies. The starting point for this (Barker and Ricardo 2006, 181). Furthermore, assertion begins with youth bulge demographics, a large youth populations in cities have been found to trend that has become a dominant force in recent moderate, not increase, the risk of social disturbance decades in the developing world. By 2006, 86 (Urdal and Hoelscher 2009). Recent research also percent of all youth (1.3 billion) were in developing has challenged the idea that male youth are the countries (World Bank 2006, 4). The rate of youth “protagonists of virtually all violent political action in developing countries has slowed but is still as well as political extremism with a potential rising: 90 percent of the world’s youth will be to threaten democracy” (Weber 2013, 335). In in developing countries by 2025 (Zeus 2010, 7). contrast, researchers have uncovered a direct The youngest overall population on the planet lies relationship between youth bulge populations and in Sub-Saharan Africa, which “will remain the state repression. The research highlights a tendency youngest region in the world in the decades to for states to apply proactive force toward youth- come” (Filmer and Fox 2014, 26). dominated populations, as by restricting rights or instigating arrests, disappearances and violence A “youth bulge” is thought to exist when an (Nordås and Davenport 2013). Finally, questions unusually large proportion of the adult population have also been raised about the touted connection is constituted of youth. One published source between youth unemployment and violent unrest asserts that the youth bulge threshold arrives (Cramer 2010; Izzi 2013; Walton 2010). Drivers when youth comprise more than 40 percent of of youth violence have been found to be tied more all adults in a population (Cincotta et al. 2003, directly to issues of poor governance and exclusion 43). Current approaches to youth challenges than to unemployment (Mercy Corps 2015). during and after wars routinely emphasize the potential of male youth to promote instability and In the end, the tantalizing data on the perceived violence. Some commentators have emphasized danger of “too many young men with not enough to the correlation between populations with youth do” (Cincotta et al. 2003, 44) largely surfaces when bulge demographics and the likelihood of violence members of the target group — male youth/young The Outcast Majority and Postwar Development: Youth Exclusion and the Pressure for Success • 5

men — are not interviewed. Overwhelmingly, the Cultural definitions of youth in Africa connect data that supports the “youth bulge and instability directly to a pervasive form of youth exclusion. thesis” is quantitative.1 Qualitative interviews Being a youth often is considered a stage of life with male (and female) youth could reveal between childhood and adulthood. The process has how and why most youth resist engagement in less to do with age than with gaining recognition violence, even when they live with inequality, state as a man or woman. But in most (if not all) African violence routinely directed against many of them, countries, it is nearly impossible for most youth to significant social and cultural constraints, and attain womanhood or manhood. Male youth in poverty. Nearly all youth experiencing all of this Rwanda, for example, must build a house before and more — and with no reasonable expectation getting married and becoming a parent. Yet, most of support or recognition coming their way from can’t get off square one: completing a house is government or international actors — nonetheless impossible for nearly everyone. regularly resist contributing to violence or conflict. Exactly why most youth resist engagement in Three dimensions of the tragic situation in Rwanda violence — despite the prospect of exclusion and are particularly notable: failed adulthood, as shortly will be explained — • First, many male youth in rural Rwanda remains under examined. Fortunately, evidence drop out of school to work. While the pay highlighting the role of youth as agents for positive tends to be low, one primary purpose is to change is beginning to emerge (for example, save money to build a house. Yet extensive Ankomah 2005; Ensor 2013; Law et al. 2014). field interviews with youth in Rwanda made it clear that male youth suspected they would never complete their house. War and the Sea of Exclusion A common comment from male youth Given the substantial attention paid to youth by so was that they had no choice — cultural many researchers, governments and development expectations forced many of them to try professionals, the absence of an agreed-upon to build a house. In such a situation, failed definition for youth is remarkable. The broad trend manhood is practically guaranteed. is to define youth by a simple age range. Richard • Second, Rwandan government villagization P. Cincotta, Robert Engelman and Daniele policies have made the house construction Anastasion (2003, 43), for example, define youth task substantially more difficult. State (or young adults) as people between ages 15 mandates for where all new houses must be and 29. However, the United Nations typically built (in collective imidugudu villages) and employs a 15-to-24 age range (UNESCO [n.d.]), their size (a government official surmised while the United States Agency for International that the state requirement for house size was Development uses ages 10 to 29 (USAID 2012, six times what an ordinary male youth could 4). For a great many African governments, the afford to build [Sommers 2012, 128]) were youth category extends from age 14 or 15 up to considerable obstacles.2 age 35 (as in Sierra Leone, Rwanda and many others). No common definition for youth exists 2 Theimidugudu villages and their impact on for the multitude of international institutions and Rwandan youth are described thus: “There is a governments that are concerned with them. government regulation that directly and negatively affected youth efforts to construct houses: the 1 The literature on the youth and instability thesis national policy mandating that all new houses in has been reviewed by the author at length in prior rural areas should be built in community housing works (Sommers 2015; 2011; 2007; 2006). areas known as imidugudu” (Sommers 2012, 25). 6 • Marc Sommers

