Assessment of Youth Empowerment Programmes in Reducing Vulnerability to Extremism in Adamawa State

Youth vulnerability to violent extremism in Nigeria's North East zone remains a critical security and development challenge, with poverty, educational exclusion, and social marginalization widely identified as structural risk factors. Youth empowerment programmes have been deployed as preventive interventions, but their effectiveness requires professional evidence-based assessment. This study assesses youth empowerment programmes targeting extremism vulnerability in Adamawa State, North East Nigeria. A professional programme evaluation design was employed, combining review of three active youth empowerment programme documents, beneficiary surveys administered to 120 programme participants and 60 non-participant controls in Yola, Michika, and Mubi LGAs, and structured interviews with fourteen programme administrators and community security observers. The Countering Violent Extremism theoretical framework was applied. Results indicate that economic empowerment components including skills training and business start-up grants significantly reduced self-reported vulnerability to recruitment, with programme participants demonstrating 41% lower vulnerability scores than controls on the validated risk assessment instrument. However, psychological and ideological components of programmes were weakest, with only 29% of programme participants receiving structured psychosocial support. Identity and belonging components that research identifies as central to extremism prevention were absent from all three evaluated programmes. Programme targeting accuracy was moderate, with higher-risk youth less likely to self-select into voluntary empowerment programmes. Recommendations include mandatory psychosocial and identity components in Adamawa youth empowerment designs, outreach-based recruitment targeting higher-risk youth, and integration of traditional and religious leaders as programme co-facilitators. Keywords: youth empowerment, violent extremism, Adamawa State, CVE, programme evaluation.