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The vast majority of young people in places like the Middle East and North Africa face a bleak socioeconomic future. Youth unemployment in the region hovers around 30 percent, which is expected to skyrocket as economies struggle to create enough jobs to keep pace with a massive demographic youth bulge. In 2000, the World Bank estimated that the region would need to create about 100 million new jobs to keep pace, and it’s nowhere near to closing the gap.

The effect of this socioeconomic crisis is about more than just employment and livelihoods for young people; it represents a fundamental breakdown of the social contract in the region. For decades, governments in the Middle East and North Africa promised socioeconomic support — free education, subsidies and public-sector employment — in exchange for limits on political participation and civic activity.