Adolescent well-being in Jordan: exploring gendered capabilities, contexts and change strategies

Situated at the crossroads of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Jordan has a long history of hosting the region’s refugees. Beginning with Palestine refugees in 1948, followed by Iraqi refugees in the 1990s and, since 2011, accepting hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing both drought and civil war, it is estimated that of Jordan’s approximately 10 million inhabitants, 1 in 3 is a refugee. Of those, more than 2 million are Palestinian (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), 2019b), just over 660,000 are Syrian, and nearly 100,000 are from Iraq, Yemen and Sudan (UNHCR, 2019). While the country is ranked ‘high’ in terms of human development (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 2019), Jordan has faced significant economic and social challenges in seeking to absorb its large refugee population.

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Jones, N., Baird, S., Presler-Marshall, E., Malachoswka, A., Kilburn, K., Abu Hamad, B., Essaid, A., Amaireh, W., Sajdi, J., Banioweda, K., Alabbadi, T., Alheiwidi, S., Ashareef, Q., Altal, S., Kharabsheh, W., Abu Taleb, H., Abu Azzam, M. and Abu Hammad, B. (2019) Adolescent well-being in Jordan: exploring gendered capabilities, contexts and change strategies. A synthesis report on GAGE Jordan baseline findings. Report. London: Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence. (https://www.gage.odi.org/publication/adolescent-well-being-in-jordan-synthesis-report-baseline-findings/)