Action communautaire et participation des jeunes au développement durable dans les collectivités territoriales décentralisées : cas de la commune d’arrondissement de Yaoundé 3

Abstract

This dissertation entitled "Community action and participation of the youth to sustainable development in decentralized territorial communities: case of the district municipality of Yaoundé 3" is a contribution to the assessment of the participation of the youth to the sustainable development of the above mentioned municipality, over the spanning from 2019 to 2020. Based on the observation that the majority of young people of Yaoundé 3 are unemployed. This situation enables them to indulge in activities that are not conducive to development. This research work raises the issue of low participation of young people in the sustainable development of this locality, despite the existence of rules, regulations and opportunities that are favorable to such participation. The main question that guided this reflection is the following: does community action influence the participation of young people from the Yaoundé 3rd district municipality to the sustainable development of the said locality? To address this concern, hypotheses were formulated. Thus, the general hypothesis was formulated as follows: community action influences the participation of young people from Yaoundé 3rd in the sustainable development of the said locality. The goal to be achieved was to show that community action influences the participation of young people in sustainable development in the district municipality of Yaoundé 3rd. The choice of this site was due to time and financial constraints as well as the fact that this locality is our residential area. Qualitative and quantitative approaches were used; purposive sampling was used. This made it possible, through semi directive interview and survey techniques, to interview 10 young leaders of youth associations and to administer a questionnaire to 306 young members of youth associations in the said municipality. The data collected was processed through statistical analysis for those resulting from the questionnaire and content analysis for those resulting from the interviews. From the data collected, it appears that the majority of young people would like, through the mobilization of the territorial community, the community of interest and the community of identity, to participate more in the development of the said municipality and to achieve a stable and sustainable autonomy. But these young people face some constraints attributable either to themselves or to society in all its components. The Pearson correlation analysis for alpha = 0.01 led to the validation of the three specific hypotheses formulated within the framework of this research, which subsequently led to the validation of the general hypothesis. In other words, each of the components of community action, in particular the territorial community, the community of interest and the community of identity has an impact on the participation of the young people of Yaoundé 3rd in the sustainable development of the said municipality. Faced with this situation, these young people have expressed wishes in the direction of improving the incentive measures for their greater involvement in this process of sustainable development. In the end, such a process can only be firmly anchored if it is understood, accepted, thought out and implemented from the populations themselves, and in this case the young people, in view of their demographic weight.