Chapter 10 in the youth can actually have a positive impact on economic developement, with the youth driving it(Beehner, 2007). The theory has been used particularly to explain developments in countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia and the Middle East, among others(Ibid.). Quite recently, the theory has been applied in explaining the'Arab Spring' which saw the youth play key roles in socio-econonmic and political upheavals in the Arab world. In sub-Saharan Africa, the youth bulge theory has been identified with armed conflicts and political unrest in countries such as Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire and Kenya where young people took an active part in the conflicts in those countries. In Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire for example, young people are believed to have constituted about 95 percent of the fighting forces(Mastiny, 2004, cited in Aning and Atta­Asamoah, 2011). In Ghana, even though there is a significant youth population(i.e. 33 percent of the total population according to the 2000 Population and Housing Census), the country has not yet witnessed protracted and/or armed conflicts of the nature of those that took place elsewhere on the continent. It must, however, be noted that there have been several small-scale conflicts and violent outbreaks in Ghana, many of them communal in nature. To a great extent, the youth have been active participants in many of these violent conflicts and have sometimes become the main protagonists. The underlying factors for some of these conflicts may include, but also transcend, socio-economic and political factors such as poverty, unemployment and or regime type. There are other factors such as ethnic undercurrents, political enmity and an obsession with electoral victory that trigger and motivate many of these violent conflicts in the country. 312