Leone Civil War Research Articles

Rebel Greed and Postcolonial Governance: Neoliberal Accountings of the Past within Transitional Justice Processes in Sierra Leone

Abstract: This article extends recent academic debates about the sociohistorical entanglements between neoliberalism and human rights by exploring transitional justice processes in Sierra Leone, which followed the country's decade-long civil war (1991-2002). It analyses the ways both the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) and the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SLTRC) drew on 'economic' discourses, variously using the concepts of 'greed', 'corruption' and 'governance' to explain the broader context of the human rights violations with which they were concerned. By critically tracing how these discourses were mobilised, this article shows that neither the SLTRC nor the SCSL challenged the neoliberal vision of human rights. Rather, each process produced a narrative about Sierra Leone's civil war that not only effaced the deleterious role of neoliberal policies in the history of the conflict but also reproduced neoliberal ideas both about conflict and the economy. In this respect, my exploration of the Sierra Leone case demonstrates the importance of paying closer attention to how 'the socioeconomic' is conceptualised and accounted for within transitional justice and broader human rights processes, especially if they are to pose a more adequate challenge to the neoliberal order. Shorter abstract: This article extends recent academic debates about the sociohistorical entanglements between neoliberalism and human rights by exploring transitional justice processes in Sierra Leone after the country's decade-long civil war. The article focuses on the ways both the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission drew on discourses of 'greed', 'corruption' and 'governance' to explain the broader socioeconomic context of the human rights violations they were concerned with. The article demonstrates these discourses did not challenge but instead reinforced neoliberal visions of human rights.

Everyday Practices of Toleration: The Interfaith Foundations of Peace Accords in Sierra Leone

AbstractUnder what conditions can faith leaders influence peace in civil wars? The ongoing conflict in Congo, Syria, and Yemen indicate that faith leaders can fuel sectarian divide, but also intervene on the side of peace. Drawing on experiences in Sierra Leone's civil war, this paper highlights the role of faith leaders as moral guarantors of peace processes, with respondent former rebels indicating that without interfaith delegations personally bringing the peace accord to their remote jungle camps, they would not have trusted the UN-led process. Ethnographic analysis and over 60 field interviews with former combatants and religious leaders, presents a model for answering why faith leaders were central in terminating this conflict. Combatant's personal experience with a diverse mixture of Christian, Traditional, and Islamic leaders contributed to high confidence in peace accords, due to interfaith practices deeply embedded within the culture and shows the dispositions, rituals, and interfaith practices that provided the cultural foundations for successful interfaith intervention. The paper ends with generalizations for other interfaith groups seeking to intervene in conflict.

War, fish, and foreign fleets: The marine fisheries catches of Sierra Leone 1950–2015

In countries like Sierra Leone, where stock assessments based on fisheries-independent data and complex population models are financially and technically challenging, catch statistics may be used to infer fluctuations in fish stocks where more precise data are not available. However, FAO FishStat, the most widely-used time-series data on global fisheries ‘catches’ (actually ‘landings’), does not account for Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) catches and relies on statistics provided by the national agencies of each member country. As such, reported FishStat data is vulnerable to changes in monitoring capacity, governmental transitions, and budgetary constraints, and may substantially underestimate the measure of extracted marine resources. In this report, Sierra Leone's total catches by all marine fishing sectors were estimated for the period 1950–2015, using a catch reconstruction approach incorporating national data, expert knowledge, and both peer-reviewed and grey literature. Results demonstrate that a substantial amount of marine resource exploitation is not represented in official statistics, and reconstructed catches represent more than 2.25 times the recorded FAO Fishstat values. Notably, foreign fleets take the vast majority of industrial catch in Sierra Leone's EEZ, indicating that most of the resource catch and revenue is diverted to foreign companies and export markets. While foreign actors dominate the industrial sector, the small-scale sector represents the majority of domestic catch. Illegal fishing is also a substantial challenge in Sierra Leone, and extracts a large amount of the country's marine fish resources. Reconstructing catches in Sierra Leone also highlights the impacts of various historical events such as Sierra Leone's civil war and post-war reconstruction on the development of the fisheries sector. The results found in the reconstruction present a large discrepancy from FishStat data, with considerable implications for assessment of stocks and management of Sierra Leone's marine resources.

