Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (formerly Global Girls Research Initiative)

Lebanon has the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world, hosting 1.5 million registered Syrian refugees who have fled the conflict in Syria, along with 31,502 Palestine refugees from Syria, 35,000 Lebanese returnees, and a pre-existing population of more than 277,985 Palestine refugees in Lebanon (Government of Lebanon, 2016). The influx of refugees – with Syrians being the most recent group – has put a strain on life in Lebanon on different levels including ‘increasing demographics, a regressing economy, exhausting social services, complicating politics and decreasing security’ (Government of Lebanon, 2017). It is against this conflict-affected backdrop that the briefing paper produced under funding from this project presents the findings of a qualitative research study conducted by the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) research team on the effects of a peacebuilding programme with adolescents from refugee and host communities in Lebanon. Informed by a review of the evidence on effectiveness of programme interventions aiming to enhance adolescent psychosocial well-being and social cohesion, as well as the GAGE conceptual framework, the paper focuses on the following research question: what are the positive and negative immediate and legacy gendered effects of peacebuilding programme initiatives implemented by Search for Common Ground in Lebanon on adolescents’ development trajectories?