Researching Social Protection With Diverse Young People in Crisis Contexts: Methodological Reflections From Longitudinal Research in Ethiopia,Gaza and Lebanon

Abstract

Research focusing on humanitarian crises is vital for informing the design and targeting of humanitarian relief and social protection, particularly as both the nature of emergencies and the types of programming that are needed will evolve over time. This is particularly the case for social protection programming aimed at adolescents and young people, who encounter emergencies at a point in the life course characterised by rapid physical and social changes, alongside gender differences in exposure to certain vulnerabilities such as gender-based violence. Research with young people in crisis contexts is, however, beset by myriad practical and ethical challenges, including working within a dynamic landscape of aid and social protection provision, and managing consent, access and safeguarding concerns amid precarity and violence. Longitudinal research guided by an ethic of care, wherein relationships have been built over time between researchers and participants, can offer a means to disentangle the impacts of crises from pre-existing vulnerabilities, and humanitarian provision from prior social protection programming, while also ensuring that research during crises is ethically sound and of benefit to young participants. This paper discusses qualitative and participatory tools used in the context of longitudinal research by the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) programmes in Ethiopia, Gaza and Lebanon with adolescents, their communities, and key informants. It explores insights generated by the tools regarding the need for and effectiveness of social protection modalities and mechanisms over time as crises evolve, and the central role of relationships in evidence generation, dissemination, and impact at different levels.

Introduction

As the number of people affected by humanitarian emergencies globally continues to rise due to climate and conflict risks, alongside the growing prevalence of protracted crises, the need to explore and evaluate solutions beyond short-term emergency relief and assistance becomes increasingly urgent (Hilhorst, 2018). Understanding what kinds of assistance are needed and what works to address the needs of affected populations within complex and protracted crises requires social research methods that can disentangle and make sense of vulnerabilities as they evolve over time. Yet such crises also generate enormous practical and ethical challenges for research. Crisis contexts are spaces of continual change, both politically and materially, and in terms of the kinds of programming and interventions being delivered. It can be very challenging to disentangle the impacts of emergency relief (such as short-term cash, food, water and hygiene products) from pre-existing social protection programming undertaken on a longer-term basis (such as regular cash transfers). The landscape of actors involved also shifts rapidly, with international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) coming in for short periods then exiting again and offering different types of support after the initial emergency phase is over. The distinction between research on what types of assistance are needed, and social protection itself, may also not always be clear to participants, leading to ethical challenges and complexities (Bandara et al., 2024; Hunt et al., 2016; Mena & Hilhorst, 2021).

Among the ever-growing global population of people in fragile contexts who are affected by emergencies are increasing numbers of adolescents and young people. Around 25% of children and adolescents live in countries affected by conflict and disaster, with an estimated 31 million young people living in displacement (United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 2021). The detrimental impacts of emergencies on young people’s lives are now well-evidenced, and include household stress, increased poverty, educational attrition, and exposure to violence (Burde et al., 2015; Cobham & Newnham, 2018; Stark & Landis, 2016). Research with young people in crisis settings intensifies ethical challenges, such as obtaining access to affected communities when safety concerns may be amplified by violence or loss, and ensuring safeguarding of participants in precarious environments. Research during crises also often focuses on shorter-term impacts and responses to meet basic needs, such as health and nutrition (Cuesta & Leone, 2020). However, given the dynamism of crises, research that can elucidate impacts for young people amid flux is essential for identifying age-related and intersecting vulnerabilities, and informing the design of programming and interventions that aim to address these.

This article seeks to understand the relationship between methodological design and insights into the effectiveness of social protection modalities and mechanisms over time for young people in complex crisis settings. We focus on examples from ongoing longitudinal multi-country research by the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) study. We first set out our conceptual framework, which brings feminist care ethics into dialogue with a socio-ecological approach that recognises the central role of interpersonal relationships during crises for young people’s coping and survival. We then provide an overview of tools used by GAGE during humanitarian crises in Ethiopia, Gaza and Lebanon. Tools include in-depth interviews with adolescents and their families, participatory group discussions (involving vignettes, the Most Significant Change and Social Network Hexagon tools), key informant interviews and community timeline exercises with social protection stakeholders. Drawing on GAGE findings, we illustrate how these methods, embedded within longitudinal observational research infrastructure, can be mobilised to explore the political economy of social protection in ways that centre the perspectives of adolescents and young people rather than programmatic priorities and foci. In the discussion, we reflect on the central role of relationships in evidence generation and improving the impact of research on policies and programming to mitigate young people’s vulnerabilities. We reflect on how these methods have enabled caring and trusting relationships to be built over time between researchers and participants, and generated unique insights into young people’s experiences of assistance during crises.

