Joel E. Schlesinger is the Vice President and Director of Creative’s Education, Mobilization and Communication division. In the 1990s, Schlesinger, as USAID’s Mission Director to Mali under Administrator J. Brian Atwood, led one of eleven missions that became the Clinton Administration’s “re-engineering laboratories.” “It was a time of opening doors and asking ourselves (Agency staff) how we could have a greater impact with greater efficiency,” said Schlesinger. And open doors he did, blanketing the country and talking to Malians from all walks of life. He gave his staff an injunction to be creative– develop new ideas. Schlesinger recalls how Sarah Margolis, a trained demographer working for USAID/Mali in health, drew attention to what she called Mali’s “youth bulge,” a phrase and concept that has become a critical challenge of our times.
Q. You were USAID’s Mali mission director in the 1990s, at a point where the Agency’s focus of priorities was changing to ‘investing in people’ – can you talk about this period and how the idea of what we now know as the “youth bulge” developed?
Basically, the idea of re-engineering was to take a fresh look at what we (USAID) do, how we’re organized, staff roles and responsibilities. The object was to achieve the largest impact and to involve local stakeholders. At the time, there was no cookie cutter for this initiative – no one size fits all.
In Mali, the staff was receptive to this new directive. But it was a massive undertaking and we all had very little time. So, I recruited a trainer who was very good at team building and in him we found someone who could lead the process, especially since the office staff was located in four different buildings around Bamako. So that we could meet together, the staff, which numbered about 125, met under a huge mango tree outside. At first, their ideas centered on economics and social development; ideas which were not very creative or new. But, one sultry hot day, one fellow, a Malian, said ‘how about more Mali and less aid.’ He was basically saying we see a time when we (Malians) can stand on our own without the need of aid. It was a vision; it was inspirational and it touched all there. At the time of this re-engineering the Country Assistance Strategy was largely determined by senior staff at the Agency and was not stakeholder driven. In our case, I said before we develop a strategy ‘let’s talk to Malians.’ So, we blanketed the country speaking to villagers and anyone who would have a stake in the Strategy. It was truly a participatory process and true to Malians. During those nine months we sat under many a big trees consulting with local stakeholders. We wanted to see what people wanted to do and see if it made any sense.
Within the context of re-engineering, the Education & Health office was thinking of ways to approach programming that would not be the traditional non-integrated stovepipe programs. One day, the team asked me to come over as they were in a different building. At first they were apologetic; then, they said Mali’s problem is that there is a “youth bulge.” Up to then, youth had never really been looked at as a demographic group. They said it’s a big problem and that youth have little opportunity. In fact, two years earlier the country’s dictator had been toppled by students. These youth were not going anywhere, every year they did not finish school because of strikes. The idea was how to give them hope and a stake in society. In that context, Sarah Margolis, a demographer on staff, came up with the “youth bulge” idea because she saw the world in terms of groups and cohorts. So, the team recommended a program that was not strictly health or education but had an integrated approach. I loved it. It was a great idea. They said we need to work with youth and find out what they need. We weren’t changing the technical areas of USAID, but changing the way we look at things.
We brought the idea of a youth strategy to Washington. At that time, the Agency was dominated by technical officers, we encountered tremendous resistance. During meetings everyone from the technical areas said, ‘we don’t like this.’ We got blasted. It was new idea and AID was organized a certain way.
Returning to Africa, the head of the Africa region came to see me, John Hicks and a chief economist, Jerry Hogan – they were real power players who put a lot of weight on data and statistics whereas our strategy was based on gut feeling and qualitative analyses. Yet, Hicks told us the strategy had been approved by everyone in Mali. I had already presented our strategy to the Prime Minister and Secretary General of Mali and they loved what we had come up with. They loved the youth focus and said that was what was missing and that it was getting harder to control youth by traditional methods. The Agency acquiesced.
One to two years later, the head of the Uganda mission started a strategic objective on youth. The idea stayed and missions began developing and investigating how to find ways to work with youth specifically under the different Agency technical areas.
Q. What do you see as challenges and opportunities in international development when engaging youth?
I would echo what the Minister of Liberia said at the 2010 SID annual conference. He said there have been changes, there is greater civil society, women’s place in society has become more substantial, but also that there is a youth bulge. The youth are no longer content not to be heard. And, they must be heard; otherwise, we will have a lot to answer for, that is the challenge of our time.
And the problem is here in the United States also. Nationally, only 70 to 80 percent of students graduate high school and that leaves out a good 20 percent. Now, with all of technology and communications available these youth have fantastic expectations. And how do we respond to them and to their cohorts around the world? It brings us back full circle to education. The real urgency is youth and education — writ broadly – formal and informal and how to use it and put value on it.
You know the root meaning of the word change is to become. I use the word (change) in a gentler, more positive way, I see it as helping young people ‘to become’ either with formal or informal education, but ‘to become’ in order to be more responsive.
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