Youth Development Youth Development Programs: What Works and What the Research Shows Youth development programs vary enormously in quality, approach, and impact. Some change lives and communities; others consume significant budgets without measurable effect. Research on what works in youth development has matured significantly over the past two decades, enabling practitioners to design programs with…
Youth Development Monitoring and Evaluation for NGOs and Development Programmes: A Practical Guide Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is the evidence backbone of effective development programming. Donors require it. Governments increasingly mandate it. And organisations that do it well are better funded, better managed, and — most importantly — actually more effective at achieving their goals….
Youth Development 2026 Youth Employment in Africa: Statistics, Trends and Solutions (2026) Africa has the youngest population of any continent. By 2030, one in three of the world’s young people will be African. Whether this becomes a demographic dividend or a crisis depends almost entirely on whether those young people can find meaningful employment. This…
Youth Development How Sports Influence Youth Development and Social Skills: What the Evidence Actually Shows Sport is widely assumed to develop character, teamwork and social skills in young people. The evidence is more conditional than this. Sport produces these outcomes under specific conditions and fails to under others. The belief that sport builds character and…
Youth Development Youth Empowerment Frameworks: What Works, What Does Not, and What Gulf and African Contexts Require Youth empowerment is one of the most widely used terms in international development and youth policy. It is also one of the most inconsistently defined, which makes evaluating what it produces very difficult. Here is what the evidence…
Every year, millions of dollars flow into youth programmes across the GCC and Africa. Some of those programmes change young people’s lives. Many do not. The difference rarely comes down to good intentions, funding levels, or even the quality of the facilitators. It comes down to design. A well-designed youth programme has a clear theory…
Saudi Vision 2030 is the single most significant policy development affecting youth work in the Arab world — and across the GCC — in the last decade. For practitioners, funders, and organisations working with young people in the Kingdom, understanding it is no longer optional. It determines what gets funded, what skills are in demand,…
