Breaking Point

Rampant youth unemployment fuels unrest  and provides extremists fertile ground for recruiting

Abdul Wahid, a young Afghan man, had completed only a few years of schooling before he turned 18, leaving him little chance of finding work in Afghanistan’s overcrowded job market. He tried working as a driver, but customers were scarce. Frustrated and desperate, he took the only opportunity he got — and joined the Taliban.

As part of a team of militants, he ambushed supply vehicles and shared in the spoils. “Whatever we reaped from attacks, we would keep,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “It was enough for us to live on.” Now 26, Wahid lives as an inmate at Pul-e-Charkhi Prison, near Kabul.

Twenty-something Sofiene Dhouibi faced a similar problem in Tunisia, despite holding a master’s degree in computer technology. “Every day, my mother tells me go look for a job, why don’t you get a job, get a job,” he told Foreign Policy. “I look. Really, I look. But there is no job.”

Dhouibi was living a bleak and listless existence as a hittiste (a wall leaner). Then in December 2010, the Arab Awakening erupted in front of him. During the unrest following the death of Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, he jumped into a crowd of demonstrators and helped torch a police car.

“I felt happy,” Dhouibi said. “Very happy.” Although he remained unemployed, he found a new occupation in the daily protests that spread throughout Tunisia.

Youth Bulge
Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), millions of young men like Wahid and Dhouibi face slim employment odds. Whether they turn to crime or violence depends on how well governments address the demands of their burgeoning youth populations.

In the past 60 years, the region has experienced a profound demographic shift. Sixty percent of all Middle Easterners, two-thirds of all Pakistanis and nearly three-quarters of all Afghanis are now younger than 30. All told, there are 100 million MENA youth between 15 and 29 — what strategic analyst Anton Minkov calls the “fighting age” — creating an “arc of instability” that reaches from Africa to South Asia. This type of trend is called a youth bulge, and it can have enormous implications for both intra- and interstate security.

At 30 percent, youth unemployment in the Middle East is the highest in the world — a staggering loss for society. In addition to its inherently disruptive effects, the loss of so many millions of productive workers costs MENA economies between $40 billion and $50 billion annually. Without decisive action, the situation shows little hope of improvement.

The consequences of such a young population can be dire, explains political scientist Henrik Urdal: When youth comprise more than 35 percent of a country’s adult population, the risk of armed conflict rises by 50 percent. When this cohort reaches more than 40 percent of the working age population, the risk of civil conflict more than doubles, notes political demography expert Richard Cincotta.

Despite the challenges, countries can benefit from a youth bulge if they harness the energy and drive of a population in its working prime. Nations such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia, which faced youth bulges during the 1950s and 1960s, used economic and social policies to promote rapid economic growth. Today they are enjoying the demographic dividend of a young, productive workforce.

A Perilous Gap
Too many unemployed men produce social costs as well: Without work, without an income that will pay for mahr (the gift of bridal money that is a prerequisite for Islamic marriages) and support a family, men cannot get married. Their lives are put on hold.

Navtej Dhillon, director of the Middle East Youth Initiative at the Brookings Institution, says that some charities have responded to this “marriage crisis” by hosting mass ceremonies or providing money to young couples. But even if someone else pays for the wedding, a young man must have a job before he can marry and begin life as an adult.

Rampant youth unemployment can have an even more sinister consequence, says economic analyst Abid Amiri. “When young people — particularly young men — are uprooted, jobless, intolerant, alienated and have few opportunities for positive engagement, they represent a ready pool of recruits for groups seeking to mobilize violence, such as the Taliban.”

Demographic of Insurgency
Cincotta calls it the “demographic of insurgency”: the vast ranks of restless, unemployed young men from which terrorists get most of their recruits.

Mirzauddin Tortufaan was one of them. Unable to find work in Afghanistan — even on his father’s farm — he joined the Taliban, so he could earn enough to afford mahr and get married. Tortufaan ended up in jail; his wife and two children are now destitute.

Even if he’s not ready to marry, a youth can feel pressured to join the extremists. “My family needs money, and we cannot find a job anywhere, so I decided to help a gang specialized in kidnapping,” said a 13-year-old Iraqi named Khalid. “[I]t is enough to help my family with food … .”

