Children & Youth — Publications

KNOMAD - Youth, Migration and Development: A New Lens for Critical Times

March 2022

As the world undergoes a period of uncertainty, young people around the world are particularly affected by the growing inequalities and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as they transition to adulthood. Young people who have made the difficult choice to move, or who have been forced to do so, are particularly marginalised in their current environment: they are not only socially and economically vulnerable, but also psychologically and often legally so.

KNOMAD [Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development] supported by the World Bank commissioned Samuel Hall to produce a scoping paper exploring the nexus between Youth, Migration, and Development. The paper reveals youth & young migrants in the world as resourceful actors of sustainable development in a global context marked by crises.

The paper also draws attention to regional and subregional specificities across the world - setting an agenda on how youth migration can contribute to development and how it can be meaningfully integrated into development strategies.

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IOM - Development of a Monitoring Toolkit and Review of Good Practices for the Sustainable Reintegration of Child Returnees

August 2021

This study was commissioned in the framework of the EU–IOM Knowledge Management Hub under the “Pilot Action on Voluntary Return and Sustainable, Community-Based Reintegration” project, funded by the European Union and implemented by IOM. The two recognized that while understanding of and evidence around the sustainable reintegration of adults has been growing, the same is not true for children – despite the fact that children are returning, alone or with families, to the very same reintegration contexts. Building on a monitoring approach for adult returnees developed in a 2017 Samuel Hall – IOM research project, this study addresses the information gap around children’s reintegration experiences.

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Street Child – Building Alternatives: Supporting Afghan Women & Children in Conflict with the Law

December 2020

This report generates evidence regarding the effectiveness of AtDs, rehabilitation, and reintegration measures, intended for stakeholders currently in a position to implement AtDs, as well as the broader sector working with children and women in conflict with the law. The Children in Crisis (CiC) project titled Support to Afghan Women and Children in Conflict with the Law: Diversion, Rehabilitation and Reintegration is a series of programmatic interventions that began in December 2017 and will conclude in 2020. It seeks to address the major structural barriers to the implementation of the Alternatives to Detention (AtD) and Alternatives to Incarceration (AtI) measures added to the Afghan Penal Code, and the growing evidence base for positive outcomes in reintegration, rehabilitation and recidivism that are connected to successful implementation of such alternatives in other contexts, for children specifically and for adults more broadly. Specifically, the goal of the work is to enable vulnerable children and women in contact and conflict with the law to avoid detention, reduce reoffending through rehabilitation, and reintegrate into their families and communities. This research falls under and addresses the third objective of the project, "Objective 3: Developing an evidence base to influence and advocate for future justice sector reform for women and juveniles."

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War Child - Coming Back to Afghanistan: Deported Minors' Needs at a Time of COVID-19

July 2020

Unaccompanied children on the move have become more common. This demographic shift calls for a transition to child-sensitive return programmes and policies – yet despite increased returns and deportations, support has decreased over the last decade in Afghanistan. COVID-19 has increased the risks of returns, and the response to the pandemic remains insufficient to meet the needs at the border - especially for children and women. This research was conducted by Samuel Hall for War Child UK and UNICEF to assess the impact of COVID-19 on minor deportees and returnees. It provides actionable learning to inform more effective and relevant design, implementation, and adjustment of future interventions targeting minor deportees.

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The Womanity Foundation - Girls CAN Code

June 2020

The Womanity Foundation are implementing GCC at a particularly critical juncture with Afghanistan charting an uncertain path in 2020 and beyond. This uncertainty extends to the role of women in Afghan society as well as the context for female education and employment. In a fast changing environment, how can Womanity maximise their impact and best work with Afghan girls to create tangible changes in their own lives? With these questions as a basis, Samuel Hall: evaluated the GCC programme from 2016–2019; conducted a context and market analysis on potential income and work pathways for Afghan girls with a focus on the tech sector and broader trends in STEM; mapped a forward strategy for Womanity to scale its impact.

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UNICEF - Social Norms, Economic Approaches: The potential for addressing GBV through economic interventions in the Rohingya refugee response

June 2020

This report, commissioned by UNICEF, develops an evidence base on the potential for addressing gender-based violence in the Rohingya Refugee Response through economic interventions, seeking to understand the contextual risks, drivers, challenges, and possibilities. It highlights the possibilities for using economic interventions in this context, in particular how programming that utilises economic strategies in combination with other elements, and which aligns economic strategies with needs and drivers specific to the forms of GBV they seek to address based on strong contextual understandings, are likely to be the most successful in creating sustainable impacts for women and girls, and communities more broadly.

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Download Executive Summary

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World Bank - A Qualitative Assessment of Pathways to Youth Inclusion in Afghanistan

April 2020

The World Bank commissioned Samuel Hall in 2019 to conduct field research to explore Pathways to Youth Inclusion in Afghanistan. The objectives of this research were twofold: 1) To understand the issues, barriers and challenges faced by Afghan youth in terms of their inclusion in the social and economic processes that make up Afghan society and 2) To understand the perceptions of the Youth Subcommittees (YSCs) of local Community Development Councils (CDCs) established by Citizens’ Charter (an initiative of the Government of Afghanistan introduced in late 2016, to improve the delivery of core infrastructure, emergency services, and social services to participating communities), in terms of their impact, capacity, strengths and weaknesses, and attitudes toward them and their work.

