Youth and Rites of Passage in Sierra Leone: An Evaluation of UNESCO Foresight’s Local Scoping Exercise

Anticipation and Foresight is an emerging field within UNESCO, contributing to UNESCO’s mission of achieving sustainable development throughout the world in the form of Local Scoping Exercise (LSE) workshops. LSEs are workshops customized to fit local needs and culture that allow participants to project and prepare for the future. The Capstone team was involved in the first West African LSE in Freetown, Sierra Leone, which focused on the issues of youth empowerment and rites of passage. With roughly 60 percent of the Sierra Leonean population aged 15 to 35 unemployed, providing youth with the tools to craft a fulfilling future is a high priority for both the local government and UNESCO. The team conducted a formal process evaluation, consisting of analyses and observations of the LSE’s design, training, and implementation, and developed recommendations to ensure the effectiveness of future LSEs.