To involve youth in policy formulation increases the chances of its success and uptake. Cross-sectoral youth policies are more effective: engaging different ministries in the process, such as education and health, enables the youth ministry to be mainstreamed. The consultative process develops young people’s skills so they are able to contribute more effectively to future policy initiatives.

The Government Department of Youth and Sport (GOYS) in Bahrain, supported and funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) undertook a comprehensive 18-month nationwide process to assess the situation, needs and aspirations of Bahraini youth in order to inform the country’s first National Youth Policy (created in 2004).

Problems addressed

• The consultations were designed to address a national lack of strategy and policy on working with and for youth.
• The participation in national policy processes of young women; encouraged via a comprehensive outreach campaign (involving the use of radio call-ins, face-to-face street and remote online surveys to canvass their views).

Objectives

• To build on the imagination, energy, opinions and talents of all young Bahraini women and men through their active participation in all phases of formulation of the strategy;
• To develop a co-ordinated and holistic national youth strategy leading to an action plan for 2005 to 2009;
• To build the capacity of young people, youth practitioners and others formulating the strategy

Youth as beneficiaries

Around 16,000 young people aged 15 to 30 (8.9% of the youth population) were engaged as respondents through focus group discussions, surveys, or as part of the consultation exercise and outreach for the Youth Voice Campaign.

Youth as partners

Over 100 young people were recruited and trained to co-ordinate the Youth Voice Campaign, taking an active role in conducting and promoting the research. Young people sat alongside civil servants and ministers on nine intergenerational committees (assigned, consulted and informed).

Process

Research took place over a nine-month period in 2004 to 2005 across nine thematic areas: education; health; employment; culture; information and communication technology; social security; environment; sports and leisure and civil and human rights. The process was divided into five sequential stages:

1. Creating thematic working groups and conducting youth trainings;
2. Information gathering through face-to-face surveys and focus groups;
3. Outreach via community talk radio, website;
4. Review and finalisation; involving UNDP technical staff, GOYS and youth working groups;
5. Approval and promotion.

Results

• An Implementation action plan, comprising five major strategy programmes, was drafted incorporating 96 of the 136 recommendations made in the strategy document. These included the formulation of: a national youth parliament; a national youth commission; a national youth development fund; and an inter- ministerial committee for youth affairs.

“I don’t know of any other exercise in the world that engaged youth at such a massive scale ...It’s certainly something other countries can learn from.” Peter Kenyon, project manager

“The participation of youth, in large numbers and from diverse backgrounds, was the number one achievement of the process.” Amal Al-Dossary, GOYS project focal point

Lessons learned

• Large and complex processes require clear, transparent agreements between implementing parties at the outset to avoid delays and divergent expectations.
• Sufficient time and resources should be allocated to ensure that all targeted youth (both in and out of formal education) are equipped to participate in consultation activities.
• Training: not all young people respond to the same stimuli or means of communication. Good initial mapping of target audience and piloting will inform the right diversity of means to facilitate maximum participation.

Potential challenges

• Globally, successes in national youth policy formulation, including participatory processes, have often been followed by failures in implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Some civil society groups in Bahrain have criticised the level of implementation of the action plan.

For further information contact:

UNDP Bahrain, registry.bh@undp.org