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Download Executive Summary in Dari

Download Executive Summary in Pashto

War Child - Coming Back to Afghanistan: Study on Deported Minors’ Return and Reintegration Needs in the Western Region

December 2019

Samuel Hall was commissioned by War Child to conduct a study that provides a comprehensive understanding of the existing Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP) regarding the unsafe migration of unaccompanied children to Iran. Primary data collection was conducted in Herat and Badghis provinces. The study also targeted parents and communities of children at risk of unsafe migration or experienced unsafe migration. This study contributes to charting a path forward for a post-deportation protection framework adapted to the protection profiles and needs of unaccompanied minors, their families and communities of return.

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UNICEF - Participatory Research with Adolescents to Unpack How Decisions are Made Whether to Stay in School in Zambia

August 2019

Commissioned by UNICEF Zambia, Samuel Hall conducted a highly qualitative study on ‘how decisions are made on whether or not adolescents (age 10-19) complete their schooling in Zambia’. With fieldwork in eight districts across the country – namely, Lusaka, Rufunsa, Katete, Petauke, Luwingu, Lunga, Mufulira, and Senanga – the study provides an understanding of the decision-making process around school retention/drop-out.

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Download Katete District Report

Download Petauke District Report

Download Rufunsa District Report

Download Senanga District Report

Download Luwingu District Report

Download Lunga District Report

Download Mufulira District Report

Download Lusaka District Report

Save the Children - From Europe to Afghanistan: Experiences of child returnees

October 2018

This report assesses the impact on children of being returned from Europe to Afghanistan. Through interviews with individual children, their parents or guardians, and with governmental and non-governmental actors, it builds a picture of children’s material, physical, legal and psychosocial safety during the returns process.

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Save the Children - Durable Solutions For Returnee Children: What Do We Know?

September 2018

This report addresses a gap in knowledge about the often-difficult conditions of children’s return to the areas of (their parents’) origin. It gives an overview of what is known (and what is not) about the return of displaced children to Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Syria, four of the most important contexts of return today.

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Dubai Cares - Improving Access to and Quality of Early Childhood Education in Zanzibar

September 2018

This study assesses the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of the Watoto Kwanza project, designed to address some of the key challenges facing Zanzibar’s pre-primary education sector as of 2013.

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UNICEF/MoLSAMD - Child Marriage in Afghanistan: Changing the Narrative

July 2018

The primary objective of this report is to provide contextualised analysis in the knowledge, attitudes and practices of communities in order to inform the development of future programming to either mitigate the impacts of child marriage or prevent further engagement in child marriage across Afghanistan.

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Dutch MFA/NWO - Aspirations and Youth programming in Somalia and Afghanistan

April 2018

We undertook data analysis and primary data collection in Afghanistan, Somalia, Greece and Italy to understand the commonalities and differences in decision-making processes – whether to migrate or to stay – among youth in conflict-affected settings.

Download Aspirations Research Brief

Download Youth Employment Research Brief

UNICEF/UNESCO - A Global initiative on Out-of-School-Children

June 2018

Samuel Hall has prepared this Country study in order to provide recommendations to key stakeholders on how to address the significant challenge of an estimated 3.7 million children aged 7-17 being out-of-school in Afghanistan.

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British Council - Youth Employment in Kenya

December 2017

Samuel Hall provided the British Council and other interested stakeholders with a comprehensive overview of the current employment challenges and opportunities for Kenya’s 10 million youth. In addition to clear and evidence-based policy recommendations, the final report also featured precise suggestions for future research endeavours, which informed subsequent actions of the Next Generation project in Kenya.

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IKEA Foundation - Coming Together: Family Tracing & Reunification

October 2017

In 2017, Samuel Hall conducted a study on key issues, actors, and tools in the current global landscape of Family Tracing & Reunification (FTR), commissioned by IKEA Foundation. Based on an extensive and rigorous literature review and 22 additional key informant interviews with FTR providers and experts worldwide, the study focused on the current landscape of FTR tools and methods, their respective actors and key challenges to accessing and providing the best FTR support services possible.

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UNICEF - Improving Street-Working Children's Access to Education and Livelihoods Support for their Families

September 2017

The primary objective of this project has been to conduct an evaluation of the project itself and provide recommendations for key stakeholders to support street-working children moving forward. In order to do so, it has also gathered information on the context of child labour and protection issues in Afghanistan as needed.

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Children in Crisis - Hope Behind Bars: The Boys of the Kabul Juvenile Rehabilitation Centre

August 2017

This research offers a pragmatic view of the lived experiences of children in the Kabul Juvenile Rehabilitation Centre (JRC) and situates detention within their life events, where neglected needs and incurred stresses impact their later adult lives and life opportunities

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Dubai Cares - Strengthening Early Childhood Education: Programme Evaluation

January 2017

The overall goal of this research was to conduct an evaluation of the programme considering its effects after conclusion using the OECD-DAC criteria (relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability) to inform Dubai Cares’ design, development and investment in potential future programme iterations, or similar programming in the Afghan context.

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