The Inter‐Religious Council of Sierra Leone as Peace Facilitator in Post‐1991 Sierra Leone

This essay represents the first in‐depth study of “faith‐based diplomacy” or “religious peacebuilding” in Sierra Leone. Building largely upon personal interviews with religious leaders and ex‐combatants, the study explores the role of the Inter‐Religious Council of Sierra Leone (IRCSL) as peace facilitator during three phases of Sierra Leone's civil war and aftermath (1991–present) and identifies what types of actions and strategies the IRCSL pursued in each phase. Employing Scott Appleby's typology of conflict transformation, it shows the important—yet uneven—influence of faith‐based peacemaking in Sierra Leone and concludes that both the IRCSL's reputation for “neutrality” and international support enabled its success.

Rebels in a rotten state: understanding atrocity in the Sierra Leone civil war

The atrocities of civil wars present us with many difficult questions. How do seemingly ordinary individuals come to commit such extraordinary acts of cruelty, often against unarmed civilians? Can we ever truly understand such acts of 'evil'? Based on a wealth of original interviews with perpetrators of violence in Sierra Leone's civil war, this book provides a detailed response. Moving beyond the rigid bounds of political science, the author engages with sociology, psychology and social psychology, to provide a comprehensive picture of the complex individual motives behind seemingly senseless violence in Sierra Leone's war. Highlighting the inadequacy of current explanations that centre on the anarchic nature of brutality, or conversely, its calculated rationality, this book sheds light on the critical but hitherto neglected role played by the emotions of shame and disgust. Drawing on first-hand accounts of strategies employed by Sierra Leone's rebel commanders, it documents the manner in which rebel recruits were systematically brutalised and came to perform horrifying acts of cruelty as routine.In so doing, it offers fresh insight into the causes of extreme violence that holds relevance beyond Sierra Leone to the atrocities of contemporary civil wars.

HIV Exceptionalism: Development through Disease in Sierra Leone by Adia Benton

Adia Benton, HIVExceptionalism: Development through Disease in Sierra Leone. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015. 192 pp.Among many books written about HIV epidemic in Africa over past few decades, book-length anthropological studies remain a rarity. Adia Benton's new book, HIV Exceptionalism-Development through Disease in Sierra Leone, helps to fill that gap. Through fine-grained accounts describing how individuals navigated new structures, new relationships, and new expectations that came along with being beneficiaries of global HIV funding, Benton reveals jagged edges and uncomfortable truths about broader global-local health encounters. This book tells a compelling story about an entire society adapting to a sudden infusion of donor money for a disease that, in this particular context, barely existed.The book is about HIV in Sierra Leone, but issue of local responses to global health initiatives has relevance beyond HIV or any particular country context. What makes this particular disease in this particular country an interesting case for ethnographic study is fact that HIV rates here have been historically very low, both before and after 1991-2002 civil war, and yet country received a large infusion of foreign aid money specifically for HIV/AIDS prevention and care programs. HIV services were initially introduced on a pilot basis in 2004, and by 2007 Global Fund had secured enough funding to open a network of treatment centers that offered anti-AIDS treatment free of charge. By 2012, country had spent more than $12 million USD on HIV/AIDS services, and all while HIV prevalence rates remained essentially no different than pre-war figure of 1.5 percent. How did country and its war-ravaged health systems adapt to absorb those funds? How did people adjust their behavior to become models of positive living? How were hierarchies of power established between transnational donors, local health officials, NGOs, AIDS activists, and expert patients? What made HIV so exceptional in comparison to all other challenges confronting country at time? All these questions are explored in Benton's anthropological project to hold lived experience in focus while mapping networks, institutions, beliefs, and conceptions that emerged with flood of post-war HIV/AIDS money.Sierra Leone's civil war was winding down just as international HIV/ AIDS was revving up. With 2001 launch of PEPFAR program (President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief) by US President George W. Bush, a multi-billion dollar fund to address global HIV/AIDS epidemic became available. What some had called the AIDS industry roared into action at that time and search was on for worthy projects and countries to target for assistance. The newly launched PEPFAR program with its billions of dollars was actively searching for worthy projects and countries to target for HIV assistance. Expert consensus then was that war and HIV always conspired against affected populations and constituted a double emergency. When it was found that HIV prevalence in conflict-affected Sierra Leone was lower than anticipated, experts argued that normalization in post-conflict period would lead to increased HIV transmission. While this never happened, it did not stop international funders or Sierra Leonean officials from making a case to secure attractive emergency HIV/AIDS funds. And why not? With those funds, nearly $80 million allocated over a five-year period, came a wide-range of services-medical care, support groups, income generation projects, education, food supplements, and skills training, among others. All of these were welcomed in dire social and economic circumstances of postwar Sierra Leone. But HIV was, and remains, exceptional among diseases, and exceptionalism created what Benton refers to as an economy of suffering, whereby those who had AIDS could claim unique hardship in a context where daily suffering was norm. …

