Is Arab Youth the Problem (or the Solution)? Assessing the Arab Human Development Report 2016

The wave of mass protests throughout 2010–12 in most Arab countries, which were widely interpreted as youth-led revolts, raised the world’s awareness of the conditions of youth in the region.
In November 2016, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published the much-anticipated Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) entirely dedicated to youth. Entitled Youth and the Prospects for Human Development in a Changing Reality, the 2016 AHDR is the sixth in a series of UNDP thematic reports dedicated to the Arab countries the first of which was published in 2002.
Notwithstanding some differences between the chapters in terms of approach and content, overall the report takes a very uncritical liberal approach that fails completely to consider the root causes of youth marginalization in the region. It continuously oscillates between a narrative emphasizing the relevance of ‘the problems of youth’ and a narrative of ‘youth as a problem’, at times projecting a romanticized conception of youth’s role as agents of change.