Friday May 18, 2018
by Beza Tesfaye and Beth Maclin
Hundreds of al-Shabab fighters perform military exercises in the Lafofe area south of Mogadishu, Somalia, in 2011. (AP) Somalia’s capital has been rocked by multiple bomb attacks in the past few months, and a May 6 blast in a border town killed seven Kenyan soldiers. In recent months, a series of bombings left dozens dead or injured.
Most analysts believe that al-Shabab,
the al-Qaeda-backed extremist group that has waged an insurgency
against the federal government for more than 10 years, is responsible
for these attacks.
The recent violence comes in the wake of devastating twin truck bombs
that killed hundreds in Mogadishu in October 2017. Despite making gains
in security and governance during the past year, Somalia continues to
struggle to escape the trap of conflict and instability.
With the United States currently escalating its military presence in Somalia,
a major question for the Somali government, U.S. forces and others
actors on the ground is how to counter the appeal of violent groups
among young people — their common recruits.
This
is also a vital question for governments engaged in conflict zones
around the world. Some, including Somalia’s leaders, see increasing
access to education as a way to address disaffected youth’s frustrations
with the status quo and steer them away from armed groups like
al-Shabab. Does
this approach work? And if so, does it work everywhere? We set out to
explore the common assumption that educational programs will help
counter violent extremism.
How we did our research on political violence
Working with the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, Mercy Corps —
the global organization for which we work — designed a study to help us
understand how secondary education affects young people’s support for
political violence. We focused on the Somali Youth Learners Initiative (SYLI), a USAID-funded program implemented by Mercy Corps and other partners.
Across
Somalia, the program improved access to secondary education, reaching
almost 25,000 young people. SYLI also worked with youth in and outside
of school to develop leadership skills and facilitate opportunities to
improve their communities through civic engagement activities.
In a new report,
we describe how the program — both by itself and in combination with
civic engagement activities — changed young people’s attitudes toward
opposition groups like al-Shabab. We focused on areas of Somalia
previously under the control of armed groups and al-Shabab.
We
employed quantitative and qualitative data, surveying 1,220 Somali
youth and conducting in-depth interviews with another 40 young people in
2017. We compared students in SYLI-supported schools to out-of-school
youth to understand how the program influenced their willingness to
support or aid armed opposition groups.
Yes, secondary education did make an impact
We found that the provision of secondary education through SYLI significantly reduced
support for violence. In-school youth were half as likely (48.2
percent) to support armed groups as out-of-school youth. Further, the
combination of SYLI-supported secondary education and civic engagement
activities like advocacy campaigns and community service projects had an
even greater effect on reducing support for violence. Our results show
students offered civic engagement opportunities were 64.8 percent less
likely to support political violence than non-engaged youth.
This study reinforces some of what we learned when we tested the same program
in the self-declared independent region of Somaliland a year earlier.
In Somaliland the combination of education and civic engagement
opportunities had the greatest impact on reducing support for political
violence.
However, this new study also
highlights the fact that the same program can yield different results.
We noted that education reduced support for political violence in South
Central Somalia and Puntland, while our survey found that education may
increase such support in the relatively peaceful areas like Somaliland.
Why do we see these divergent outcomes?
As
it turns out, context matters — even within the same country. In parts
of Somalia where the provision of basic services is limited, increasing
access to secondary education improved young people’s perceptions of the
government. We think this led to a reduction in support for armed
opposition groups.
However, in the more
developed and stable Somaliland, where people expected their government
to provide higher levels of services, it’s a different story. In some
cases, the provision of education does not appear to be enough to stop
youth from supporting political violence.
These
studies have important implications for development programs in
conflict-affected countries. The full impact that stability programs
have on violence is driven in part by the context in which they are
implemented.
In countries emerging from
conflict with few, if any, functioning systems, simply investing in
basic services such as education can be a quick win for the government —
and for donors focused on promoting stability. In the long term,
however, this gain in popular support is not enough.
As
conflict-affected areas of Somalia eventually stabilize and develop,
education alone will likely not address all the grievances that drive
youth to support political violence. Education gives young people the
chance to gain knowledge and skills, but it also raises expectations and
awareness of what citizens are lacking. Young people can grow angry and
frustrated if they perceive the government is unable or uninterested in
meeting their needs.
What does this mean for
development strategies, and international partners? These shifting
dynamics require the development of both short- and long-term strategies
for managing and reducing violence — or risk exacerbating the
situation.
This means investing in basic
post-conflict reconstruction, including rebuilding public services,
while laying the groundwork for long-term peace and development by
improving governance and providing youth with meaningful opportunities.
Beza Tesfaye @bezates87 is a senior researcher at Mercy Corps.
Beth Maclin is a research consultant for Mercy Corps.