ECONOMIC RUNAWAYS: PATRONAGE, POVERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF ‘FREEDOM’ ON SIERRA LEONE'S MARITIME FRONTIER

ABSTRACTAs a result of the autopsy of Sierra Leone's civil war, we have become familiar with a rather dystopian vision of ‘traditional’ economic life in that region. Combatants often described their family villages as spaces where profound inequalities were hidden within households; where labour exploitation was woven through kinship relations. This article follows several young men who fled conditions of bonded labour in their rural homes: not to join the war but to seek a new life in the commercial fishing economy. Elsewhere across the postcolonial world, there is a rich ethnographic literature illustrating that people on the fringes of the global capitalist order respond with profound unease as their economic lives become ever more strongly regulated by impersonal market forces. Less often acknowledged is the possibility that, for some people, in some contexts, severing social relations might be exactly what they want, and that therein lies the greatest appeal of an economic life characterized by market transactions. For the young men described in this article, commercial fishing appeared to offer a level of personal ‘freedom’ unimaginable within the patron–client structures of village life. However, most find themselves drawn rapidly back into new forms of extractive relationships.

The TRC, the NGO and the child: young people and post-conflict futures in Sierra Leone

This article concerns post‐conflict interventions as technologies of future making, and their intersection with children as temporalised figures. Global concepts of childhood undergird a discourse of ‘lost childhoods’ as endangering both children and liberal time itself. After Sierra Leone's civil war, child protection agencies and its Truth and Reconciliation Commission sought to restore children ‘out of sequence’ to a presumed childhood origin and thereby re‐set the timeline of both children and nation. A politics of future‐making emerged in the unequal encounter through which children and post‐conflict interventions each sought to achieve a desired future through the other.

Sexual violence in Sierra Leone's civil war: 'Virgination', rape, and marriage

Rape and sexual violence loom large in the study of civil war in Africa. Sierra Leone has been one of the most prominent cases for establishing rape as a ‘weapon of war’, yet little is known about how sexual violence was understood by commanders or combatants within the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Mainstream analyses of armed groups and civil war rarely engage with gender dynamics, despite their centrality to war making, power, and violence; and research that does focus on sexual violence tends to overlook the complex internal dynamics of the groups responsible. This article examines the internal gender dynamics of the RUF from the perspective of male and female members in seeking to understand the perpetration of sexual violence. It shows that both formal and informal laws and power structures existed to regulate gender relations and control sexual behaviour within the group. It identifies four categories of women – non-wives, unprotected wives, protected wives, and senior women – and shows that women's interests and experiences of sexual violence were not homogeneous, but were instead shaped by their status within the group. In this way, sexual violence, examined in social context, provides an entry point for understanding how power, protection, and access to resources are brokered in rebellion.

