Positive Youth Development in Senegal: A Case Study of 4-H Senegal

African youth face great challenges and great opportunities. Positive youth development (PYD) programs have the potential to support youth in Africa to reach their full potential. Yet PYD approaches must be tailored if they are to be contextually and culturally responsive and relevant. The purpose of this paper is to provide an evidence-informed description of one such program, the 4-H Senegal PYD program. We first provide a conceptual background for the program, informed especially by the literature on global and cross-cultural PYD. We then share empirical results of a qualitative case study focused on the establishment, scale-up, and institutionalization of the 4-H Senegal program. Our case study results elucidate culturally responsive PYD program adaptations that corroborate conceptual framings of crossJournal of Youth Development | http://jyd.pitt.edu/ | Vol. 16 Issue 2-3 DOI 10.5195/jyd.2021.1054 Positive Youth Development in Senegal 345 cultural PYD work while also pointing the way towards promising practice recommendations. We hope this conceptual and empirical summary of the 4-H Senegal program can contribute to the field by informing practice and guiding other innovative efforts to adapt PYD models and approaches across contextual and cultural bounds.

This socially-mediated, participatory nature of learning in PYD eschews the dominant discourse that "makes us think about the human mind as a container to be filled with certain materials and about the learner as becoming an owner of these materials" (Sfard, 1998, p. 5). This is the "banking concept" of education against which Freire positioned his pedagogy of "conscientization" (1970). In PYD, "youth are fully engaged participants, not just recipients" (Hamilton et al., 2004, p. 4). Especially in light of the many internal and external developmental assets that youth have, this Freirean, strengths-based, engaged pedagogy provides a wealth of resources that PYD can draw on to bolster youth success more intentionally.

Positive Youth Development in Global Contexts
As mentioned above, there are relatively few institutional supports to facilitate PYD for African youth. The dearth of PYD programming in Africa is problematic for both ethical and instrumental reasons. First, for ethical reasons, it is incumbent on development practitioners to facilitate dignified, sustainable livelihoods for youth everywhere, because everyone should have the right to not only meet their basic needs, but also to realize their fullest human potential.
Second, for instrumental reasons, youth represent a significant leverage point; small positive changes youth effect now, when shared, multiplied, and exponentially applied over a generation, may be the most effective way to foster sustainable international development. Also from this instrumental perspective, especially considering global crises such as climate change (Sanson et al., 2018), there is a need to weigh the implicit opportunity cost of not interveninglarge populations of young people in the global South, if not supported and empowered via PYD programs to mitigate and adapt, risk experiencing disastrous outcomes, which in turn will exponentially exacerbate the toll of those crises.
Furthermore, when addressing PYD in Africa and elsewhere, the need remains to critically reflect on the cultural appropriateness of concepts, programs, practices, and policies exported from the global North. As Hutchinson pointed out, "Conventional Western pathways for researching young people have been guided by colonizing methodological and epistemological maps" (2002, p. 55). Nsamenang decried the Eurocentricity of adolescent psychology: "Western social scientists, for example, have demonstrated remarkable ethnocentrism and have, with few recent exceptions, presented their findings as relevant to the human race" (2002, p. 61). In response, he offered an ecocultural theory of social ontogenesis rooted in a West African paradigm, which "posits the growth of social selfhood through a series of phases, each characterized by a distinctive developmental task, defined within the framework of the culture's primarily socioaffective, developmental agenda" (Nsamenang, 2015, p. 841).
Nuanced conceptualizations of constructs such as "youth" are important, since "youth assumes its meanings culturally and relationally rather than chronologically" (Hansen, 2008, p. 8). In Kenya for example, "Key productive assets are usually handed over only after marriage so defining youth by age becomes almost irrelevant" (Waldie & Mulhall, 2002). To explain this phenomenon, Durham "combined the idea that youth is relational with the insight that invoking youth is a political, or pragmatic, act, to suggest that youth be treated as a social shifter" (2004, p. 589). That is, a term like "youth" indicates something that exists in the world independent of any particular use, yet also something that can only be understood when situated in context. The United Nations agrees, stating that youth "essentially represents the period of transition between childhood and adulthood, the nature and length of which vary from one individual or society to another" (United Nations, 2007, p. xxxvi). In the context of this paper, we consider youth as a life phase that overlaps with both childhood and adulthood, mediated by cultural influences and consisting of a plurality of developmental spheres, including cognitive, physical, social, and emotional (Eccles & Gootman, 2002;Nsamenang, 2015).
In recent years, questions of cross-cultural and global PYD have been taken up with increasing frequency in the literature, including in books (Dimitrova, 2017;Petersen et al., 2016), special journal sections (Leman et al., 2017;Wiium & Dimitrova, 2019), and methodologically-focused literature (Catalano et al., 2019;Drescher et al., 2018;Lerner et al., 2019;Scales et al., 2017;Tirrell et al. 2019). It is against this backdrop that the program presented in this case study-4-H Senegal-was created and assessed.

