Youth is more and more often emphasized in development policies that highlight this specific target group as essential to achieving a broad range of development objectives. This tendency has been termed a “global turn to youth” and is by some researchers understood to be driven by the promotion of neoliberal agendas.
The present thesis sets out to examine whether, and if so how, this global tendency of mobilizing youth in development underpinned by neoliberal logics takes place in national development policies. Through an exploratory case study of Denmark’s official development cooperation with the Middle East and North Africa, the Danish Arab Partnership Programme (DAPP), it is analyzed how youth is represented in that context. This is done by engaging in a What’s the Problem Represented to be-analysis of the DAPP 2022-2027 strategic framework. The analysis draws on the theories of representations, generationing, intersectionality, and New Political Economy of Youth.