Confronting Africa's Sobels

ABSTRACT: While the phenomenon described in this article may appear to be an African problem, the Western world's increasing involvement in fighting terrorists make it one that America's military forces might encounter. Unfortunately, it could add a significant layer of complexity to US operations as American troops attempt to differentiate allies from enemies. In Africa, sometimes they are one and the same. ********** Sobel, a portmanteau of soldier and rebel, appears to have been coined in Sierra Leone during the 1990s. This was a period marked in parts of West Africa by fighting over conflict diamonds, also known as blood diamonds, when government discovered how lucrative it could be to serve as soldiers by day, rebels by night or, as the villagers called them, sobels. On closer examination, it can be observed that the relationship between the of the Sierra Leonean Army and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the rebel group which during the country's civil war occupied large portions of diamond-rich land, changed over time, thus making the phenomenon more like the phenomena. Unfortunately, the presence of sobels is often an indication that a war is profitable for both rebels and soldiers, providing them with an incentive to lengthen the conflict to maximize their earnings. With neither side able to score a decisive win, both sides profit. Meanwhile, the rural population, essentially held hostage during the conflict, is often terrorized so as not to intervene. As an example, the RUF started not only to amputate people's hands, but to publicize such mutilations as a way of preventing people from casting ballots and putting a political end to unpolitical brutalities. Though Sierra Leone appears to be where the sobel neologism originated, variations of the soldier-by-day, rebel-by-night phenomenon can be found in many parts of Africa (and, indeed, in other parts of the world). By studying the phenomenon and its variations, it is possible to determine what factors influence government to join rebel forces, ways to dissuade them from joining, and, if they do join, possible ways to induce them to return permanently to government service. While the phenomenon described within these pages may appear to be an African problem, the Western world's increasing involvement in fighting terrorists on that continent make it one America's military forces might encounter. Unfortunately, it could add a significant layer of complexity to US operations as American troops attempt to differentiate allies from enemies. In Africa, sometimes they are one and the same. Background to Sobel: The Sierra Leone Civil War Sierra Leone's civil war started in 1991, when the RUF, led by Foday Sankoh, and backed by Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, launched an attack in a diamond-rich area in Eastern Sierra Leone. (1) Though ostensibly the RUF's raison d'etre was to oppose the corrupt government, it morphed more into a group of bandits and less a band of revolutionaries. As for Taylor, who later would become President of Liberia, his interests from the outset appear mostly financial. The war lasted eleven years, during which time both the RUF and the army were responsible for heinous atrocities against civilian populations. Estimates of the number killed range upwards of 50,000. (2) It took foreign intervention, in particular the country's former colonial power, the British, to help end the war. Atrocities as a Contributing Factor There were many factors which led to some of Sierra Leone's becoming sobels, including several socioeconomic ones discussed later. A significant driving force, however, was the civilian hatred of the army because of the atrocities the committed fighting the RUE The soldiers, when willing to hunt down the RUF--an inconsistent process as the army was sometimes afraid of direct combat with the rebels--often had difficulties locating their enemy. …

Modelling the impacts of civil war on land use and land cover change within Kono District, Sierra Leone: a socio-geospatial approach

Capturing the scope and trajectory of changes in land use and land cover (LULC) is critical to urban and regional planning, natural resource sustainability and the overall information needs of policy makers. Studies on LULC change are generally conducted within peaceful environments and seldom incorporate areas that are politically volatile. Consequently, the role of civil conflict on LULC change remains elusive. Using a dense time stack of Landsat Thematic Mapper images and a hybrid classification approach, this study analysed LULC changes in Kono District between 1986–1991, 1991–2002 and 2002–2007 with the overarching goal of elucidating deviations from typical changes in LULC caused by Sierra Leone's civil war (1991–2002). Informed by social survey and secondary data, this study engaged the drivers that facilitated LULC changes during war and non-war periods in a series of spatial regression models in exploring the interface between civil conflict and LULC change.

How International Courts Shape Domestic Justice: Lessons from Rwanda and Sierra Leone

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) were created to deliver accountability for the atrocities committed during Rwanda's genocide of 1994 and Sierra Leone's civil war of the 1990s. The capacity of these courts, however, like other international criminal tribunals, is limited in terms of the number of persons they can prosecute. If most perpetrators evade justice, the ability of international tribunals to deliver accountability may be seriously undermined. To mitigate this risk, national justice systems should deal with the perpetrators who are not addressed by international tribunals. When national systems do not do so (or fail to do so effectively), international tribunals are well placed to encourage (or improve) national atrocity-related judicial proceedings, thereby increasing their chances of delivering accountability.This article assesses empirically the impact of the ICTR and SCSL on national atrocity-related judicial proceedings in their target countries, thus contributing to an overall assessment of these tribunals. The article also compares the national impact of the ‘pure international’ ICTR to that of the ‘hybrid’ SCSL and tries to identify features that affect the national impact of an international tribunal. Understanding the interactions between international and national justice systems, and the features that affect the national impact of international tribunals, is particularly important given the shift to ‘positive complementarity’ at the International Criminal Court.

