The Arab Spring

This post originally appeared as part of Interaction's Monday Developments.

“We can build, we can plant, we can be creative, we can invent,” a young Jordanian announced recently to an assembled group of dignitaries in Amman. This desire to shape one’s future—to have a voice, to contribute to the community, to support oneself and one’s family—is universal.

Most recently, it has been the young people of the Middle East and North Africa who have grabbed the world’s attention by demanding the full rights of citizenship and, in some cases, by overthrowing authoritarian regimes that have kept citizens on the margins for far too long.

Those of us in the development community—particularly organizations that have significant programs in many of these same countries—have watched this powerful pro-democracy movement unfold with a combination of surprise, excitement and admittedly some nervousness. Rarely has our collective message of the need to invest in today’s youth seemed so relevant. Yet questions abound about how best to respond to such fast-changing conditions on the ground. How do we support Arab youth during this unpredictable period? What should our development priorities be in the region as we move forward? What are young people saying are their greatest concerns and hopes? How will current events impact our programs?

I would like to share a few insights my organization has gained in recent conversations within the NGO, corporate and international donor communities, as we all grapple with these remarkable but sometimes unsettling times.

Why were we surprised?

As many of the organizations working in the Middle East and North Africa well know, there were plenty of signs—and plenty of research—that pointed to an increasingly restless, unemployed and voiceless segment of the youth population in these countries that was ready to burst.

In 2004, for example, the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), an NGO based in Peru, published a report detailing the marginalization of Egyptian entrepreneurs—many of whom are young people. The report underscored the enormous barriers to starting up a small business in that country and the deep frustration of Egyptians who felt increasingly disempowered as a result. As ILD’s director, economist Hernando de Soto said recently, “All of this helps explain why so many ordinary Egyptians have been ‘smoldering’ for decades … despite hard work and savings, they can do little to improve their lives.” Similar warnings about marginalized youth in this region have been made more recently. Last year, a USAID assessment of youth in the West Bank and Gaza not only revealed persistently high unemployment among Palestinian university graduates but also the lack of opportunity—and a paucity of role models—to support or encourage the development of young people as leaders in their communities.

Similar findings were reported in a community assessment of youth in some of Jordan’s poorest neighborhoods, carried out by IYF in 2010. Here again, there was evidence of soaring youth unemployment coupled with an astonishingly low level of civic engagement. In many neighborhoods, a mere 4 percent of young people on average were involved in community volunteer projects. Not only do such activities offer valuable training opportunities for emerging civic leaders, skills learned in community activities such as teamwork, decision-making and program management are also skills that young people can bring with them to future jobs.

These issues of unemployed, disengaged youth always need to be viewed in the larger context of the historic explosion of young people across the Middle East. In Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia for example, nearly one-third of the population is between 15 and 29. When huge numbers of youth are forced to the margins of society, alienation, violence or political upheaval are often the result. As Geneive Abdo, an analyst with the National Security Network and the Century Foundation admitted recently, “It’s almost become a cliché that there’s a youth bulge in the Arab world; we never realized what the effect of that would be, until now.”

What are current priorities for youth development across the region?

There is no question that the high jobless rate among Arab youth must be addressed if there is to be any real progress in the economic development of the region. But many of the young people we have recently spoken to say that having a role in shaping their own futures—and reforming or replacing their governments—is of even greater importance to them. Many Arab youth talk about how they have little sense of dignity or self worth left after years of being unemployed and having few opportunities to connect with their communities. Those with college degrees feel a particularly deep sense of shame and hopelessness. Clearly, they want to regain their self-respect and ability to realize their full potential. And we can help by investing in effective citizenship and youth leadership initiatives.

Jordan’s former Minister of Social Development, Hala Lattouf, explains the importance of such investments to address these feelings of alienation and disempowerment: “Being engaged civically helps young people form a vital connection to their community, to each other and to a shared vision of the future. … this focus on inclusion and empowerment sends a powerful message: that every young person has the right to live in a safe and caring society.”

To support these important objectives in the Arab region, we remain committed to a comprehensive and integrated approach to youth development. That means, for example, that we will continue to combine job training and internships with “life skills” and entrepreneurship opportunities to better prepare young people to support themselves and their families. We will also make sure that employability training and citizenship programs go hand in hand—recognizing that youth empowerment means having the skills and opportunities to be both civically and economically engaged.

How will upheavals in the Arab world impact our work?

While it is too soon to predict the outcomes of these tumultuous events, we already know that in most places everything will take longer—whether it is launching new projects, sending out proposal requests to local organizations, or recruiting participants for job training or community improvement initiatives. That is simply a fact of life, in part because government ministries that we have usually worked with are either undergoing leadership and structural changes or simply no longer exist.

Ironically, however, even as our work may be slowed down for bureaucratic or political reasons, there appears to be far greater urgency to fulfill our commitments to the youth of this region and to do so in ways that are both visible and real to them and their communities. Awais Sufi, IYF’s vice president for programs, helped lead the discussion at a recent symposium at Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, on how best to foster political reform and democratization in the emerging Egypt. As part of that dialogue, he said, “We need to find concrete paths forward and focus on initiatives and efforts that show real impact, do it quickly, and build momentum to show young people they have a role in creating the future.”

A Middle East program director offers similar advice: “Engage young people in meaningful ways—by going beyond the traditional and often superficial approach of community projects. Build greater trust between adults and youth, by ensuring that structures are in place to give young people a significant voice in shaping the decisions, policies, and programs that affect them. Get serious about ‘modeling’ youth citizenship if you want to see a truly empowered younger generation. Inclusion of marginalized youth should be practiced by decision makers in both government and workplace institutions based on clear parameters and standards … until such inclusion becomes a way of life.”

What’s the next step?

Listen to youth. Young people in the Arab world have shown they are remarkably resilient and innovative leaders. Many are now playing a critical role in addressing, confronting and resolving societal challenges, while others are, admittedly, feeling increasingly frustrated and powerless. As we all know, either youth are empowered to be part of the solution or they can become part of the problem. In either case, it has never been more important to listen to what they have to say. We can support these emerging leaders in a number of ways: by building up their leadership skills, by promoting their voices and ideas in the public sphere, or by offering them networking opportunities with youth leaders from other regions of the world. Time and again, youth social entrepreneurs have demonstrated they have the spark, energy and spirit of innovation to tackle society’s toughest challenges. We must find more creative and relevant ways to support them, in Arab countries and around the world, as they seek to reform their societies and create new development approaches to rebuild their economies.

A few weeks ago, Mohammed Zaid Al-Kilany, a 27-year-old entrepreneur from Palestine spoke at a regional TEDx conference near the Dead Sea. He described Souktel, a business he helped establish that uses mobile phone technology to connect thousands of unemployed youth across the Middle East with a simple job-matching service. In his closing remarks, Mohammed challenged the region’s youth, “Imagine what the Arab world could be like if every one of us thought of our challenges and problems as an opportunity for change.” This advice could apply to NGO and donor communities as well as we seek, in our different ways, to support this pro-democracy youth movement that is changing history—and our world.