Window of Opportunity
The pressures of the youth bulge played a major role in the 2011 Arab Awakening. The demonstrations were sparked, in part, by high unemployment, powerful feelings of helplessness and the fear that, despite years of education, prospects for a better future would never materialize. Government officials initially underestimated the protestors, often to their own detriment. Former Egyptian Interior Minister Habib el-Adly called them “a bunch of incognizant, ineffective young people,”  but the sheer seismic power of their combined efforts wrought enormous changes in the region.

Governments and militaries that ignore the simmering cauldron of youth bulge frustration do so at their peril. Extremist organizations are only too willing to capitalize on the region’s enormous ranks of restive young people: In Lebanon alone, Hezbollah’s Mahdi Scouts have 40,000 members age 14 and older. The terrorist organization, like other extremist groups, runs camps for young people that include military training.

Conversely, the youth bulge represents a demographic window of opportunity for countries that support the aspirations of their young people for meaningful work, financial reward and a fulfilling future. For all MENA countries, this window will be open for at least a decade. Countries such as Yemen and Iraq will see their youth cohorts continue to grow for as much as 40 years.

Governments and their policies determine to a large extent whether a youth bulge becomes a blessing or a curse. The region’s growing technology sector, for example, could be a rich source of jobs and investment if market-based development policies were allowed to flourish and educational reforms aligned graduates’ skills with the needs of private industry.

Militaries can help counter the siren song of extremist influence by sponsoring defense-affiliated volunteer programs for unemployed youth. These could include civic education, apprenticeship projects and leadership training.

Nations that are willing to harness the dynamism of their youthful populations could promote sustained economic growth and reap the demographic dividend of a young and productive work force for decades to come. But nations whose youth remain largely unemployed and unfulfilled may well find that their youth bulge hinders growth and festers into instability.

This is not an issue that can be ignored in hopes it will go away: The challenge is already here. Without decisive action, the crisis will only deepen. The MENA region needs 100 million new jobs by 2020. Will the young people of the next decade find their economic and social aspirations stifled — or fulfilled?

Education and skills mismatch

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What keeps young people — especially those with university degrees — from finding lucrative work? One big factor is the outdated or irrelevant curricula used in some education systems.

Economics expert Ibrahim Saif agrees. “[S]hortcomings in Arab education systems impact the labor market and economy as a whole,” leading to “a tremendous imbalance” between education and the jobs available, most of which require degrees in science and technology. Part of the problem, he adds, is that “these majors are still viewed condescendingly despite the high material yield that can be generated by vocational jobs. And the working conditions in many vocational professions are still substandard and disorganized.”

To address these concerns, nongovernmental organizations like Education for Employment and INJAZ al-Arab work with businesses to train, educate and empower youth with the skills and opportunities they need. By coordinating directly with employers, these NGOs develop tailored programs linked to job opportunities.

According to a press release, INJAZ al-Arab works with 13 education ministries, 716 schools and a network of 10,000 corporate volunteers across the MENA region. Since its founding in 2004, it has “empowered” more than 500,000 students. Organized in 2006, the EFE network has trained and placed over 3,000 youth across the Middle East and North Africa.

Volunteer programs boost employment

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There is strong evidence showing that community volunteer or apprenticeship programs offered through military, nonprofit or civic organizations can teach relevant, marketable skills — such as teamwork, decision-making and program management — that lead to greater employment and self-sufficiency. Egyptian youth who joined civic groups, for example, said that their biggest reasons for doing so were to learn a skill (54 percent), improve their career opportunities (19 percent) and find a job (11 percent).

Although research data doesn’t show a direct correlation, youth who are actively engaged in their communities through civic or volunteer projects may be less likely to participate in political violence. They may also be more likely to acquire the skills and values that make them better citizens and future leaders.

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What’s your opinion?

• How would you define the youth bulge for your country?
• What should be done to solve the problems and capitalize on the opportunities that the youth bulge presents?
• Should the military partner with government and nongovernmental organizations to develop defense-affiliated volunteer programs for unemployed youth? If so, what kind and how?

Share your thoughts at: [email protected].