This paper investigates the “youth challenge” in preventing and countering violent extremism (PCVE), examining the roles young people play in PCVE efforts and offering recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of such initiatives. The analysis draws on interviews with 21 experts and a review of more than 400 publications on violent extremism, PCVE, and youth, with a primary focus on the Middle East and Africa.
The study finds that while there is a relationship between a ‘youth bulge’, state oppression, and violent extremism, the threat posed by youth is often overstated and framed through highly gendered assumptions. Threatened or failed adulthood, particularly failed masculinity, also emerges as an important cause of instability. Across much of Africa, the Middle East, and beyond, youth struggle and often fail to gain social recognition as adults. This can exacerbate humiliation, exclusion, and alienation for both female and male youth while laying the groundwork for pronounced tensions between older elites and struggling young people. Violent extremist organizations exploit this fertile recruitment ground. The author also notes how ‘gender’ has problematically become synonymous with ‘women and girls’ and that ‘youth’ is assumed to be male.
The paper concludes with six recommendations: increase awareness of youth-specific vulnerabilities and drivers; explicitly link youth and gender in PCVE research and practice; address class divisions; ensure PCVE approaches are locally derived and responsive; positively engage both male and female youth; and promote adaptive, learning-oriented PCVE environments.