• The third notable dimension concerns how access to valuable assets such as land. In addition, a female youth secures socially accepted education systems across Africa (and elsewhere) womanhood. In Rwanda and very far beyond, are structured to exclude most young people from female youth cannot gain social recognition attending secondary school. One relative success as women if they don’t marry (and then have of the UN Millennium Development Goals has children). But if male youth can’t secure the been Target Two: expanding access to primary necessary pre-marriage requirements, then school. Even war-affected countries in Africa have neither male nor female youth can marry. managed to secure high levels of primary school 4 While Rwanda is on the cusp of having almost an attendance. But across much of Africa, limited entire generation of youth who are failed adults proportions of youth attend secondary school. A (Sommers 2012, 193),3 the failed adulthood UNICEF survey, for example, reports that the trend reportedly is pervasive across all of Africa. average net attendance rate for secondary school in As Alcinda Honwana (2012, 165) notes, “Youth the Sub-Saharan African region (in 2009–2015) are the majority of Africa’s population, but they was 38 percent. More than half of the 43 countries have been pushed to the margins of their societies (53.5 percent) had average rates that were less and live in a limbo between childhood and than a third of all secondary-school-age youth. adulthood.” Even African youth who eventually Some war-affected countries had exceptionally attain adulthood may not be safe: Irit Eguavoen low rates, in particular Somalia (5 percent) and (2010, 268) finds in Africa that “there is growing South Sudan (8 percent), as well as Angola (19 empirical evidence that the social status of percent), Burundi (17 percent), Central African adulthood may be reversed if the individual falls Republic (18 percent), Chad (17 percent), back into poverty, which means that young adults Côte d’Ivoire (27 percent), Eritrea (22 percent), are socially delegated back to youth status and, as a Ethiopia (15 percent), Liberia (26 percent), Mali direct consequence, denied full adult rights, again (27 percent), Mozambique (24 percent), Rwanda resulting in low social status and limited access to (23 percent) and Uganda (20 percent). It is worth resources and political decision making.” noting that much larger proportions of youth in The cultural exclusion of African youth (and the a small handful of Sub-Saharan African nations resulting social identification as a failed man affected by conflict attend secondary school: or failed woman) is routinely overlooked by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) (48 governments and international institutions. A percent), Namibia (60 percent) and Sierra Leone second pervasive yet regularly sidestepped form (45 percent). Despite these promising exceptions, of exclusion is systemic. State laws, policies and regulations, together with traditional practices, can 4 The African Development Bank describes the situation: “Most countries in Africa have achieved prevent most female and male youth from gaining universal primary enrolment, with rates above 90 per cent. As a result, the continent as a whole is 3 The youth situation described here is detailed expected to achieve Goal 2 [of the Millennium in the author’s Stuck: Rwandan Youth and the Development Goals, or MDGs]. Low completion Struggle for Adulthood (University of Georgia and high grade repetition remain a challenge, Press, 2012). A proposed remedy to Rwanda’s however. Indeed, one in three pupils enrolled in a crippling adulthood mandates is as follows: “Local primary school will dropout. Reasons include late and national conversations about how youth entry, poverty, poor quality of education and a lack gain acceptance as men and women promises to of awareness of the importance of schools. Some initiate a reconsideration of adulthood mandates” 30 per cent of students with six years of schooling (Sommers 2012, 236–37). Such discussions also cannot read a sentence, and girls are more likely to are required in other nations where youth struggle drop out than boys” (African Development Bank to gain acceptance as adults. [n.d.]). The Outcast Majority and Postwar Development: Youth Exclusion and the Pressure for Success • 7

