A scoping review of positive youth development programming for vulnerable and marginalized youth in low- and middle-income countries

Abstract

This scoping review aims to describe the state of Positive Youth Development (PYD) programming for vulnerable and marginalized youth in LMICs and to assess the quality of available evidence on process evaluation and program effectiveness. We systematically searched academic and grey literature to appraise existing literature on PYD as applied to research studies and programming with vulnerable and marginalized youth in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Our scoping review followed the four general phases of a systematic search: preparation, retrieval, screening and appraisal, and synthesis. Our search yielded 42 publications that met the inclusion criteria. We identified 38 programs across 27 countries. Most programs included in this review did not explicitly identify PYD as their underlying behavioral change approach and did not differentiate programming based on youth's levels of vulnerability and marginalization. Youth-focused programs were comparably distributed across three development sectors—health, democracy, governance, economic development, and education. Poverty, stigma, discrimination, and cultural and social norms, including gender inequities create barriers to accessing youth-focused programs. Our review also found enabling factors, such as youth-friendly policies, community involvement, congruence with cultural and social norms, and creative media use, that support vulnerable and marginalized youth’s access to programs. We conclude that there remain gaps in using PYD as a conceptual framework to inform programming and as a methodological tool to standardize evaluation and impact assessment of PYD or PYD-informed programming for vulnerable and marginalized youth in LMICs.