In Syria and elsewhere this creates a pool of underemployed youth, and a potential time bomb of social unrest.
"Since then we have concentrated on the youth set-ups and now have a very, very strong pool of young players.
All this has created a huge pool of unhappy youths.
The mystique touches not only the estimated 10,000 Saudis who fought as volunteers in Afghanistan, but also the country's huge and growing pool of unemployed youths.
Its large pool of idle youths, with their liking for the fierier brands of Islam, have made the kingdom a wellspring of extremism, most famously producing Osama bin Laden and three-quarters of the September 11th 2001 hijackers.
The Kremlin recently changed tack with its strategy in the North Caucasus, appointing Alexander Khloponin, a successful former businessman, as presidential envoy in the region with the aim of improving its economy as a way of decreasing the pool of disaffected youths who join the militants.
With more than half of its population under 25, he said, India could educate its young and open job opportunities for them, or be left with a large, potentially restive pool of unskilled, unemployable youth.
Although a substantial pool of literature on youth health issues published by African scholars may exist in local African and international journals, this literature may be largely unavailable to other researchers, particularly those in Africa.
Although the search is likely biased in terms of focus (medical or public health fields) and the database likely omits a substantial proportion of peer-reviewed journals published by SSA-based institutions, these findings serve as a useful illustration of the limited pool of literature on youth health in SSA.