Theoretical Framework

GAGE is a longitudinal, mixed-methods research programme that follows the lives of 20,000 adolescents and young people (including those who are refugees, those who have disabilities, and/or those who married as children) in low- and middle-income country (LMIC) contexts, five of which are affected by conflict or protracted displacement. ¹ The framework recognises the relationality of young people’s capacities, and is built around the ‘3 Cs’: context, capabilities and change strategies (GAGE consortium, 2019). Context explicitly refers to the role of social, economic, political and cultural environments and resources in shaping adolescents’ lives – from the micro level of family and household, through to the meso level of community and peers, to the macro level of the wider local, national and global contexts. These in turn contribute to the development of adolescents’ capabilities: both as individuals who may develop the freedom to choose the kinds of lives they value, and in terms of the collective forms of agency that emerge out of social relationships (ibid.) Change strategies in the context of displacement and conflict may include a range of social protection mechanisms and interventions at household, community, sub-national and national levels, both in the short and longer term.

In humanitarian contexts, where violence, power, oppression and precarity are central concerns, and risks may evolve in unanticipated ways, researchers have a strong moral responsibility to prioritise safeguarding, avoidance of harm, and other ethical practices (see Clark-Kazak, 2019; Hugman et al., 2011; Krause, 2021; Mazurana & Gale, 2013; Müller-Funk, 2021; Pincock & Bakunzi, 2021). A burgeoning field of study on feminist care ethics has underlined the centrality of relationships for people’s well-being and the implications for ethical research practice (Aldrich et al., 2021; Cockburn, 2005; Hankivsky, 2014; Wihstutz, 2016). These include attending to the gap between ‘procedural’ ethics, which prioritise the management of anticipated risks in the field a priori, and reflexive ethical praxis as an ongoing foundational aspect of research encounters (Paradis & Varpio, 2018). In the late 1990s, literature pioneering the ‘new’ social studies of childhood similarly emphasised children and young people as social actors, located within interdependent relationships (Holloway & Valentine, 2000; James & Prout, 1997; Meloni et al., 2015; Qvortrup, 1994; Spyrou, 2011). These relationships shift during crises, with implications for research – for example, if, in conflict settings, adult caregivers die, leaving young people to take on head of household roles prematurely, this changes the social fabric within which researchers secure consent and participation.

GAGE’s approach to research in humanitarian settings draws together the socio-ecological framework of the ‘3 Cs’ with a feminist ethic of care, which asserts that moral actions are interpersonally located, and cannot be understood outside the context in which they are undertaken (Keller & Kittay, 2017). In research, a feminist ethic of care affirms the context-specific, ongoing responsibilities of researchers within the relationships they built with participants, challenging the elision of these relationships within procedural ethics that are built on abstract notions of justice (Ackerly & True, 2008; Gilligan, 1982; Toombs et al., 2016; Tronto, 2018). Ackerly and True (2008) assert that a feminist research ethic involves committing to ‘inquiry about how we inquire’; its key features involve attending to boundaries, relationships and their power differentials, and one’s own situatedness as a researcher. A radical ethics of care in crisis settings, argues Clark-Kazak (2023), must include researchers recognising the mutual interdependence between themselves and participants, making proactive efforts to prevent rather than minimise harm, and acknowledging the emotional labour of all those involved in research. GAGE’s ‘3 Cs’, the new social studies of childhood, and feminist approaches to ethics each emphasise the significance of relationships and power inequalities in shaping young people’s identities and experiences. Woven together, they provide an approach for navigating the complexities of ethical research practices in conflict-affected settings.