nearly two in three secondary-school-age youth in young men lost even the possibility to establish Sub-Saharan African are not in secondary school themselves as adults, by building a house, or (UNICEF 2016). getting married—even though they continued to become fathers, of children for whom they could Most African youth know that their prospects not provide.”) for social acceptance and conventional success are exceedingly low. Securing adulthood is often The situation often is similarly dim for female even more difficult than gaining access to (and youth. Research has found that in many African then graduating from) secondary school. The countries the ability of female youth to gain social chances of gaining access to vocational school or recognition as a woman “depends on having a a youth program of any kind also are slim. The man or male youth to marry” (Sommers 2015, 77). following irony thus serves as the starting point Since frequently there are few male youth able to for understanding African youth: while youth are get married, many female youth cannot escape a demographically dominant, most see themselves future as a failed woman. The tragedies of failed as members of an outcast minority.5 manhood and womanhood are intimately and directly linked. The awareness and reality of youth as outliers in their own societies was a pronounced trend in my The inability to escape life on the edge of society field research in 15 war-affected African nations. It is infused in accounts of the lives of both male also has been noted by others about African youth. and female youth in war and postwar Africa. The Eguavoen (2010), for example, introduces the humiliating prospect of living as a failed adult concept of “adults without adult status” to describe pushes some female and male youth to join (or the extended effort that is required to gain social accept life in) military groups. Utas underscores recognition as an adult in Africa. He defines his how life as a soldier for former Liberian military concept as “individuals who have not succeeded leader and president Charles Taylor allowed youth in establishing themselves socially as adults by to do things they otherwise could not achieve. He getting married, finding their own household and/ describes how male Liberian soldiers would wash or being able to take economic care of themselves their cars in beer, “a beverage most could not even and dependents.” He also warns that “The group afford to drink prior to the war — and that they of people who fail to become social adults because could drive a car until it ran out of gasoline and of poverty is constantly growing in number, as then just dump it for another one. Likewise, the well as in age” (2010, 268). Mats Utas (2005b, young girlfriends [also affiliated with Taylor’s 150) highlights the plight of male urban youth army] got hold of commodities that they had only in Liberia to underscore how African youth can dreamt of before” (Utas 2005a, 66). Yet, failing to be trapped in a situation from which seemingly access a secondary school education, gain social they cannot escape: “Due to economic crisis and recognition as an adult man or woman, much increasing dependence on the central state in the less secure stable employment, has created other 1980s an ever-growing number of young people difficulties as well. A significant field research in urban and semi-urban environments were finding in war-affected African countries such excluded even from the possibilities of becoming as Burundi, Rwanda and Sierra Leone is the adults. Possibilities to participate in the wage presence of large numbers of unmarried mothers economy diminished and education ceased having among the female youth population. This outcome any importance. With this crisis looming, many is partly a result of a simple fact noted above: often there appears to be no one for many female youth 5 This irony marks the starting point for analysis, to marry, since male youth struggle and frequently noted in Sommers (2015, 3). fail to secure the prerequisites of marriage. In the 8 • Marc Sommers

meantime, female youth may have relations with women and girl combatants in northern Uganda male youth or older men that result in offspring. found that, following their return to their homes, Some enter into informal, live-in arrangements “social acceptance [of them] is high, many women with the father of their child or children. If the and girls are psychologically resilient, and there is father cannot support his new family, he may leave. little evidence of aggression and violence” against Unmarried motherhood and the resultant children them (Annan et al. 2011, 879). constitute a profound yet largely overlooked youth A second irony about youth and war frames the phenomenon.6 frustrations that youth face after surfacing from the Female youth also may be victimized by sexual crucible of war. It is this: the military commanders violence during and after wars. The prevalence of who exploit children and youth during times of sexual violence in war zones is thought to increase war (by abducting and exploiting them, often in significantly if forced recruitment into military extreme ways) frequently are the same ones who forces is prevalent (Cohen 2009, 21). That said, recognize their remarkable talents, resilience and Dara Kay Cohen’s research also found that “levels sheer tenacity. Boys and girls fighting in militias of sexual violence in one-third of the wars in fight on the front lines, may serve as combat Sub-Saharan Africa were low” (ibid., 9). Where commanders and perform dangerous, high-risk sexual violence is prevalent, one of its most tragic surveillance behind enemy lines. While many may consequences is how it can undermine adjustment become victims and perpetrators of extreme sexual into postwar life for girls and female youth. Susan violence, they also may be forced to develop skills as Shepler (2010, 97) dramatizes the difficulties that caregivers. Sometimes they must rely on ingenuity some girls and female youth faced in postwar Sierra simply to survive in hostile environments, often Leone. She observed that “in many cases it is easier without food or shelter. These youngsters, in for a boy to be accepted after amputating the hands addition to being abused in the extreme by their of villagers than it is for a girl to be accepted after commanders, nonetheless demonstrate courage, being the victim of rape.” Girls and female youth