A Village-Up View of Sierra Leone's Civil War and Reconstruction

This article, based on the original report, 1 offers a ‘bottom‐up’ review of the post‐war reconstruction of the Sierra Leone state. The impact of the civil war on human security and governance in the rural areas was devastating, yet rural communities remained intact. The pre‐war (traditional) leadership structures continued informally to provide a degree of governance response. Despite the post‐war restoration of chieftaincy and its general popularity, elected district councils have been reintroduced. Also, most communities are now using the alternative dispute mechanisms created by donors, who have played a significant role in Security Sector Reform (SSR), democratisation and decentralisation. Although the police are much improved as a consequence, it would be a mistake to say that they are wholly transformed. The various reforms are incomplete and the institutional boundaries of the newly reconstructed multilayered governance system are unclear. Not enough attention has been paid to how governance at the ‘periphery’ is to be conducted.

Commonwealth Update

There was little progress in negotiations over the disputed ousting of former president Mohamed Nasheed in the Maldives. In a landmark ruling, the former Liberian president Charles Taylor was found guilty of aiding war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone's civil war. Malawi's vice-president Joyce Banda succeeded President Bingu wa Mutharika despite an apparent coup attempt by the brother and ministers of the late Mutharika. There were hopes of a ‘Malaysian spring’ as record numbers of protesters took to the streets. Pakistan's supreme court found the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, guilty of contempt of court. The kingdom of Barotseland declared it was seeking to secede peacefully from Zambia.

IDS Research Report Research Summary 75: A Village‐up View of Sierra Leone's Civil War and Reconstruction: Multilayered and Networked Governance

IDS Research Report Research Summary 75: A Village‐up View of Sierra Leone's Civil War and Reconstruction: Multilayered and Networked Governance

A Village‐Up View of Sierra Leone's Civil War and Reconstruction: Multilayered and Networked Governance

SummaryIn Sierra Leone, as in most of Africa, states have not only a direct relationship with their citizens as individuals but also a mediated one through rural governance systems that usually pre‐date colonialism and may have greater legitimacy than the central state itself. And these local governance structures generally persisted through the country's collapse and civil war more successfully than the central state did. This report therefore offers a ‘bottom‐up’ review of the post‐war reconstruction of the Sierra Leone state.I have conducted research on these and related questions throughout the country since 1996. For the present study I have supplemented this experience with a qualitative data set based on my own unstructured interviews during 2010–11 in 38 communities in 28 chiefdoms in eight of the 12 districts in the three rural provinces of the country.The impact of the civil war on human security and governance in the rural areas was devastating. Random killings, maiming and rape were widespread; food production as well as formal health and education services collapsed; and local chiefs and other representatives of the state were assassinated when they could be identified by the rebels.Despite (or perhaps because of) the devastating impact of the war on human security, rural communities remained intact. The pre‐war (traditional) leadership structures continued informally to provide whatever degree of governance response was possible. In the chiefdoms I visited, a third of the chiefs remained with their people (even if in hiding) throughout even the most difficult part of the civil war, and most of the rest fled only briefly. During the war chiefs made a major change to include youth and women in their governance practices and this more participatory approach to governance has persisted. Although a large number of chiefs died during the war period, their positions were easily refilled afterward.During the war most communities in the South and East created local Civil Defence Forces (CDF) to defend themselves. Chiefs retained at least some degree of direction over 71 per cent of the CDF forces in the areas I visited, with the consequence that only a third of these CDFs gave trouble to their communities. Because of the abuses that did occur, however, CDF leaders were not able to challenge chiefs for community leadership after the war. In only 19 per cent of our study communities was there any challenge to the return of the traditional chiefs at the end of the war.Despite the restoration of chieftaincy and its general popularity, there are three signs that the government was concerned about its lack of broad responsiveness before the war. First, elected district councils have been brought back. Second, chiefs also have to share their revenues with the Councils, which both find a major problem and source of tension. Third, the Native Administration (NA) courts also are in disarray. In the present day circumstance, most communities are now using the alternative dispute mechanisms created by donors as they are still afraid of the very high fines that the court chairmen used to levy. In addition the magistrates’ courts are more accessible and extended. The consequences of the three changes are that the post‐war chiefs seem to be more moral leaders than authoritative decision‐makers and are much more responsive to their communities.From the perspective of multi‐levelled governance not only was NA changed by the war, but the role of international donors increased significantly as well. Donor impact was notable on Security Sector Reform (SSR), democratisation, decentralisation, and women's rights. And there were many large‐scale international activities for humanitarian relief and development. Nonetheless, these initiatives have strengthened, not threatened, the legitimacy of the state because the army, police and health services have improved and as local citizens do not know how to access the donors directly they tend to credit their activities to various government actors.The consequences of SSR are that the SL Police are much improved coming out of the war. But unlike the SL Army it would be a mistake to say that they have been wholly transformed. Also their presence is still thin. The SLP was still absent or barely present in 29 per cent of the areas I visited. The old ‘tribal police’ are needed but unpaid.The various reforms that have come in the wake of the civil war are incomplete and the institutional boundaries of the newly reconstructed multilayered governance system are unclear. The result is that most of the component parts – chiefs, district councils, native administration and magistrates’ courts, SL and NA Police, are not functioning as well as they might. Not enough attention has been paid to how governance at the ‘periphery’ is to be conducted.