Study Contexts

The methods discussed here were used in three distinct humanitarian settings: Gaza, Ethiopia and Lebanon. In Gaza, violence is dynamic and ongoing, within a prolonged history of fragility and conflict. The largest social protection programme (the Palestinian National Cash Transfer Programme, PNCTP), which was established with the aim of unifying existing programmes into one modality, is funded by the World Bank and European Union (EU). It covers around 75,000 families, and includes emergency assistance, access to healthcare and education services, and food. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have also provided food aid (both regular and emergency) to refugees and non-refugees (respectively), while an array of primarily Gulf-based actors (as well as local NGOs) provide zakat (Islamic tithing), especially to widows and orphans. Kinship and family networks (including in the Palestinian diaspora) provide informal social protection support. During the conflict and subsequent violence in the ‘ceasefire’ period in Gaza (since October 2025), new actors have emerged. UNICEF, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Save the Children, and the Near East Council of Churches (NECC) are providing emergency cash assistance to specific categories of people, including pregnant and lactating women, families with children with signs of malnutrition, large size families, and displaced people. Besides cash, almost all families have received in-kind support (including food, hygiene kits, water and bedding) (see Abu Hamad et al., 2024).

In Ethiopia, the main social protection mechanism is the flagship public works Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), which until recent funding cuts covered up to 8 million chronically food-insecure people. It provides cash and food transfers to vulnerable households, predominantly (in the case of households with able-bodied adults) through participation in public works activities, and direct support for households affected by chronic illness or disability, or those with older members. In Afar and Tigray regions, active conflict ceased in late 2022 and a precarious peace process has unfolded, but there remain very high numbers of displaced people, ² and both regional and federal state governments are working with humanitarian agencies to support ongoing recovery. The PSNP was significantly disrupted by the conflict and has had to be supplemented by emergency food and non-food aid (see, for example, Sabates-Wheeler et al., 2025). We compare GAGE findings in these two regions with findings from Amhara, where a new wave of conflict ignited in April 2023 and continues to date, but with very limited international attention and consequently scant support from humanitarian actors.

The final setting we draw on is Lebanon, where GAGE has undertaken research with young people both prior to and following the conflict with Israel in 2024. ³ Provision of health and education subsidies and food vouchers through the Ministry of Social Development’s National Poverty Targeting Programme (NPTP) and World Bank-funded Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) was already patchy and stretched amid growing poverty due to the country’s economic collapse. Although the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’s Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance Programme (MCAP) targets Syrians in Lebanon with protection needs (including households with disabled members), funding gaps have led to reductions in coverage for long-term cash and food assistance to Syrian refugees through WFP. For Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, UNRWA provides basic education and healthcare. Following the outbreak of war, existing systems were used to distribute one-off, top-up transfers and in-kind aid, but the overall scale of emergency coverage has remained narrow – and short term – due to limited funding and eligibility constraints, supporting only around a quarter of all households in need. Local NGOs and community solidarity networks have been vital in sustaining efforts to support affected families (Saghir et al., 2024).

Methods

The GAGE study employs various qualitative and participatory tools to generate nuanced data about what works to support adolescents’ capabilities. Different tools are used with particular groups of adolescents and to explore specific dimensions of their lives, depending on context and focal issues. Although GAGE does not evaluate specific social protection programmes, embedding these tools and our conceptual approach within a longitudinal design means it is possible to explore some key issues: whether or not young people and their households are benefiting from social protection; what young people think might be the reasons for their inclusion in or exclusion from particular programmes; any changes over time in inclusion or exclusion and benefit levels; and the relative contribution that such support makes to their capabilities and well-being. Anchoring this approach within a feminist ethic of care also means that certain tools and approaches are prioritised or adapted in specific ways, as discussed below.

Data generated by the tools described below was transcribed by researchers in local languages, with visual images from participatory tools uploaded for analysis alongside text. Data was then analysed in MAXQDA software, using a thematic and deductive approach based on a codebook aligned with the GAGE conceptual framework.

In-Depth Interviews With Young People

Although research on social protection has largely explored the role of formal provision, evidence shows that informal assistance (for instance, from neighbours, through remittances, rotating savings groups, religious organisations, or other non-state actors) is vital (Stavropoulou et al., 2017), particularly during crises, when informal actors may be more proximate and responsive (as well as trusted) than governments or NGOs. Furthermore, formal social protection transfers are often premised on normative models that assume parental presence in the home; they therefore tend to exclude (for example) adolescent-headed households or young people living alone. As economic empowerment is one of the six capability domains explored by GAGE, researchers asked young people, caregivers and key informants about the different forms of support available, ranging from formal flagship social protection programmes to smaller-scale initiatives (such as from local NGOs, faith-based organisations or through zakat) and informal social protection.

