NEXT STUDY GROUP MEETING: WEDNESDAY 22 APRIL

At our next meeting, we look forward to a presentation by Dr Najam Abbas on Youth Empowerment in Central Asia: Deciphering the Data from Tajikistan.

Abstract: Many publications coming out of the non-governmental sector convey a feel good effect regarding the number of NGOs established in Central Asian countries and contributions made to uplift the status of youth in those countries. All this is desirable and merits much encouragement. In terms of NGOs established so far, admirable achievement has been made. Instead of celebrating that as an end, efforts need to ponder over the sustainability of the process by developing criteria that can allow an expansion to youth’s ability to have choices, exercise and benefit from the outcome of their choices.

Moreover, there is a need to determine how the emerging trends will impact the growing generation in Central Asia both in short and long term perspective: The sections of the economy are growing disproportionately and are insufficient to generate enough jobs on their own. A steady rise in labour force with an uneven and unsteady rise in job opportunities is bringing social pressures and economic hardships. Many young men leaving their villages in such big numbers that it will alter demographic and social balance in the long run. No doubt organizations and individuals involved in fostering civic developments face competing demands and pressures on their work. They constantly need to make difficult decisions, weigh trade-offs, and define and pursue their interests.

Those who take academic and professional interest in contributing towards empowerment of Central Asian youth need to suggest measures to safeguard and strengthen vital pre-requisites of empowerment such as representation, ownership, decision making power, ensuring voice and weight to the young men and women in the coming years through building gender capacities and facilitating youth's contribution to the civil society.

About the Speaker:
Dr. Najam Abbas is a Research Fellow, Central Asian Studies at The Institute of Ismaili Studies. Based on hundreds of interviews conducted during extensive fieldwork between 2003 and 2007, he produced three studies covering a broad range of social development issues: (1) Prospects of and Perils to Civil Society in Central Asia, (2) Conditions Contributing/Contravening Social Capital Creation in Mountainous Tajikistan and (3) Value Perceptions, Academic Preferences & Career Choices of Youth in Mountainous Central Asia.

Nine years of constant stay in Central Asia (1993-2002) for education and work helped Dr. Najam Abbas learn about that complex region from within. In 1998, he completed his PhD from Tajik National University, based on his post-graduate research on Kazakhstan’s Post-Independence Press at the Kazakh State University in Almaty (1994-97). Between 1998 and 2002, Dr. Abbas has been involved with international initiatives aimed to contribute towards increased human development capacity building opportunities to mountainous Central Asian settings.

The inaugural meeting of the Central Asia Study Group was held 18 February 2009. The Group is intended as an inter-institutional, multi-disciplinary, collaborative group for academics, researchers, students, and others with an interest in Central Asia, and will be hosted by the Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations, London. The Group will look at a range of issues related to social and cultural transformations in this region.

The Study Group will seek to approach aspects of social and cultural life in Central Asia by exploring mechanisms of peoples’ empowerment in these societies. With this as the general focus, participants will be invited to contribute from their own discipline and research to explore this concept.

The Group will avoid concentrating on areas which are usually the focus of attention, such as security or purely economic or resource related issues. Contributions are welcomed from any level of research and analysis – ranging from local to transnational to global perspectives, and relating to any of the regions within and close to Central Asia, as relevant to discussions on change and empowerment in Central Asia. The Study Group intends to maintain a flexible, inclusive and non-partisan approach and to work in a way that avoids ‘essentialising’ Central Asia as a region.

The Group will meet once a month, with members or invited guests presenting at each meeting. Information about the speaker’s topic will be provided on this blog, with the aim of facilitating discussion and the creation of a body of scholarly information relating to Central Asia within the conceptual framework of empowerment on the internet.

If you would like to participate in the Study Group session, please register your interest with Professor Modjtaba Sadria, coordinator of the Study Group, modjtaba.sadria@aku.edu.