shrewdness, smarts, toughness, imagination who were associated with military groups during and resourcefulness. Military commanders wars tend to face particular difficulties in postwar (including notorious warlords such as Liberia’s Africa. One review of former girl combatants Charles Taylor) recognize and make use of the in Angola, Mozambique and northern Uganda diverse abilities of child and youth soldiers. War found that, following their return to civilian zones, despite their traumatic and debilitating life, they encountered “profound invisibility and dimensions, also can provide young people with seemingly unrelenting victimisation... during and opportunities for self-discovery. It is a sad fact of following armed conflict” (Denov 2008, 831). In contemporary war that, perhaps more than any eastern DRC, the level of social stigmatization other group of adults, warlords and other military for “girls formerly associated with armed forces commanders recognize the talents and unsinkable and groups” was found to be so severe that “some nature of youngsters in their midst. of the girls see returning to [their former armed group] as an alternative to staying at home and [enduring] discrimination and insults” (Tonheim Development Pressures and 2012, 287, 289). The findings are not, however, Tendencies uniformly dispiriting. One field study of former According to some observers, governments and the international development enterprise seem to have 6 The situation and plight of unmarried mothers is hit their stride in recent years. The United Nations examined at length by the author in two books: Sommers 2012 and Sommers 2015. Development Programme (UNDP), for instance, The Outcast Majority and Postwar Development: Youth Exclusion and the Pressure for Success • 9

has proclaimed that “all groups and regions” in the development and evaluation experts, support this Global South “have seen notable improvement” general assessment of the gap between youth in all features of UNDP’s Human Development and development practice.8 There were numerous Index (HDI).7 UNDP adds that “the South has findings arising from these interviews. Two will risen at an unprecedented speed and scale” (UNDP be shared here. The first highlighted the narrow 2013, 1). As for Sub-Saharan Africa, UNDP nature of development perspectives. The officials predicts that “By 2050, aggregate HDI could rise and experts who were interviewed highlighted how 52%” (ibid., 5). Similarly upbeat descriptions of development institutions (as well as governments) Africa’s current and future situations have surfaced tend to think in terms of sectors (also known as silos elsewhere (see, for example, One 2013 and Radelet or stovepipes) such as health, education, agriculture, 2010). Things seem to be going great. water and sanitation, economic development and governance. The sectoral prism for examining An increasingly common trademark of institutions development challenges is narrow. As one donor and experts trumpeting dramatic success in official explained, “We have fragmented, siloed, international development is their overwhelming sector-based programs” (Sommers 2015, 155). reliance on quantitative data. A second tendency The sectoral stovepipes tend to predetermine what in many publications describing Africa’s positive agencies will do and where they will invest their transformation is that they emerge from institutions funds. The orientation runs the risk of cultivating likely to benefit from pronouncements about such unintended disjunctures with everyday realities. achievements. It is difficult not to imagine some For example, while wars have been found to fuel degree of self-interest in the proclamations of youth movement into cities and informal sectors, progress from donor and implementing agencies. international development work often focuses on While such publications spotlight types of the opposite: agriculture and the formal economy. progress for Africa, it also is evident that little of Such decisions may not be driven by information on this success has cascaded down to many members the ground as much as by what sector-dominated of its burgeoning youth population. Qualitative organizations aim to do. studies of African youth, including those affected by conflict, tend to tell a very different story. See, A second orientation emerges from pressure on to name just a few examples, Christopher Maclay donor and implementing agencies to succeed. It and Alpaslan Özerdem (2010) on Liberia, Desiree is a striking and extraordinary expectation, as it Lwambo (2011) and Koen Vlassenroot and Frank implies that just about everything agencies invest Van Acker (2001) on eastern DRC, Sommers in must work. The attitude is exemplified by the (2012) on Rwanda, Danny Hoffman (2011) on Canadian government’s Aid Effectiveness Agenda, Sierra Leone and Liberia, Henrik Vigh (2006) which “delivers results and demonstrates value for on Guinea-Bissau, Mike McGovern (2011) on every dollar invested in international development” Côte d’Ivoire, and Honwana (2012) on the entire (Canadian International Development Agency continent. Too many African youth, the collective 2012, 1). The orientation on successful investment research suggests, appear to be in freefall. dovetails with an extraordinary fixation in the Interviews with 28 officials from donor and non- international development world on things you can governmental organizations, as well as youth, count to demonstrate achievement. The fixation often is referred to as “numbers” or “metrics.” 7 UNDP describes the Human Development Index as “a composite measure of indicators along 8 The remainder of this section draws from three dimensions: life expectancy, educational Chapter Four of The Outcast Majority: War, attainment and command over the resources Development, and Youth in Africa (Sommers needed for a decent living” (UNDP 2013, 1). 2015, 154–75). 10 • Marc Sommers