In the context of active conflict in Amhara, Ethiopia, GAGE researchers developed two ‘probing pathways’ in order to ascertain understanding of accessible support: pathway A for young people who freely disclosed conflict-related experiences, and pathway B for young people who did not mention them. This enabled insights into the extent to which existing social protection systems were leveraged to support households affected by the conflict. In Gaza, GAGE researchers used only individual interviews and key informant interviews rather than group interviews, due to security concerns. A pre-prepared set of probing questions was also used in Gaza, but researchers were trained that they should allow as much space as needed for young people to lead the interview in a direction they wanted, given high levels of trauma. The research design included the intention that the interview could also be therapeutic and an opportunity to make young people’s specific experiences visible.

In all contexts, in-depth interviews were structured to enable adolescents to disclose whatever aspects of their identity they wanted to share in relation to how this shaped their experiences of conflict. If (for example) an adolescent disclosed that disability had an impact on this, the researcher then had a series of disability-related prompts so as to explore their experiences in more depth. For young people with hearing impairments, GAGE employed sign interpreters to facilitate in-person data collection, and placed greater emphasis on visual tools. For phone surveys, however, this was not deemed feasible as rapport built up by the researcher with the young respondent over time is difficult to sustain via phone, and it has not been possible to retain the same sign interpreters over time. For adolescents with visual impairments, research tools have been adapted to place greater emphasis on vignettes. The participation of caregivers (in the case of young people with disabilities) was also supported if the participant preferred this (for example, if they had cognitive impairments alongside physical, hearing or visual impairments). In some cases, caregiver participation helped to support and contextualise the young person’s responses. Time allocated for research was also purposefully flexible, according to the respondent’s specific interpretation and support needs.

To inform the design of inclusive, transformative and accountable social protection systems, it is essential that research engages with the perspectives of marginalised groups to understand their experiences of assistance during crises. GAGE purposefully selected disadvantaged young people, both to ensure their representation and to understand the extent to which they are supported through targeted social protection programming. The Washington Group Questions ⁴ (used in the core GAGE quantitative survey instruments) were used to identify young people with disabilities for follow-up, but GAGE also worked with local civil society organisations to identify young people with disabilities who may otherwise not be visible through regular door-to-door survey approaches (for instance, because some families hide young people with disabilities at home, due to stigma). Recognising the different participation requirements of diverse young people in diverse contexts, GAGE adapted methods according to participants’ age, gender, displacement status, disability and marriage status, and with cultural and social norms in mind (see Baird et al., 2021).

For married adolescents, community facilitators negotiated with husbands and in-laws (in the case of extended family household arrangements) to mitigate backlash against young wives for their participation. In Amhara, Ethiopia, for example, researchers made multiple calls for the same interview on the basis of feedback from participants, so that young wives were able to fit in the interview around their care and domestic work responsibilities. For adolescents who had been displaced elsewhere in Ethiopia, researchers took time to track young people who had been displaced to new locations by engaging with local facilitators, their peer networks, and also their caregivers, using digital technologies (including social media and messaging apps) as well as phone calls. The sample was also expanded to capture the realities of people recently displaced into the GAGE research sites (not just those who had left for other areas). In Gaza, researchers coordinated with health centres and community-based organisations to ensure a diverse sample of married girls, including those who are or were pregnant and those who have been exposed to violence.

Reflecting the emphasis on relationships within care ethics, GAGE secured not only legal and formal access to communities and participants, but social access – especially to girls – often via ‘gatekeepers’ such as caregivers and household heads. During crises, access to the most marginalised groups or individuals (such as young people with disabilities and married girls) must be carefully negotiated due to anxieties about safety being intensified by conflict. By building trust with gatekeepers over time, it has been possible for researchers to sustain access to groups of young people whose experiences tend to be hidden because of their withdrawal from public participation during conflict, yet whose accounts are integral to understanding how social protection can reach those most at risk.

