Rethinking Youth, Livelihoods, and Fragility in West Africa : One Size Doesn’t Fit All
Africa’s population is young and growing at twice the pace of other continents. A youth bulge presents a series of development policy opportunities and challenges. In this context, simplistic linkages between the youth bulge, high unemployment, and...
Main Authors: | , , |
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Format: | Report |
Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/08/24919979/rethinking-youth-livelihoods-fragility-west-africa-one-size-doesn’t-fit-all http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22517 |
Summary: | Africa’s population is young and growing
at twice the pace of other continents. A youth bulge
presents a series of development policy opportunities and
challenges. In this context, simplistic linkages between the
youth bulge, high unemployment, and fragility have gained
traction and given rise to a youth policy agenda that
targets urban male youth as the problem and emphasizes
formal sector development as the solution. This paper
questions some of the core assumptions that underpin
mainstream perceptions of the linkages between youth,
employment, and fragility in West Africa, and presents an
alternative analysis. The study will use the language of
livelihoods to reflect on youth employment experiences, as
livelihoods take into account the capabilities, assets
(including both material and social resources), and
activities required for a means of living beyond traditional
ideas of employment, and thus enable a deeper, more
sophisticated understanding of the realities of many young
West Africans. The paper argues that a nuanced understanding
of specific groups of young people and their livelihood
activities in their specific social, cultural, political,
and economic context is necessary to understand how young
peoples’ lives intersect with fragility dynamics. The paper
aims to highlight that the relationship between youth,
unemployment, underemployment, livelihoods, and fragility is
far more complex than is often recognized and should not be
exaggerated or taken out of context. |
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