Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The population of Jordan has increased rapidly over the past 10 years, with the country taking in more than a million Syrian refugees, of whom nearly half are below the age of 18 years. The Government of Jordan, supported by the international community, has made substantial efforts to provide basic services for its refugees, but the COVID-19 pandemic has put additional pressure on the country’s limited resources. Given that young people account for a relatively large proportion of the population, especially the refugee population, it is critical that we understand what impacts the pandemic is having on adolescent girls and boys in order to ensure that the national response by government, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and development partners including the United Nations (UN) are adolescent-friendly and equitable. This research brief draws on the findings of a questionnaire-based telephone survey involving nearly 3000 adolescent boys and girls, conducted as part of the Region-wide Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) longitudinal research programme which is co-funded by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean.

As elsewhere, in the State of Palestine, the burden of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality has overwhelmingly fallen on older people. There is, however, growing recognition that younger people, including adolescents aged 10–19 years who account for more than a fifth of the population (1), are also suffering negative impacts on their health because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that nearly 40% of the population in the State of Palestine are refugees it is important to distinguish between the experiences of the non-refugee and the refugee adolescent populations, and within the latter, those living in camp and non-camp settings. Such disaggregated evidence will help to inform national response plans by government and development partners to ensure that they are both adolescent-responsive and equitable. This policy brief draws on findings of a questionnaire-based telephone survey involving just over 1000 adolescent boys and girls which was conducted as part of the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) longitudinal research programme.

This study is part of a cross-country series designed to share emerging findings in real time from qualitative interviews with adolescents and school teachers in the context of covid-19. Our sample for this study was purposefully selected from an ongoing baseline GAGE impact evaluation study, and includes two cohorts: younger adolescents (10–14 years) and older adolescents (15–19 years), all of whom are in-school (grades 7 and 8). Adolescent respondents were drawn from both urban and rural schools in Chittagong and Sylhet divisions of Bangladesh. The objectives of the research are as follows: 1) to understand adolescents’ experiences of transition from childhood to adulthood, and to identify differences in their experiences by age, gender, disability and geographic location; 2) to identify adolescents’ knowledge of covid-19, and how the pandemic response has affected adolescent lives. To inform the pandemic response, this study aims to understand adolescents’ knowledge, perceptions and practices during the covid-19 pandemic, their challenges and worries, and the coping mechanisms they are using to deal with the evolving situation.

This report aims to support timely and context-relevant policy and programming in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, the State of Palestine (Gaza and West Bank) and Jordan by adding to the evidence base on adolescent girls’ and boys’ experiences during COVID-19. Drawing on mixed methods research it captures the risks and opportunities adolescents face across four low- and middle-income country contexts six to nine months after lockdowns in response to the pandemic were first introduced. With a focus on the intersectional challenges faced by adolescents including by gender, age, marital status, disability and context, the report covers three key domains: education and learning; violence and bodily integrity; and voice, agency and community participation. This is the companion report to a report published in August 2020, ‘I have nothing to feed my family’, which focused on the immediate, short-term effects of COVID-19 and associated lockdowns on girls and boys across the same contexts. The report concludes with key recommendations for policy and programming actors so that efforts to ‘build back better’ post-pandemic can be more effectively informed by adolescents’ experiences and voices.

This research is part of the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) programme, a nine-year, mixed methods longitudinal research and evaluation programme following the lives of 20,000 adolescents in six low- and middle-income countries. BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health (BRAC JPGSPH) and the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) partnered to carry out rapid-response research in Dhaka to gain an understanding of vulnerable and underprivileged adolescents’ lives during the pandemic. This policy brief presents findings from the second round of data collection which included 30 in-depth interviews with adolescents living in three sites in Dhaka. Findings show inequalities in access to and continuation of distance education, negative effects in psychosocial well-being, unequal access to digital connectivity, financial constraints, with inequalities between different socio-economic classes, gender and age groups, which put them at risk of discontinuing education, entering into child labour and also early marriage.

Child marriage, while declining in most parts of the world, remains common in many communities – especially in countries beset by conflict and other humanitarian disasters. Indeed, all 10 of the countries with the highest rates of child marriage are considered fragile, and research has found that child marriage is one of the issues most sensitive to conflict. A growing body of evidence underscores that this is because although the drivers of child marriage tend to be similar across development and humanitarian contexts – and revolve around physical and economic insecurities and deep-seated gender norms – fragility, conflict and disaster augment concerns and can increase the risk of child marriage. This report begins with a brief overview of the evidence base. It then describes the sample and methodological approach used by Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) to explore the drivers of child marriage in humanitarian settings and how tailored policy and programming might be brought to bear to reduce it.

This fact sheet is a rapid snapshot of adolescents’ knowledge and attitudes towards covid-19 and presents key findings on the impact of covid-19 across GAGE’s capability domains: education and learning; health, nutrition, and sexual and reproductive health; psychosocial well-being; economic empowerment; voice and agency; and bodily integrity. This factsheet presents findings from GAGE’s ongoing longitudinal survey in Dhaka, Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated cities in the world, which follows 780 boys and girls in two cohorts (ages 10–12 and 15–17 at baseline in 2017). These adolescents come from three sites in Dhaka, including two peri-urban slum areas and one low income settlement in Dhaka.

This factsheet provides a rapid snapshot of adolescents’ knowledge and attitudes towards covid-19 in Ethiopia and presents key findings on the impact of covid-19 across GAGE’s six focal capability domains: education and learning; health, nutrition, and sexual and reproductive health; psychosocial well-being; economic empowerment; voice and agency; and bodily integrity.

Covid-19 has rapidly disrupted the lives of individuals across the globe. While the direct health effects are largely concentrated among the elderly, the virus will almost certainly have multidimensional effects on young people’s well-being in both the short and long term. This factsheet is part of a cross-country series designed to share emerging findings in real time from quantitative interviews with adolescents in the context of covid-19. The young people involved are part of the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) programme’s longitudinal research in East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. This factsheet is a rapid snapshot of adolescents’ knowledge and attitudes towards covid-19 in Jordan and presents key findings on the impact of covid-19 across GAGE’s capability domains: education and learning; health, nutrition and sexual and reproductive health; psychosocial well-being; economic empowerment; voice and agency; and bodily integrity.

In order to inform the Bangladeshi government’s response and that of its humanitarian and development partners in Cox’s Bazar, it is essential to supplement the existing evidence base with a focus on adolescent girls and boys, given the likelihood that containment measures will have multidimensional effects on young people’s well-being in the short and medium term. This policy brief draws on virtual research findings carried out with adolescent girls and boys in May and June 2020 and also presents priority policy and programming implications.

Unlike the H1N1 influenza virus, to which younger people were relatively more susceptible, and Ebola, where adolescents were at greater risk than younger children but at lower risk than the most-affected age group (35–44 years), the demographic burden of covid-19 is highly skewed towards older persons aged 70 and over. Age-disaggregated statistics suggest that adolescents are least likely to be hospitalised and to die from covid-19. Young people have typically been portrayed in the mainstream media as ‘part of the problem’ – as both vectors of the disease and as reluctant to adopt preventive measures, rather than as key actors to be proactively included in the emergency and recovery responses.  As the spike in unemployment and predictions of global recession underline, Covid-19 is not only an unprecedented health crisis but also a profound economic and social one. This is the first in a series of briefs. It focuses on the short-term effects of covid-19 and associated lockdowns on adolescent girls and boys in LMICs. The next brief will focus on the effects of the pandemic six months after lockdowns.