At the same time, as recognised by Tronto (2018), care is nonetheless shaped by norms that reinforce inequality and power; relationships can thus equally be sites of risk for young people. To address this concern, GAGE researchers observed dynamics during caregiver interviews to inform interviews with the adolescent, while during phone interviews, participants were given a keyword they could use if it was no longer safe to speak. For those young people who had been or were currently on the front lines of conflict (by joining rebel groups or government armed forces), researchers carefully negotiated times and locations (in-person or online) that the young person identified as secure for them. Where possible, interviewers were of the same sex, from the same area, of the same nationality or other similar status to the participants, to increase trust and avoid cultural insensitivities.

Key Informant Interviews

Alongside specific social protection probes, GAGE researchers used community timelines with influential community members who have a better overview of different provisioning, to map changes over time and provide context to young people’s responses. Context-specific adaptations were also undertaken to recognise different dynamics across contexts between formal and informal support. The GAGE study’s longitudinal design has enabled researchers to build key relationships with state, United Nations (UN) and international NGO social protection actors over time, which has also generated a nuanced understanding of the landscape of social protection in each context.

In Ethiopia, key informants took part in all rounds of data collection. These included leads on the PSNP public works programme, direct support, school feeding programmes, health and nutrition support from the various Bureaux of Agriculture and Food Security, Women and Social Affairs, Education, and Health. Alongside federal, regional and district officials, GAGE engaged with local kebele officials (chairpersons, managers, security officials, religious officials, community and clan leaders, education heads). In Gaza, GAGE leveraged pre-existing relationships with key informants within the Ministry of Social Development, which has been leading on the implementation of the PNCTP (a programme that existed prior to the current conflict, but which has been significantly disrupted due to the destruction of government offices), as well as with key UN agencies engaged in the social protection sector, especially UNICEF and UNRWA.

Participatory Tools

Understanding which kinds of social protection are effective is strengthened through a more comprehensive exploration of which kinds of support are most important in young people’s lives more broadly. GAGE’s approach balances data collection specifically focusing on a particular social protection programme with research questions exploring broader sources of support. By de-centring the focus on a specific formal programme, the approach not only better captures the patchwork of formal and informal support that young people can (or cannot) access, but also reflects the emphasis within a radical feminist ethic of care on relationships and connections as central to well-being.

Methodologically, approaches to investigating these dimensions also differ. The former is investigated through tools such as Most Significant Change (Jones et al., 2019). Originally developed as a participatory approach for evaluating social development programming, the Most Significant Change tool invites young people to identify the changes that are most important in their lives within the past decade, and researchers then probe to understand what, when and why such changes happened, and who was involved (Dart & Davies, 2003; Davies, 1996). The strength of this approach is that it does not start with any assumptions of what social protection programming has been impactful for young people; young people centre on changes in their lives, and then discuss related stakeholders and actors.

Meanwhile, exploratory tools such as Social Network Hexagons are used to generate a holistic picture of young people’s sources and spaces of social support during crises (Jones et al., 2019, 2024). For the Social Network Hexagon activity, young people are invited to identify who they are close to within their family, friendship network, school, neighbourhood (and work and online environments if relevant). Researchers then probe as to who in these spaces young people would turn to for support in different situations. This enables insights into the kinds of assistance that are available to young people outside of formal social protection programming, and the significance of these in how young people navigate crises.

Longitudinal Design

One of the major challenges of researching the impacts of, and unequal access to, social protection during an emergency – particularly within fragile contexts where a range of providers may already be present – is disentangling which kinds of support are part of pre-existing systems and which are part of the humanitarian response. In all contexts, GAGE has been conducting longitudinal research since 2016, wherein researchers have well-established relationships with participants and an intimate knowledge of the historical, economic and socio-cultural context of field sites. GAGE’s research infrastructure, in which research has been ongoing with an existing cohort as well as with community facilitators, enables us to tease out questions such as where previous social protection support may have been disrupted by crises, which aid was emergency-responsive, for how long emergency provisions were in place, and (importantly) who was covered by different providers. This can help to elucidate how social protection is mitigating the effects of crises specifically. Responsive research can also be quickly mobilised through existing longitudinal research infrastructure as crises unfold.

