Ending Youth Recruitment

Overview

In an attempt to decrease youth recruitment by rebel groups, from 2011 to 2017 the SYLI program improved access to secondary schools and youth civic engagement opportunities across Somalia. Mercy Corps concluded that this intervention successfully reduced youth support for rebel groups ^[3].

Why Somalia?

Somalia has been experiencing a civil war for over three decades, and has consistently ranked amongst the highest recruiters of child soldiers ^[1][2]. In 2017, the UN reported that "a total of 2,087 boys and 40 girls were recruited and used" during the Somali conflict ^[4].

Why Schooling and Civic Engagement?

Mercy Corps implemented this program to test the assumptions that increasing education and civil engagement opportunities could decrease youth support for rebel groups by:

1. building the youth's trust in their government's ability to provide services, and


2. demonstrating the potential for nonviolent political action.

Survey

To evaluate the impact of the SYLI program, Mercy Corps conducted a survey that asked a subset of the population (both in- and out-of-school youth) about their willingness to lend moral and material support to rebel groups, amongst other things.

These youth were matched using propensity scores based on their characteristics prior to the intervention, and were themselves selected from eight communities (three of which had no intervention, three of which received education only, and two of which received both education and civic engagement opportunities).

These communities were selected by a matching process based on their:

1. level of urbanization,
2. level of violence, and
3. type of intervention (education, civil engagement, both, none).

Results

Mercy Corps found evidence that their intervention decreased youth support for rebel groups through a host of causal mechanisms such as increasing optimism about future livelihood prospects, increasing confidence in non-violent tools for change, and increasing confidence in government.

Notably, however, this conclusion contrasts with their previous work in Somaliland, where they determined that the SYLI program increased support for political violence. They explain these differences by suggesting that they are driven by the relative stability/security of the communities. In places where weak institutions exist, increased education may deepen grievances ^[3].

Biased Community Selection

Mercy Corps and officials from the Ministry of Education handpicked the communities where the program would be applied, thus introducing bias.

For example, if they chose to operate in communities where there is less rebel activity, the findings may instead reflect that youth who are less likely to interact with rebels are also less likely to support them. To control for this in the survey, Mercy Corps implemented a matching process, however, they only considered three characteristics, which is not rigorous.

A randomized controlled trial solves this issue. After identifying communities that could receive the intervention, the intervention should have then been randomly assigned. This would have allowed researchers to appease those that only want to operate in communities where they expect success, while rigorously controlling for confounding variables.

Small Sample Size and a Lack of a Baseline

As a result of the matching process, and safety and accessibility concerns, Mercy Corps artificially reduced their sample size to only 8 communities. This selection process naturally introduced bias as they selected for more stable communities. This is an issue, especially when considering Mercy Corps’ prior research which showed that, in the less stable Somaliland, the SYLI program increased support for political violence.

Another key issue is that Mercy Corps only conducted one sample. Thus, it is unclear whether or not Mercy Corps' findings reflect changes in attitudes due to the program, or reflect the initial attitudinal differences between youth who chose to engage in the program or not.

A solution to these issues is to randomly sample the population at the start of the program and at multiple points throughout its duration. Multiple random samples would have allowed Mercy Corps to make stronger claims about the the program’s impact on changes in attitudes, and, in the event that some communities became too dangerous or inaccessible over time, this method would have allowed researchers to collect at least some data from these communities, which could be used to infer short-term effects.

Furthermore, Mercy Corps stated that the SYLI program provided training to over 3000 teachers. If these teachers were also trained to conduct surveys, the sample size (at least for children in-school) could be significantly increased, allowing aid workers to allocate resources to survey out-of-school children, who are likely harder to sample.

Unclear Impact on Youth Recruitment

Underpinning Mercy Corps' intervention, and the subsequent evaluation, is the assumption that children choose to become soldiers. This completely ignores the fact that children, especially in Somalia, are often abducted and forced to fight in wars ^[1][2].

Even if Mercy Corps' findings were more rigorous, given that children are abducted, a decrease in youth support for rebel groups does not necessarily correspond to a decrease in youth recruitment. In fact, there are many potential causal pathways through which the SYLI program could have increased youth recruitment.

For example, Al-Shabaab, the primary rebel group of interest at that time, has been known to abduct groups of children directly from schools. Implementing a nationwide school program, without significant security measures, may have simply made it easier for abductions to occur. If significant security measures were introduced to protect children at SYLI schools, this further complicates Mercy Corps' findings. Did the in-school youth change their attitudes because of education or because their interactions with security forces increased state legitimacy?

Alternatively, if Mercy Corps' intervention did decrease the amount of youths volunteering for rebel groups, is it possible that rebel groups would have responded by increasing abductions?

To account for these issues, Mercy Corps should have monitored proxy variables for youth recruitment and have been prepared to shut down the program if it became clear that their intervention was causing harm. Example proxy variables include the frequency of violent attacks by rebels, number of child abductions, or number of missing children’s reports.