Often it boils down to the concept of “indicators.” findings suggest that international development An evaluation expert defined indicators as “signs work, in general, is currently not oriented to of change” that are quantifiable (Sommers 2015, address the priorities of excluded youth. 158): the numbers of people an initiative trained, for example, or how many people participated in a program. A Framework for Reform The interview data indicated that pressure on International development work is largely donor agencies to demonstrate the success of a ineffective and inefficient in reaching marginalized program from the first quarter of a youth program youth, including war-affected African youth, who puts unusual pressure on implementing agencies. are among those most in need of acceptance Privately, implementing agency officials related and support. The development status quo does that, to respond to high expectations of success, not appear to be working for most youth. It is they may be forced to pluck well-adjusted (and unlikely that the current approach can succeed. mostly male) youth to be participants of a youth Development techniques and approaches tend program, since such youth have a better chance to reach tiny proportions of young people of engendering program success. Many donor (many of whom may be elites) with initiatives officials who were interviewed reported that they that often are not informed by the priorities of were aware of this strategy. As one related, “Those outcast youth majorities. What follows are some youth in the greatest need are not often reached. ideas from the detailed framework featured in Programs focus on elite youth because they’re The Outcast Majority (Sommers 2015, 187–200), easier to get” (ibid., 164). for collectively supporting a process to reverse this trend and tap into the reserve of tenacity, In other words, a youth program producing upbeat ingenuity and diverse skills that youth in war and indicators and touted by donors and implementers postwar Africa, and elsewhere, have to offer. Here as successful could, in fact, do just the opposite is a sampling of ideas from the framework: by promoting inequality; undermining efforts to address youth poverty or exclusion; and • Place excluded female and male youth at demonstrating (in cases where the elite youth the centre of development work. If colossal in programs are connected directly to influential populations of young people (in Sub- government officials) support for unpopular, and Saharan Africa and well beyond) dominate perhaps nepotistic and corrupt governments. In developing country populations, and most addition, research with youth who are desperate of them endure systemic, cultural and other for assistance but routinely are left out of forms of exclusion, then focusing on their such programs revealed an issue that program priorities and reversing the factors that evaluations rarely examine: the impact of youth exclude most young people should rest at programs on those who can’t get into them. It is the centre of development work. entirely conceivable that youth programs marked • Conduct sound assessment research of the as successful (thanks to their positive indicators) priorities and circumstances of marginalized simultaneously may promote rage or fatalism youth. The starting point for development among youth left out of such programs. This work should be what excluded youth particularly may be the case for initiatives where majorities require — not what governments elite and favoured youth are participants while and development institutions are prepared members of the outcast youth majority are, once to provide. The research should have two again, left out and overlooked. Taken together, the purposes. First, it should uncover both The Outcast Majority and Postwar Development: Youth Exclusion and the Pressure for Success • 11

the priorities of prominent subgroups informal economies, severely limit youth of marginalized youth majorities (rural access to land, marriage, credit, housing and and urban, male and female, and so on) adulthood, and deny them protection from and the main causes of youth exclusion. predatory state actors (such as members of Second, it should propose detailed policy the police, intelligence or military). Working and programming responses, with roles for to reverse such policies and practices, and governments and development actors, that to limit the abuses of actors who exploit address youth priorities and counteract young people, should become a top priority the primary factors that exclude young for international development actors. people. High-quality, trust-based, mainly Advocating to reverse forces that exclude qualitative research methods rest at the youth is especially important in countries core of this endeavour, as they promise to where it is too dangerous for citizens to do draw out and empower youth to share their so. The case of Rwanda, detailed earlier, is views and detail the situations they face. instructive. Youth and government officials Accordingly, the tendency to rely on focus alike highlighted the profound and negative group interviews for information on youth impact of the government’s villagization should be reconsidered. Focus groups tend policies (Sommers 2012). In countries such to be structured and hierarchical settings as Rwanda, where not even government that are prone to promoting the views only officials dare question sacrosanct policies, of those who speak (quite often, educated international actors