Africa’s male youth – threat to security and development?

Across Africa, youth are members of military organisations, suffer from and transmit AIDS and are often excluded from reconstruction and development programmes. In post-genocide Rwanda, young men have few prospects. Is there any evidence to support the ‘youth bulge’ theory – the idea that concentrated numbers of unemployed male youth are dangerous?

A paper from the World Bank sets the case of Rwanda’s young men within the larger context of African urbanisation and critically analyses misconceptions about urban males.

Some visitors to African cities are unsettled by the sight of large numbers of young men and see this as evidence of social dysfunction. The author suggests it may be more useful to ask why some observers feel so threatened. He notes that the youth bulge thesis claims to be scientific and predictive and is embraced by US security community, which sees African (and Middle Eastern) young men as potential recruits to terrorism.

More than three quarters of all ethnic Tutsi citizens in Rwanda were killed during the genocide. What has been less noted are deaths during the civil war which began in 1990 or the vast number of Rwandans who lost their lives after the genocide, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Almost one in five Rwandans died between 1994 and 1996.

Despite the death toll, Rwanda remains Africa’s most densely populated country. As the amount of land available for inheritance declines, the chances for young men to fulfil the cultural expectations of building houses on their own land and getting married are growing increasingly remote.

The author notes that:

• All sub-Saharan African wars have started in rural hinterlands where male youth are not densely settled, rather than the big cities where they are.
• Few urban youth appear to want to return to live in their former rural communities.
• The desire to ‘reintegrate’ and ‘rehabilitate’ rural communities after wars ignores the possibility that agencies and governments might reconstruct unequal structures and systems that were a cause of war.
• The most common form of interaction between marginalised urban youth and the state may be contact with law enforcement officers.

Most Rwandan youth are poorly educated, out of school and unemployed. Some were foot soldiers of the genocide. The lack of support programmes for them is potentially disastrous, given their significant numbers and the threat that they could again be drawn into acts of extreme violence. In Rwanda, as in Africa’s many other post-conflict states, programmes must be created to assist marginalised youth.

Donors and government officials must:

• understand that ex-combatants and victims may have good reasons to avoid reintegrating themselves into social and economic arrangements that existed before war
• ensure interventions are based on beneficiary choices: if urban youth want to integrate into new communities, their decisions must be recognised, respected and supported
• do more to engage adolescent girls and young women: demobilisation programmes rarely include girls, and donor-supported women’s empowerment programmes are usually run by older women.

Source(s):
‘Fearing Africa’s Young Men: The Case of Rwanda’, Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction, World Bank, Social Development Paper No. 32, by Marc Sommers, January 2006 Full document.

Funded by: World Bank

id21 Research Highlight: 8 November 2007

Further Information:
Marc Sommers
Fletcher School
Tufts University
160 Packard Ave
Medford, MA 02155, USA

Tel: +1 617 6274619
Fax: +1 617 6273712
Contact the contributor: Marc.Sommers@tufts.edu

Fletcher School, Tufts University, USA

Conflict Prevention & Reconstruction
Social Development Department
The World Bank
1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433, USA

Tel: +1 202 4731000
Fax: +1 202 5223247
Contact the contributor: cpr@worldbank.org

The World Bank

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