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Youth in the fight against poverty
Bitter sugar politics
In fear of Asian competition
1/2005
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[ Conflict countries ]
Youth in the fight against poverty
Fostering the talents of youths has a positive effect. An evaluation by the German Development Ministry found that development and aid programmes targeting young people in partner countries make a significant contribution towards reducing poverty. In countries traumatized by strife, they also help to prevent future crises.
[ By Heike Drotbohm ]
In the townships of Cape Town particularly affected by gang violence, youths are receiving brief training as community peace workers. Just a few months ago, these adolescents were themselves making the streets unsafe. Now, they patrol the streets in pairs, contributing to the de-escalation of conflicts. In Uganda, young women and men are trained to be group leaders for their generation. They will be in a position to assume responsibility once community development plans are created locally. And Sri Lanka is helping young people found small companies.
Such projects are excellent examples of ways to foster the development of young people. They are also typical of the approaches of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). A recent evaluation of 13 governmental and non-governmental projects in Guatemala, Uganda, South Africa, and Sri Lanka demonstrated how useful this strategy is.
Children and adolescents make up some 50 to 80 percent of the total population of most partner countries. Treating them as a social problem or an obstacle on the path to development would be completely out of place. Young people constitute the very foundation of sustainable development. They are also the most important target group for human resource development. In the past decade, more and more people have realised this. For BMZ, the question was which success stories could be told, which obstacles had been faced – especially with respect to poverty reduction – and which conclusions should be drawn.
All of the four countries recently under review are marked by crises and violence, be they acute or smouldering conflicts. Young persons are found both among the victims and the culprits. The context in which violence occurs is especially relevant for the work done with these young people. Young people are more likely than adults to develop a “culture of conflict” in their minds. Personal traumas can easily result in polarized attitudes and a greater tendency to become violent. It is telling that adults consider violence by and among young people to be particularly threatening.
The projects evaluated make a clear contribution towards the prevention of violence and crises in these countries. Training along with assistance from social workers affects the attitude of young people and improves their competence to resolve conflicts by peaceful means. In the slums of Guatemala City, for instance, a program supported by German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) has started a mobile, low-threshold, outreach programme. It serves to motivate young people to join in games, handicrafts, sports and films. The programme provides the necessary resources and advice. Conflicts among rival gangs have been reduced in this manner. Different gangs take part in the same activities, which makes it easier to engage them in discussions on how to avoid conflicts and violence.
A combination of holistic pedagogy, peace facilitation and job training has proven to be an ideal approach to fostering the development of young people. Job training, a classic topic in German development cooperation, makes an especially important contribution to reducing youth poverty when it is complemented by holistic, innovative qualification courses. In Sri Lanka, this approach expanded a classic training program for women and included short training courses tailored to specific job market conditions. This helped to promote employment among young people.
In Uganda young people were trained to be youth promoters. They pass on their practical competence to their peers in brief courses encouraging them to set up their own businesses. Whether it was a chicken farm, a doughnut stand, a café for young people, or a cell phone shop – these young people discovered many different ways to earn their own income and become independent of their parents. The examples clearly show that young people can only be helped into the job market in close cooperation with local businesses, communities, and families.
The approaches of non-governmental agencies have proven to be particularly successful. This is true of secular as well as of faith-based organisations. Both apply integrative educational schemes and develop holistic concepts for the rehabilitation of young people with backgrounds in poverty. The schemes go far beyond formal education and job training. Caritas International, Kolpingwerk, the Protestant Development Program, and the Don Bosco campaign “Youth Third World” all promote the sharing of practical knowledge in addition to formal vocational training. The Salesian Mission also integrates young people in its congregations and families, who are included in the planning of projects and continue to assist these young people after the training sessions have ended.
Families and communities
The systemic approach looks at young people in the context of their families and communities. It works against migration to urban areas because it promotes the development of communities. After all, young people’s visions and ideas usually concern their immediate environment. The cooperation between young people and communities works against authoritarian and patriarchal traditions. Both tend to restrict the potential of young generations and to hamper their participation in relevant decisions.
Promoting a culture of dialogue, discussion and democratic decision-making represents a pillar in German strategies to reduce poverty. Young people can participate in civil-society processes at two levels. On the one hand, it makes sense to include them in the planning, execution, assessment, and further development of projects. On the other hand, one should also make them take part in political procedures. A possible starting point is to establish youth councils, which result from nation-wide elections, provide representative structures and can be involved in political decision-making. Many countries already have such councils. However, the evaluation clearly showed that they are often given short shrift and suffer from the attempts of political parties to manipulate them for their own purposes.
One interesting example from Guatemala is the local youth radio Radio Juvenil. As in other countries with high rates of illiteracy, radio is an efficient and inexpensive medium by which to reach young people and support their participation in society. Radio is heard even in the most remote regions. In rural Uganda, GTZ managed to get young people involved in the formulation of plans for community development. Their specific ideas about their lives and about economic development were taken into consideration.
Fostering girls as much as boys, however, remains a great challenge. Despite coeducational activities, quotas, and the classic instruments of girl promotion, female course participants often faced greater obstacles than their male counterparts did. They were expected to take care of their kids and work in the field or at home. They also often lacked support from their parents for economic, political, or social activities. These are the main reasons why young women need more extensive support than their male peers. Otherwise, they will probably never come to fulfil their potential. Again, it is important to work with parents and the community to support a change in awareness.
The evaluation of the 13 projects underscores the relevance of promoting young people in the fight against poverty and future crises. It also reveals the German expertise that BMZ can rely on in order to position itself internationally. After all, multilateral actors such as the World Bank have realized the importance of the youth issue and have begun setting up their own structures and competences. Dealing with young people adequately is also becoming more important as poverty reduction papers are becoming more sophisticated. Within this trend, the promotion of young people, which has evolved in Germany over the past 50 years with various instruments for everything from education and economic support to political inclusion and social work, can play a trail blazing role.
Dr. Heike Drotbohm,
social anthropologist, is currently writing her post-doctoral thesis at the Albert-Ludwig-University of Freiburg. She works as an independent expert for German development institutions. This article reflects her personal view. heike.drotbohm@ethno.uni-freiburg.de
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