must advocate against elites). Interviewing youth in peer groups, policies and practices that debilitate and which are unstructured, informal gatherings marginalize youth majorities. Programs of young people with similar backgrounds, for youth should, in turn, draw from is recommended. After conducting research youth assessments (again, noted above) with young people for more than two to target particular subsets of excluded decades, I have found that youth in peer youth populations strategically and in line groups are much more likely to speak openly, with their priorities. But development honestly and frankly about their lives. actors should keep in mind that policy and • Rebalance policy and program work. The practice reform has the potential to reach development world seems to be awash with exponentially more youth lives than nearly sophisticated programs that ultimately reach all programs. This work should become small numbers of people. Even a large youth central to development practice. development program may reach, at best, • Cultivate learning environments for policy 0.001 percent of all youth in a country. This and program work. Pressures to demonstrate orientation toward programs for the few success may drive international donors and must change. The proposed initial research implementers toward practices that have of marginalized youth lives (detailed above) little or nothing to do with reversing youth promises to reveal the primary forces (that exclusion. Instead, the context for success is, policies, practices and players) that are may be internal, driven by institutional marginalizing youth and collapsing their expectations and procedures. Such an options for stability and advancement. environment is not conducive to learning There may be policies that keep youth how to reach youth majorities on the out of secondary and vocational school, margins. Having the freedom to make and make them vulnerable to exploitation in learn from mistakes is. A key component of 12 • Marc Sommers

learning how to reach and support excluded Works Cited youth populations — through effective advocacy and targeted programming — is to African Development Bank Group. [n.d.]. “Goal institute high-quality, independent evaluation 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education.” research that pinpoints promising as well as www.afdb.org/en/topics-and-sectors/ topics/millennium-development-goals- challenging results (and, yes, failures). Such an mdgs/goal-2-achieve-universal-primary- environment rarely is allowed to exist, much education/. less thrive: research for The Outcast Majority revealed how donor and implementing Ankomah, Baffour. 2005. “Mano River Youth: agency officials often have an exceptionally From Warriors to Peace Builders.” New low regard for the quality of their own African 437: 40–43. evaluations. As one donor official recalled Annan, Jeannie, Christopher Blattman, Dyan about evaluations produced under his watch, Mazurana and Kristopher Carlson. 2011. most were “just whitewashing. As I look back “Civil War, Reintegration, and Gender on the M&E [monitoring and evaluation] of in Northern Uganda.” Journal of Conflict programs I was involved with, it was pathetic” Resolution 55 (6): 877–908. (Sommers 2015, 174). All evaluations should Canadian International Development Agency. investigate the impact of programs on those 2012. Development for Results 2010–2011: who cannot access them. Evaluators also At the Heart of Canada’s Efforts for a Better should cease employing biased terms such as World. Gatineau, Quebec. http://reliefweb. “beneficiary” until positive program impact int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/d4r- has been established. 2010-2011-eng.pdf. Prevailing trends in international development Cincotta, Richard P., Robert Engelman and work call for significant improvements in how Daniele Anastasion. 2003. The Security Demographic: Population and Civil Conflict development is envisioned, implemented and after the Cold War. Washington, DC: assessed. Most fortunately, concern about the need Population Action International. to respond to huge youth populations — in war- affected contexts and in developing countries more Cohen, Dara Kay. 2009. “The Causes of Sexual broadly — is on the rise. Significantly, the tendency Violence by Insurgents during Civil War: Cross-National Evidence (1980–1999).” for most youth to support peace also is beginning Unpublished manuscript. to be recognized: the new United Nations Security Council Declaration 2250 on Youth, Peace and Collier, Paul, Anke Hoeffler and Dominic Rohner. Security9 effectively turns the tables on perceptions 2006. “Beyond Greed and Grievance: of youth, especially male youth, as promoters of Feasibility and Civil War.” CSAE Working violence and instability. Instead, it highlights their Paper Series No. 2006-10. Oxford, UK: Centre for the Study of African Economies, real and potential roles as contributors to peace University of Oxford. building (United Nations Meetings Coverage and Press Releases 2015). Declaration 2250 Cramer, Christopher. 2010. “Unemployment underscores the need to position youth, excluded and Participation in Violence.” youth majorities in particular, at the centre of how World Development Report 2011: peace building and development action is defined Background Paper, November 16. Washington, DC: World Bank. https:// and practised. openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/ handle/10986/9247/WDR2011_0022. 9 www.youth4peace.info/UNSCR2250_ pdf?sequence=1. Introduction The Outcast Majority and Postwar Development: Youth Exclusion and the Pressure for Success • 13

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