Social Science Research Council

In March 2001, the Africa Program initiated a program on Understanding Exclusion, Creating Value: African Youth in a Global Age. Building on a RAP-sponsored conference held in Cape Town, South Africa in July 1999, the fellowship program included workshops for junior African scholars and American PhD candidates, as well as small research grants to enable them to study youth issues. The program was implemented in partnership with the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA), based in Dakar, Senegal, and South Africa's National Research Foundation (NRF).

Funding for this program was provided by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), and Education for Democracy and Development Initiative (EDDI). Supplementary support for South African participants was provided by the NRF.

The broadest goal of the program was to contribute to the development of a new generation of internationally-networked scholars who will articulate fresh understandings of African youth through research, teaching, activism and policy engagement. The African Youth and Globalization initiative was linked to a broader set of SSRC activities related to youth, including a research partnership on Children and Armed Conflict with the UN Office of the Special Representative to the Secretary General on Children and Armed Conflict, and the SSRC's Collaborative Research Network on Youth and Globalization.

The program sponspored three years of fellowships. The program is no longer accepting fellowship applications.