Just keeping them busy? Youth employment projects as a peacebuilding tool

Abstract

the promotion of youth employment is a popular peacebuilding measure in post-conflict settings. giving jobs to young people is widely seen as an essential way to harness their energy towards constructive and peaceful purposes and discourage their recruitment for violence. Unlike traditional youth employment projects, these interventions set themselves a twofold objective: creating jobs and promoting peace in post-conflict societies. However, little is known about their impact on either of these fronts, and there is anecdotal evidence that youth employment projects in post-conflict settings have often fallen short of the expectations of donors, governments and beneficiaries alike. this article argues that the practice of using youth employment projects for peacebuilding is rooted in untested, problematic and possibly flawed assumptions, and this fundamentally affects the chance of success for such interventions.

Keeping hope alive: an analysis of training opportunities for Ghanaian youth in the emerging oil and gas industry

“…While the vast majority of studies on the character and effectiveness of active labour market policies focus on Scandinavia (Calmfors et al, 2001) and Europe (Fougere et al, 2000;Sarfati and Bonoli, 2004), a few, such as that of Albrecht et al (2009), focus on Latin America. Little is known about the effectiveness or otherwise of active labour market policies in Africa and the characteristics of successful active labour market policies, given the African context (Izzi, 2013).…”

Youth employment in a globalising world

“…While this is a positive development, such numbers say little about what kind of knowledge and skills young people acquire or whether they are able to use these skills in the labour market. Increased educational levels are not being met by corresponding employment opportunities and secondary school and university graduates are amongst those most likely to be unemployed (Jeffrey, 2010). As Darkwah (2013, this issue) convincingly demonstrates, even young people who pursue education initiatives to enable them to enter the booming oil and gas industry in Ghana are failing to obtain the promised employment at the end of their training.…”

“…The last decade has seen an upsurge in research which has documented the diversity and multiplicity of young people's trajectories and lived experiences in a range of contexts in the global South (Ansell et al, 2011;Burgess, 2005;Camfield, 2011;Christiansen et al, 2006;Esson, 2013;Honwana and De Boeck, 2005;Jeffrey 2010;van Blerk 2008). As this research highlights, young people's lived experiences vary between places according to lines of difference including gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status and education etc.…”

Expanding the scales and domains of (in)security: Youth employment in urban Zambia

“…Correspondingly, in recent years the international peace building agenda has shown increased concern for the issue of youth unemployment (Izzi, 2013). It is argued that if young people are left idle without meaningful employment, they are more vulnerable and thus more prone to become involved in various forms of violence.…”

“…Unemployment figures are highly misleading as low rates may be an indication of poverty rather than opportunity. Moreover, delineating the exact boundaries of unemployment/employment can be extremely difficult in economies where much work is irregular, causal and precarious (Gough et al, 2013;Izzi, 2013).…”