Between Promise and Delivery: The Functional and Technical Construction of Youth Empowerment and Violent Extremism Prevention Policy in Cameroon

Abstract

Cameroon has invested significantly in the formal architecture of youth empowerment and prevention of violent extremism (PVE) policy, by constructing ministries, adopting national strategies, launching programme initiatives and establishing delivery mechanisms designed and intended to turn its policy commitments on youth empowerment and the Prevention of Violent extremism into practical outcomes for young people. However, despite these efforts, the country has continued to face a prolonged Boko Haram and ISWAP insurgency in the Far North Region and an ongoing armed conflict in the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest region of Cameroon. raising important questions about the effectiveness of these policy interventions. The gap between what this policy architecture promises and what it actually delivers remains vast and deeply profound. Drawing on a social constructionist analytical framework and the cognitive policy analysis of Muller and Surel, this article examines the functional and technical dimension of Cameroon's youth empowerment and PVE policy that is its instrumental features (the specific programmes, intervention models, and tools through which the policy is operationally delivered) and its procedural features (the budget allocation systems, programme design procedures, and monitoring and evaluation arrangements through which those tools are governed and administered). The analysis demonstrates that the policy instruments are disproportionately directed towards communities and young people who are more accessible, rather than those experiencing the greatest levels of vulnerability and need. It further reveals that the procedures governing policy implementation are constrained by persistent underfunding, highly centralised decision-making, superficial forms of participation, and accountability systems that prioritise programme outputs over meaningful outcomes. Collectively, these weaknesses have produced an implementation framework that is insufficient to address the magnitude and complexity of the youth empowerment and violent extremism challenges in Cameroon. The article concludes by proposing practical recommendations aimed at strengthening the instrumental and procedural dimensions of the policy in order to achieve more effective youth empowerment and sustainable prevention of violent extremism in Cameroon.