TY - CHAP
T1 - The Political Economy of Contemporary Youth in Cameroon
AU - Eloundou-Enyegue, Parfait
AU - Giroux, Sarah C.
AU - Tenikue, Michel
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Oxford University Press 2022. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023/1/1
Y1 - 2023/1/1
N2 - This paper is a conjecture on Cameroon's socioeconomic prospects and trajectory between now (2020) and the mid-point of this century. Gazing into the future is a necessary chore. Any scientist venturing outside the Ivory tower will invariably be invited to join policy efforts to plan the future or, at least, to debate possible scenarios and steer societies away from the least desirable outcomes. While these policy efforts initially sought to plan national growth, they have expanded in scale and scope with new international compacts to advance sustainable development worldwide. Today, African nations must prepare their national development alongside a panoply of goals from the United Nations' SDG and the Africa Union's 2063 agendas. This paper is at once a case study of Cameroon's political economy, a substantive hypothesis, and a methodological tool for forecasting the future of African societies in a context of educational expansion, demographic transition, and economic divergence. Its central thesis is that Cameroon has a real opportunity to turn its current generation of youth into its greatest. Seizing this potential depends on strategic efforts to cultivate and empower this generation along economic, demographic, social, and political spheres.
AB - This paper is a conjecture on Cameroon's socioeconomic prospects and trajectory between now (2020) and the mid-point of this century. Gazing into the future is a necessary chore. Any scientist venturing outside the Ivory tower will invariably be invited to join policy efforts to plan the future or, at least, to debate possible scenarios and steer societies away from the least desirable outcomes. While these policy efforts initially sought to plan national growth, they have expanded in scale and scope with new international compacts to advance sustainable development worldwide. Today, African nations must prepare their national development alongside a panoply of goals from the United Nations' SDG and the Africa Union's 2063 agendas. This paper is at once a case study of Cameroon's political economy, a substantive hypothesis, and a methodological tool for forecasting the future of African societies in a context of educational expansion, demographic transition, and economic divergence. Its central thesis is that Cameroon has a real opportunity to turn its current generation of youth into its greatest. Seizing this potential depends on strategic efforts to cultivate and empower this generation along economic, demographic, social, and political spheres.
KW - asymmetric urbanization
KW - Cameroon
KW - demographic dividend
KW - emergent youth bulge
KW - The political economy of youth
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85153644894&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/c545da44-6d0e-3957-8179-ba679932650b/
U2 - 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192848529.013.5
DO - 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192848529.013.5
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85153644894
SN - 9780192848529
T3 - Oxford Handbooks
SP - 283
EP - 300
BT - The Oxford Handbook of the Economy of Cameroon
A2 - Monga, Célestin
PB - Oxford University Press
ER -