The generational contract in flux: intergenerational tensions in post-conflict Sierra Leone

ABSTRACTIntergenerational solidarity and reciprocity are fundamental building blocks of any society. Simultaneously, socio-generational groups constantly struggle for influence and authority. In Africa, disproportionately male, gerontocratic and patrimonial systems governing economic, social and political life lend a special explosiveness to the social cleavage of generation. This paper draws on the concept of the generational contract to explore whether Sierra Leone's civil war – labelled a ‘revolt of youth’ – catalysed changes in the power asymmetries between age groups. I argue that youth question fundamental norms of intergenerational relations, and challenge local governance structures demanding changes to the generational contract. Amidst a strong continuity of gerontocratic dominance and counter-strategies from elders, youth draw on organisational forms and a local human rights discourse to create spaces for contestation and negotiation. These openings hold potential for long-term rearrangements of societal relations.

Global Governance, Therapeutic Intervention, and War-Affected Girls

The victimization of girls in armed conflict has garnered increased attention, yet recent scholarship shows that postconflict measures fail to meet girls' unique needs. This article examines gendered discourses employed in programming designed to assist girls following Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war, drawing on fieldwork conducted as part of a continuing program of study on peacebuilding in Sierra Leone. Specifically, the article presents a case study examining discourse relating to war-affected girls in one Freetown-based NGO, Connecting for Peace, which delivered programming to boys and girls affected by the war.

Who Fights? The Determinants of Participation in Civil War

A range of seemingly rival theories attempt to explain why some individuals take extraordinary risks by choosing to participate in armed conflict. To date, however, competing accounts have typically not been grounded in systematic, empirical studies of the determinants of participation. In this article, we begin to fill this gap through an examination of the determinants of participation in insurgent and counterinsurgent factions in Sierra Leone's civil war. We find some support for all of the competing theories, suggesting that the rivalry between them is artificial and that theoretical work has insufficiently explored the interaction of various recruitment strategies. At the same time, the empirical results challenge standard interpretations of grievance‐based accounts of participation, as poverty, a lack of access to education, and political alienation predict participation in both rebellion and counterrebellion. Factors that are traditionally seen as indicators of grievance or frustration may instead proxy a for more general susceptibility to engage in violent action or a greater vulnerability to political manipulation by elites.

Have international agency programmes been able to empower youth in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone: a case study of GTZ-international services

As combatants and victims of Sierra Leone's ten-year civil war, young people are the target of youth empowerment policies as a means of mitigating their adverse experiences and their long-term marginalisation. International agencies have spearheaded peace-building and development initiatives. A case study of Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit-International Services (GTZ-IS) shows that although they have mode good progress in supporting young people's economic empowerment, agencies have been less successful in promoting social and political empowerment. To promote the last-mentioned two objectives, better sequencing, greater knowledge about youth needs and a willingness to engage with controversial issues are required.