Working towards youth community engagement in the Middle East

Recent events in Egypt and Jordan have highlighted the growing interest in engaging youth in the Arab world. Innovations in Civic Participation, which serves as the secretariat for the Talloires Network, is working to capitalize on this window of opportunity in the Middle East. ICP has partnered with the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at the American University in Cairo to advance several initiatives to engage young people in the MENA region. This partnership is currently focusing on three major initiatives: the Ma’an Arab University Alliance for Civic Engagement; a youth community engagement asset mapping project; and the 9th International Association for National Youth Service (IANYS) Global Conference to be held in Alexandria, Egypt, in October 2010. Each of these projects addresses challenges facing the region by building the field of youth community engagement.

The Ma’an Arab University Alliance for Civic Engagement was launched in October 2008, when the Talloires Network partnered with the Gerhart Center to host a regional conference that brought together administrators, faculty, and students from universities across the region to share their experiences of community engagement, explore new approaches, and address obstacles in a systematic way. The Gerhart Center, in collaboration with the Talloires Network, has taken the lead in launching the Ma'an Alliance, which aims to strengthen the community engagement activities of members in the Arab world; demonstrate the impacts of these activities; advance dialogue on the civic roles of universities; disseminate materials and publications in Arabic and English; and plan regional conferences and trainings.

ICP and the Gerhart Center are also undertaking an asset mapping study of youth community engagement programs in the MENA region. The study will provide an overview of existing conditions, highlighting strengths and revealing gaps. Throughout the region, studies, reports and organizational databases on youth programs and policy have been developed in small and disconnected efforts. As such, ICP and the Gerhart Center will bring together the various studies, reports and databases, and organize them through a lens of youth needs and perceptions to facilitate greater utility and analytic potential. The initial phase, supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, will engage researchers in Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine. In a second phase, ICP and the Gerhart Center will expand the research to additional countries to allow for greater representation of the diversity of Arab countries in the region. The knowledge created by such a tool can be regularly updated and amended. This mapping research aims at creating a picture of what youth community engagement organizations and programs exist, the policy environment in which they operate, how they are implemented, and what kind of impact they have. The information collected will feed into an online regional database accessible to policy, research, and donor communities. This database will strive to encourage learning, collaboration and future partnerships in support of youth community engagement in the region.

Finally, the 9th International Association of National Youth Service (IANYS) Global Conference will be held at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt the 25th-28th of October 2010. ICP, as the IANYS permanent secretariat, is working with the Gerhart Center and the Library of Alexandria to plan and implement this conference. IANYS is a global network of professionals working to promote youth service around the world. One of the central activities of IANYS is the Global Conference on National Youth Service, held every two years, that provides youth service practitioners and policymakers with a stimulating forum to share information and current developments in the field, nurture connections for developing future projects, and discuss the potential for scaling up national youth service for greater impact on community and youth development. Holding the 9th Global Conference in Alexandria will bring many benefits to the MENA region, as it will provide a great opportunity for increased networking and collaboration among stakeholders in the region who will then be able to use the ideas and knowledge that they have gained to spur the growth of youth service programs in their own countries. It will also provide an opportunity for regional stakeholders to learn from other policymakers, practitioners and researchers from around the world. Furthermore, holding the IANYS Conference in the Middle East will draw considerable attention to youth community engagement in the region. Registration for the conference will open in April. More information will be available soon at www.icicp.org/ianys

The time is right to invest in youth community engagement as a strategy for addressing a range of challenges facing MENA societies. The youth bulge that is currently peaking presents both a challenge and an enormous opportunity, and the current public focus on youth in the region will make policymakers and other stakeholders more receptive to supporting youth engagement programs. Providing young people with meaningful opportunities for community engagement will furnish them with the skills they need to be competitive in today’s labor markets and will increase their sense of social responsibility and citizenship. It will also take advantage of the vast human capital created by the youth bulge to address broader social challenges such as poverty and lack of economic development.

Through the Ma’an Arab University Alliance for Civic Engagement, the youth community engagement asset mapping project, and the 9th IANYS Global Conference, ICP and the Gerhart Center will raise the profile of youth community engagement as a strategy for economic and social development and put it on the agenda of stakeholders across the region. These initiatives will provide opportunities for research, professional development, networking, and exchange of ideas among policymakers and practitioners in the Middle East, as well as opportunities for connecting with their peers globally. Ultimately, these initiatives will contribute to economic and social development across the MENA region.