Methods
In the remainder of this paper, we provide an evidence-informed description of 4-H Senegal, based on a qualitative case study of the establishment, scale-up, and institutionalization of the program. In particular, the study focused on contextual and cultural adaptations, informed by the theoretical literature reviewed above. This study is an example of what Stake (1995) called an intrinsic case study, due to our interest in understanding this particular case, even as we aspire to draw instrumental generalizable claims about broader phenomena (e.g., the practices of cross-cultural PYD adaptation). The goal of this case study is to accurately describe the program, using a variety of data sources and interpretive lenses, focusing especially on the question: What does the 4-H Senegal experience teach us about cultural adaptation of PYD models? We hope this program case study contributes to the field by informing practice and guiding other efforts to adapt PYD models and approaches across contexts and cultures.

Data Sources
To obtain data on the 4-H Senegal case, we used document review, participant observation, a survey, and illustrative success case stories informed by the Success Case Method (Brinkerhoff, 2003) and the positive deviance approach (Zeitlin et al., 1990). The document review and participant observation were the primary source material for the detailed program description found in the next section. Documents included the project proposal, quarterly and annual reports, relevant USAID policy and programmatic guidance documents, and related notes and reports. All authors of this paper have a role in implementing the program, so participant observation consisted of active engagement in trainings, meetings, and other program activities, recorded via meeting and observational notes. The survey, which is brief and predominantly qualitative, was sent electronically via Qualtrics to all adult 4-H trainers and leaders (n = 394). The illustrative success case stories were gathered using an electronic form sent to a purposive sample of leaders of clubs known to be performing well.
As an interpretive intrinsic case study, our approach to maintaining quality of data and conclusions is guided by the qualitative notion of trustworthiness (Lincoln & Guba, 1986;Stake, 1995), which we implemented by drawing on multiple data sources and perspectives to seek triangulation and consensus. This study was reviewed by the Virginia Tech Human Research Protection Program (IRB #20-771) and determined to not be human subjects research as defined by Health and Human Services and Food and Drug Administration regulations.

Description of the Program
In the United States, 4-H is the youth development program of the national Cooperative Extension Service, supported in part by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through funding to the nation's land-grant universities; it has existed for over 100 years and, as the nation's largest youth development organization, serves over 6 million youth (Arnold & Gagnon, 2020;4-H, n.d.). 4-H in the United States emphasizes life skills, the essential elements (of belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity), caring adult relationships, and experiential and hands-on learning (Arnold & Silliman, 2017). In Senegal, the national economic development plan is presented in the Plan Senegal Emergent (PSE; 2014), which also informs USAID/Senegal's Country Development Cooperation Strategy.

