Jordan Evaluations

Final Evaluation – Promoting Constructive Relationships with Youth and Local Authorities in Jordan – March 2022

Youth continue to be amongst the most marginalised groups in Jordan with unemployment and exclusion from decision making being two major challenges. The importance of addressing youth needs and increasing their participation in local and national governance became a central concern for Jordan notably with the deterioration of the situation following COVID-19. The National Youth Strategy (2019-2025) and the Kings’ decree are two major steps taken to support young people and increase their presence in decision making.

The National Youth Strategy (2019-2025) outlines concrete steps to strengthen youth participation with a focus on increasing their presence in local governance. This is expected to be achieved through capacity building and offering opportunities for young people to directly work and intervene in public life affairs. In addition, to support young people, the King of Jordan commended local and national officials to engage more frequently and have youth participate in making decisions. The established royal commission for political reform was tasked with a job to come up with actionable recommendations to support youth participation and engagement in political affairs. Recommendations included decreasing the age of candidacy and working on a more decentralised decision-making process. This helped revitalise the political scene in Jordan granting people the opportunity to influence and participate in decision making.

In line with the National Youth Strategy (2019-2025), outlined by the MoY in Jordan and its objective to increase youth civic participation, Search implemented a project titled “Promoting Constructive Relationships between Youth and Local Authorities in Jordan”. The overall objective of the project is to strengthen youth participation in local governance by developing their skills to collaborate and negotiate with local authority (LA) members in order to achieve positive change on community-level issues.

Key Findings:

  • The intervention was seen as relevant given that youth participation in local governance continues to be a challenge in Jordan despite the favourable contextual changes. The project’s two specific objectives are found to be essential. For instance, the insight collected shows that young people in Jordan are in need of capacity building with regard to their skills to participate in local governance (i.e., knowledge on the governing system in Jordan, communication skills, leadership skill, and advocacy campaign management).
  • The project design was considered of high quality with sequential activities, contributing to the overall transformation aimed by the project objective. The project design utilises the learning by doing approach which, according to Hoskins et al. (2019), is essential to teach youth about participating in local governance.

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Final Evaluation – Tourathna – Our Shared Heritage In Jordan – August 2020

This report captures findings from the final evaluation of the project “Tourathna – Our Shared Heritage,” implemented by Search Jordan in partnership with Royal Institute for Interfaith Dialogue (RIIFS) . The project was funded by the U.S Department of State, and implemented from October 2018 to May 2020 in targeting six historical and religious sites in five governorates of Jordan: Irbid, Ajloun, Madaba, Aqaba, and Salt.

The project aimed to empower local communities, increase mutual respect, preserve religious-cultural heritage, and foster inter-religious dialogue and cooperation. This goal was supported by two specific objectives. Firstly, to increase local communities’ understanding of the importance of a shared national heritage, and secondly, to empower local communities to preserve and promote diverse religious and cultural heritage sites to national and international audiences.

The final evaluation highlights how the project successfully promoted a shared recognition of the interfaith value of cultural heritage sites in six historical and religious sites around Jordan. 80% of interviewed CBO staff members reported an increase in cooperation between community stakeholders, 90% of interviewed youth storytellers believed the project activities had promoted cultural heritage in target areas, 90% of interviewed youth storytellers believed the project activities had promoted cultural heritage in target areas, 95% of interviewed youth storytellers believed the project had a significant impact on youth. Moreover, the majority of staff interviewed from Search, RIIFS, and CBOs, as well as youth storytellers, agreed that more efforts are needed to ensure the project’s sustainable impact.

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Final Evaluation: Ana Laabah

In October 2016, we concluded the implementation of the project “Increasing Girls’ Access to Football in Jordan.” The project, funded by the US Embassy, had the overall goal to increase girls’ access to football in Northern Jordan, specifically in the cities of Irbid and Ramtha. The project lasted for 6 months and had three major objectives and a fourth internal one: 1) increasing the football skills for girls (aged 12-14) in northern Jordan; 2) increasing the confidence levels of the girls and their ability to positively engage with their communities, and 3) increasing the collaboration among the families of the girls playing football to break down barriers to access for girls in sports. The fourth objective, “inspiring girls across Jordan to achieve their full potential, around the theme of football through media highlights” was added by the project team for internal monitoring purposes and is discussed in more depth in the annexes section.

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