Power2Youth explored the root causes and complex dynamics of youth exclusion in the South-East Mediterranean region and investigated the factors fostering youth inclusion by combining the economic, political and socio-cultural spheres and a macro (policy/institutional), meso (organizational) and micro (individual) level analysis.
Building on a conceptualization of youth that gives prominence to youth as potential agents of change, the project started out from the assumption that youth exclusion is the result of unequal power relations in society, in as much as effective youth inclusion can only be fostered by a bottom-up process of transformation of the systemic inequalities that lead to exclusion in the first place. From this premise came the project’s emphasis on the study of the potentially transformative impact of individual and collective youth agency searching for instances of empowerment leading to active youth participation in society and overall change.

Lebanon's Case Study

As the PI of Lebanon, Mona Harb contributed to work on the institutional/policy, organizational, and individual factors of exclusion and inclusion of youth. Three working papers were produced:

 

In addition, two journal articles were published:


A short essay was also published on the theme by the University of Amsterdam’s Center for Urban Studies blog, University of Amsterdam, entitled “Urban Activism in Oligarchies and Opportunities for Political Change: Beirut as Case Study.

POWER2YOUTH was funded under the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme (2014-17) to (1) explore the root causes and complex dynamics of youth exclusion and inclusion in the labour market and civic/political life; (2) investigate the potentially transformative effect of youth agency and (3) develop progressive and youth-informed policy guidelines for national and supranational policy-makers. The project engaged 13 partner institutions from Europe and the South-East Mediterranean region, including 6 case study countries (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Occupied Palestinian Territories and Turkey), where original qualitative and quantitative data was collected from a range of sources (e.g. public statistics, public documents and academic studies, focus groups and interviews with young people and youth-based CSOs, and large-scale nation-wide surveys including a total of 7,573 young people between the ages of 15 and 29).Thumbnail image: Protesters take down and cross a fence blocking access to Dalieh El Raoucheh in Beirut (Photo: Habib Battah/The Beirut Report, 2015)