Arab youth in GCC say their ‘voice’ matters, while those outside think otherwise

More than three-quarters (78 percent) of Arab youth in the GCC states say they agree that their voice matters to their leadership while a full 87 percent say their government has the right policies to address their most important concerns.

On the other hand, nearly two-thirds of Arab youth outside the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries lack confidence in their government’s ability to tackle their most pressing concerns such as unemployment, corruption, and rising living costs.

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More than half (54 percent) of the total respondents also felt their voice did not matter to their country’s leadership. This is a significant drop of 19 percentage points over 2022 in the number of young Arabs who said their voice matters to their leadership. This feeling of estrangement, primarily driven by young people in North Africa and Levant, is also the most pronounced in five years.

These are some of the key findings of the landmark 15th annual ASDA’A BCW Arab Youth Survey, the most comprehensive study of its kind of the Arab world’s largest demographic, its over 200 million youth, by ASDA’A BCW, a leading communications consultancy in the MENA region.

Six themes

This year, the survey’s findings are being released under six themes, with the first, ‘My Global Citizenship’ announced in June.

On Tuesday, ASDA’A BCW published key insights under the second and third themes: ‘My Politics’ and ‘My Livelihood,’ which highlighted a stark contrast in the outlook of young men and women in the Arabian Gulf and those in North Africa and Levant.

Arab youth across the sample identified unemployment, government corruption, rising living costs, economic instability and climate change among the top concerns facing them and the region. GCC youth expressed strong confidence in their government to address all these issues.

Nearly all (98 percent) young Emiratis said they were confident of their government’s ability to address unemployment. Youth had a similarly positive outlook in Saudi Arabia (70 percent), Oman (67 percent), Kuwait (64 percent) and Bahrain (61 percent).
Unsurprisingly, only 20 percent of GCC youth said it would be difficult to find a job in their country.

Young men and women in the GCC also expressed confidence in their government to address corruption. This was the view of 97 percent of youth in the UAE, 84 percent in Oman, 82 percent in Bahrain, 69 percen in Saudi Arabia and 56 percent in Kuwait.

Similarly, 98 percent of Emirati youth said they were confident that their government could manage the rising cost of living, compared with 66 percent of young Arabs in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, 64 percent in Oman, and 57 percent in Kuwait. Only 15 percent of GCC youth said they struggled to pay their expenses in full, though 16 percent said they were in debt, with student loans (25 percent), car loans (15 percent), marriage loans (11 percent) and excessive shopping (9 percent) cited as the main reasons.

All Emirati youth polled said they were confident that their government could ensure economic stability; high levels of confidence on economic management were also found in Saudi Arabia (82 percent), Oman and Kuwait (73 percent each) and Bahrain (67 percent). More than half (52 percent) of GCC youth also said there was no government corruption in their country, although 44 percent said there was ‘some’ corruption.

Youth in the GCC also trust their government to take action on climate change, with 97 percent of Emirati youth, 75 percent of young Saudis, 80 percent in Oman, 77 percent in Bahrain and 66 percent in Kuwait expressing confidence in the climate policies of their leaders. This positivity reflects widespread optimism about the future, with 83 percent of GCC youth saying their country was going in the right direction.

Governments in North Africa, Levant unresponsive

A contrasting picture emerges from North Africa and the Levant countries. Only a third of youth surveyed in these regions said their voice mattered to their leadership, while 63 percent in North Africa and 66 percent in Levant said their governments did not have the right policies to address their most important concerns.

Nearly two-thirds (61 percent) of youth in North Africa and about three-quarters (71 percent) of Levantine youth said their country was going in the wrong direction. Just four in ten (38 percent) young Arabs in North Africa were confident that their government could address unemployment, while in Levant, which has among the world’s highest levels of youth unemployment, only a third (32 percent) said their government was able to address the issue.

More than half of youth in Levant (57 percent) and North Africa (50 percent) said it was difficult to find a job in their country.

While a significant 41 percent of youth in North Africa said they were confident their government could deliver economic stability, less than a third (31 percent) of youth in the Levant said the same.

They were similarly downbeat on the ability of their government to tackle inflation, with 41 percent of North African youth and a third (33 percent) in Levant saying they didn’t trust their leaders to manage rising living costs. And nearly half of the study sample in both regions said they struggled to pay their expenses in full, with a quarter (27 percent) of youth in Levant and 19 percent in North Africa admitting they were in debt – student loans, medical bills, credit card bills and car loans were mostly responsible.

On climate change, 46 percent of youth in North Africa and 39 percent of their peers in the Levant said they were confident their government could address the issue. When it comes to eradicating corruption, 40 percent of North African youth and 28 percent of young people in Levant said they had faith in their government.

However, graft is widely acknowledged by Arab youth to be a concern in the region, with a third (33 percent) of the total respondents to the survey saying there was ‘widespread government corruption’ in their country. This sentiment is particularly strong in North Africa (87 percent) and Levant (89 percent).

GCC govts understand ‘the pulse of their youth’

“What stands out in this year’s survey is the fact that, once again, young GCC citizens are poles apart from their fellow Arabs in North Africa and the Levant,” said Sunil John, President, MENA, BCW and Founder of ASDA’A BCW based in Dubai.

“It is no small matter that the GCC nations are economically stronger, oil-producing nations, while the countries in North Africa and Levant – in particular, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestinian Territories, Syria, Sudan and Yemen – are conflict-ridden and only recovering from long years of a ravaging war.”

John said that the spirit of youth optimism emerging from the GCC states showed that realizing such a future was possible. “The fact that three-quarters of GCC youth believe their voice matters to their leadership, compared to barely a third in North Africa and Levant is telling. It shows that GCC governments understand the pulse of their youth.”

Modus operandi

The interviews for the Survey was to conducted face-to-face with 3,600 Arab citizens aged 18 to 24 in their home nations from March 27 to April 12, 2023. The largest sample in the survey’s history was equally divided between men and women in 53 cities across a total of 18 Arab states, including for the first time South Sudan.

According to ASDA’A BCW which commissioned SixthFactor Consulting, a leading research company, for the Survey, the interviews were conducted in person rather than online to maximise accuracy and to reflect the nuances of Arab youth opinion across the region as much as possible.

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