UNICEF: Summative Impact Evaluation of the UNICEF Jordan Makani Programme
October 2022
During the last 17 years, Jordan has experienced a significant increase in population (from 5 million in 2004 to over 11 million in 2021). Following over a decade of hostilities in the Syrian Arab Republic, the Syrian refugee crisis remains the largest displacement crisis globally, with over 5.5 million registered refugees including over 2.5 million children, living in neighbouring countries in refugee camps, informal settlements and urban settings among host communities. Children and youth are a key demographic in Jordanian society, with approximately 63 per cent of the country’s population under the age of 30. They face a series of challenges including multidimensional poverty and deprivation, lack of quality education, high rates of unemployment, and inadequate child protection and social services.
Responding to the pressing need for a comprehensive approach to the provision of services to vulnerable refugee and Jordanian children, UNICEF introduced the Makani (‘My Space’ in Arabic) programme in 2015. A new intervention approach, the programme integrates education support, community-based child protection services, early childhood development (ECD), adolescent and youth participation and skills development into one space.
Thus, UNICEF Jordan commissioned Samuell Hall to evaluate its Makani Programme with a focus on the period from March 2018 through December 2020 with the aim to assess the long-term outcomes that Makani programme was intended to produce in relation to social cohesion for children, young people and their communities in Jordan. The evaluation presents conclusions on the value of the intervention in terms of achieving child rights and provides evidence to enable decision making around the programme, and for similar interventions, in future. According to Samuel Hall’s evaluation findings, the Makani programme’s relevance to the needs of vulnerable people across Jordan, both refugee and host, is overall very high – and has become more so with adaptations to increase its focus on meeting the needs of the most vulnerable.
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