Annex B – NIGER POLICY FOR YOUTH INCLUSION AND IMPACT OF WIDER DEVELOPMENT POLICY ON YOUTH: INSTITUTIONAL AND COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVES In this annex, we compare the perceptions of institutional actors recorded during the ECRIS, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of youth policy on entrepreneurship in Niger. We compare these
with the perceptions of long-term resident community actors on the impact of government policy more generally on youth employment and welfare (KPFGDs), and from gender-disaggregated focus group discussions on different regime periods over recent decades.
B.1
Niger youth policy on entrepreneurship: perceptions of institutional actors
We interviewed the officials we met during the ECRIS in late 2019 and asked them how the past and present youth policy provisions had evolved and about challenges to implementation. From the point
of view of the institutional actors interviewed, a series of policies established in recent decades on employment, population growth, health, education and training all influence socioeconomic conditions of youth. These interviews and supporting documentation reveal that a policy focus on youth and a focus on entrepreneurship as a mechanism of change (see Annex A).
First, we note that current employment policies are more focused on the needs of young people compared to previous decades, during which they were ‘approached in a generic way’, as described
by a member of the Ministry of Youth Entrepreneurship, who adds, ‘nowadays policies are focused towards young people and their improvement’. State partners, such as technical and financial
partners and I-NGOs, are promoting various youth-related initiatives (see Annex A). Notable amongst these are initiatives for children’s rights (fighting child marriage, promoting free healthcare for children under five, fighting child labour and particularly tala tala, which is discussed in Section 2), for girls and women’s health and family planning (access to contraceptives, free maternal care and
female cancer prevention) and women’s rights (notably in the fight against gender-based violence, or GBV). Initiatives also address agriculture, the environment and climate change (soil recovery, agricultural inputs, development of market gardening, breeding) as well as entrepreneurship.
Second, current policies put more emphasis on entrepreneurship in particular by promoting selfemployment, which, it is argued, should generate more jobs for young people and thus allow youth to take their own responsibility for increasing their economic agency and achieving their
development goals. This self-reliance has its basis in a liberalisation in polices in general, and is specifically linked to the history of employment policies in Niger. The notion of entrepreneurship can be related to the first economic reforms implemented following the structural adjustment programmes initiated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the late 1990s.
Strategies such as the Support Program for Private Initiative and Job Creation formed the first framework for using the concept, which was then applied in the framework of the policy for retraining civil servants, who were encouraged to leave voluntarily to create their own businesses (Malam Souley, 2018).
Third, whilst institutional actors emphasised that there is a real political commitment to youth at the state level, appreciating the merits of interventions set up in favour of young people, they also
deplored the lack of financial and other resources mobilised to support these policies. According to an official from the Ministry of Employment, Labour and Social Security, governments often make statements that are followed up by weak actions. In fact, financial resources to support youth policies come mostly from external aid rather than internal funding.
Moreover, an analysis of policy documents reveals that although the multiple ministries involved in pro-youth initiatives are all committed to promoting access to employment for young people, the
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