4-H Senegal is a PYD program established in
The first sentence of the PSE refers to the demographic context of Senegal: "Senegal is experiencing a strong momentum of population growth, while the supply of social services and the opportunities for integration into the labor market are very limited, particularly for the young population" (PSE, 2014, p. 1). The PSE reiterates the notion of youth as threat and opportunity: "The problem of training and employment is an acute one for the youth, but it is also a window of opportunity in terms of demographic dividends to support development efforts" (PSE, p. 8).
The USAID/Senegal economic growth strategic plan synthesizes these guiding documents, also USAID defines PYD as development that "engages youth along with their families, communities and/or governments so that youth are empowered to reach their full potential. PYD approaches build skills, assets and competencies; foster healthy relationships; strengthen the environment; and transform systems" (Hinson et al., 2016;McCabe, 2017). These guiding documents-along The training helped leaders and partners gain knowledge about PYD, life skills, and the 4-H model, emphasizing the importance of belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity (Kress, 2004). Participants also created lesson plans. Following the training, the leaders (two Trained volunteers (e.g., primary and secondary school teachers, local NGO staff, grassroots community leaders, etc.) lead the local implementation at the club level, with backstopping from project staff and AETR faculty. Volunteer adult leaders create and run clubs, with youth ranging in age from 8 to 29, with a ratio of one adult leader to 15 youth. Club membership is voluntary; youth are informed about the opportunity and then decide to join or not. The program has developed an inclusion strategy, which is presented in the training of volunteers, designed to help club leaders recruit, accommodate, and retain a diversity of youth membersacross various axes of diversity including age, gender, socio-economic status, linguistic background, level of formal education, and disability status. All clubs are expected to be at least 60% girls or young women, but to date that ratio is not consistently achieved.
Adult leaders help the youth in the club establish a leadership structure, to promote youth voice, with a president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary. The club leaders and youth participants decide on the club's topical focus, such as gardening, crafts, raising animals, food processing, entrepreneurship, environmental conservation, etc. Some clubs choose one focal topic while others move from topic to topic based on youth interests and available resources. In a testimony to the youths' ability to creatively identify and leverage internal and external assets, clubs receive almost no financial or other material support from the project, yet many conduct resource-generating activities (e.g., raising and selling chickens), demonstrating ownership by local chapters and a path toward financial autonomy and sustainability.

Scaling Up and Institutionalization of 4-H Senegal
Since 2017, with the advent of the Feed the Future Senegal Youth in Agriculture project, we have further scaled up 4-H Senegal and are now institutionalizing it as a national PYD program that will be sustained by the Government of Senegal upon the completion of the USAIDsupported project in 2022. To do so, we created seven regional poles, housed at public universities, each of which has strong buy-in from university leadership and a management cell consisting of a regional facilitator, a pedagogical coordinator, and an administrative coordinator.
Each pole interacts with a local consortium of government agencies, NGOs, private sector actors, and other stakeholders to run its local programs (i.e., trainings, coaching, and support for club functioning). There are now 561 trained adult leaders, 125 active clubs, and 1948 youth enrolled.
Nationally, the program is embedded within the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation, where it benefits from linkages to national research institutes, the national virtual university, the office for the promotion of scientific culture, and more. Financially, regional pole functioning is supported via sub-awards from Virginia Tech, but a business plan is being created whereby public-private partnerships, university budgets, and additional grants and contracts will keep 4-H Senegal functioning. A private non-profit 4-H Senegal Association was also created to advocate for and promote the sustainability and financial health of the program.
There is a community of practice focused on creation and adaptation of evidence-informed curricula in the area of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), including climate change, and a group of young leaders doing youth participatory action research and evaluation focused on culturally-responsive and decolonizing methodologies.

Survey and Illustrative Success Case Story Data
For the purposes of this paper, we elected to focus our survey data collection on adult volunteers. This builds on recent work by Homan (2017), who explored competencies needed by caring, adult volunteer club leaders in 4-H Ghana. In part due to disruptions to workflows and internet access caused by COVID-19, the response rate was low (n = 27, 6.8%). Despite the likely positive response bias and associated limitations to representativeness, the data nevertheless meet the needs of this descriptive case study. Using a general inductive approach for analyzing qualitative evaluation data (Thomas, 2006), nested in the broader intrinsic case study (Stake, 1995), we derived concepts and themes both within and across survey items. In Table 1, we present the survey items and key emergent concepts and themes by survey item.
The survey was conducted in French with responses translated into English by the research team. Training format/experiences: More peer-to-peer learning with other local leaders, more field experience and exchanges with youth, give trainers a facilitation packet to guide their subsequent trainings, more follow-up, make training more utilization-focused and applied, use more local experts without the language barrier to save time. Key practices: Use local language; experiential and practice-based learning; engage parents and communities to raise awareness on 4-H; include adult women and adults living with disabilities as participants; connect to local groups and actors on projects (e.g., for reforestation, back-to-school kits, etc.) Note. More frequently reported concepts are indicated in italics.
For the illustrative success case stories, we highlight three clubs: • Best of Us: This university club was created in January 2016 at Gaston Berger University in Saint Louis, in the north of Senegal. Its leader is El Hadji Kébé, a 28-yearold graduate student. It has 20 college student members (11 women, 9 men), ages 21-30. Their main focus is personal development, with activities on public speaking, selfconfidence, and teamwork. The biggest challenge club members have faced is overcoming their shyness, which is one of the goals of the group. As they adapt PYD to their context (including the context of COVID-19), they have found success holding virtual activities and meetings via WhatsApp. As El Hadji says, 4-H is "a program that helps us go further, to develop life skills, and to be better." Badiane. With two adult leaders (Mrs. and Mr. Sane, both of whom work at the high school), the club has 15 members, ages 16 to 27. Activities include gardening and production horticulture, artisanal crafting, town clean-ups, and popular education theatre on topics like teen pregnancy prevention. The club sells fresh produce and crafts to generate revenue that they invest back into the club. According to Mrs. Sane, 4-H has made the youth engaged, hard-working, independent, and generous, with lots of selfesteem and a positive mindset.

Discussion and Conclusion
The results shared here provide a snapshot, however partial, of the 4-H Senegal program. This evidence-informed description, seen through the lens of the literature on global PYD, suggests a handful of key themes about cultural adaptation of PYD models that can be grouped as (a) continuities and similarities; (b) specific adaptations; and (c) avoiding cultural hegemony.
In terms of continuities and similarities, across document, survey, and success case data, there is evidence of the universality of many aspects of 4-H and PYD: Life skills, the essential elements, caring adult relationships, and experiential and hands-on learning are attributes that are just as present and as appreciated in Senegal as in PYD contexts in the United States. That said, there do appear to be specific ways in which 4-H Senegal has adapted PYD to the Senegalese context. One major way is the relative importance of applied community development actions, especially in agricultural and agribusiness applications. This reflects the data on un-and underemployment shared in the context section above, as well as the continued importance of agriculture as an element of the Senegalese economy. 4-H youth are making agriculture cool and framing it as a dignified and potentially lucrative career pursuit.
The emphasis on community outreach partially parallels the generosity element of PYD in the United States, but in Senegal it takes on a special dynamic, as it intersects with traditional Senegalese cultural norms about service and community solidarity. This also reflects the "cando" attitude that is a characteristic of Senegalese culture, represented by the Wolof phrase, "Geum sa bopp." Additional adaptations include use of local languages (including the official language of French, the national language of Wolof, and regionally-specific languages as appropriate) and innovative leveraging of information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as WhatsApp, and an openness to taking on non-youth participants (e.g., people living with disabilities), new focal areas (like reproductive health), and new partners.
Reflecting on these similarities and differences, and juxtaposing the data with the theory and literature, this case study points to a handful of unanswered questions and directions for future work. For instance, there remains some question about the proper balance of and interaction between programming that is more focused on life skills and that which emphasizes more technical entrepreneurship and employment skills-both for 4-H Senegal and globally (including in the United States). Research shows that life skills and PYD may increase the success of youth employment programs (Fox & Kaul, 2017), but this present study points to a need to further understand this complex dynamic in the case of Senegal. Also, this study does not provide sufficient insight into if and how 4-H Senegal successfully avoids cultural hegemony of the conventional colonizing methodological and epistemological pathways for youth work that Hutchinson (2002) and Nsamenang (2015) lament. 4-H Senegal may be mitigating this risk through use of local language, participatory and decolonizing research and evaluation, and prioritization of grassroots leaders and local sociocultural structures. But this is a question that requires more attention. In sum, we hope the lessons and reflections represented by the program description and empirical themes shared in this article can bridge research and practice to guide other efforts to adapt PYD models and approaches across contexts and cultures.

Author Note
This article is dedicated to the memory of Mor Seck. We also acknowledge and thank Ozzie Abaye and all the people who helped launch 4-H Senegal.
The program described in this article is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of Amadou Ndiaye is now affiliated with Université Amadou Mahtar Mbow.
Declaration of interest: All authors are involved in the implementation of the project. The first and second authors are, respectively, the Director and National Director.