Research that adjusts foci as crises shift or unfold can contribute to evidence-based adaptation within social protection delivery (World Bank, 2023). The GAGE research design is accordingly iterative and constantly evolving. Alongside input from communities involved in the research, GAGE has implemented site-wide debriefings at multiple time points in order to support early feedback and make adaptations for subsequent data collection rounds. During these debriefings, undertaken either in-person or online, all team members involved in the fieldwork share emerging findings across particular themes, and their observations on community dynamics. With male researchers primarily working with male participants, and female researchers working with female participants, this space also allows insights into gender dimensions and differences in findings, identifying potential dissonances, contrasts, and puzzling issues for follow-up.

GAGE also operates a robust referral process to support researchers to manage ethical dilemmas around researching vulnerability and managing participant expectations, especially during complex and dynamic crises. Country researchers give out information cards with their contact information, numbers of key service providers, and also offer to top up phone cards if young people want to make a call to the research team in between research rounds – even if this is not about a referral but for them to simply stay in touch. The teams also hold daily and post-data collection debriefings, which provide an opportunity to reflect on the research process and to provide peer-to-peer support when challenging or triggering cases emerge. These processes complement formal ethical approval in each country context, at both the international and local levels.

Findings

Nuancing Young People’s Perceptions of Social Protection in Crises

Central to a feminist ethic of care are relationships of reciprocity and trust, including within research processes. Echoing other work on the significance of long-term relationships for supporting ethical research with refugees and other vulnerable populations (see, for example, Saad et al., 2022), and as noted elsewhere in this article, the discussions that these relationships have made possible have been integral to generating detailed and nuanced insights into young people’s experiences.

By de-centring formal assistance in research interactions via participatory tools that allow a broader understanding of what matters to young people, and in-depth interviews that explore young people’s perceptions and experiences in detail, GAGE research has generated nuanced evidence on the role and relevance of government and NGOs in providing social protection during crises. Some young people perceived that NGOs provided only short-term relief or focused on specific issues. For example, a 17-year-old adolescent girl in Afar, Ethiopia, whose father (a respected local businessman) had died during the war, explained that her family was reliant on community and short-term NGO support because they were not eligible for government benefits:

Those who have fathers are getting some sort of benefits from the war and from the government as well. But if you lost the head of the house, no one will remember you. Fortunately, we are well taken care of by our mother and the community. NGOs came here and support us with money, they gave 5,000 birr for all widows for the last six months and that meant a lot for our families. We had almost nothing when they appeared and it helped us escape the danger of the time. But now it has been terminated.

Meanwhile, a group of girls in South Gondar, Amhara region, explained that although they were able to access some cash assistance initially from the government, only people who were displaced from certain areas were entitled to help with household items. They were advised by the local government that they needed to find their own way to replace lost and damaged things, as one 18-year-old young woman explained:

We lost many belongings. They damaged many things. We reported to the kebele [village administration] and even went to the woreda [district] town. They told us there is no such support. They told us to work and replace it.

During the war in Lebanon, in comparison, aid efforts were largely led by NGOs, with a focus on distributing food parcels and basic supplies. However, access to this assistance was uneven. Although some families reported receiving food support, others were entirely excluded, with no contact from aid providers despite widespread need. During a group discussion with young women in Baalbek, one participant explained that she had received assistance while another had received none:

Participant 1: A lot of food aid was arriving in Baalbek. Charities were also distributing meals to people.

Participant 2: I didn't see any aid throughout the war. No one knocked on our door and told us to take this aid.

In Gaza, one 18-year-old young woman who was living in a flat with around 50 people after her home was destroyed by bombing described UNRWA as being a key provider of food aid and hygiene products. However, she noted that there were always food shortages and insufficient supplies to meet the enormous needs. She also noted that because of the expense of cooking, canned goods were more useful to receive:

We were short of everything, so anything was useful. We couldn’t buy cleaning products from the market, it was very expensive, so we used to wait for that package to come. Regarding the food items, you get aid boxes where you get legumes and aid boxes with canned food only. So, it is more economical for us to receive canned food. Because we don’t have wood here, it isn't always available, it is expensive in the market.

These insights strengthen understanding of what kinds of social protection are actually being accessed by young people and under what circumstances.

Understanding Changes and Continuities in Formal Social Protection Provision and Access

The mobilisation of the longitudinal research infrastructure has been integral to identifying appropriate adaptations as well as generating insights that would not have been possible through research specifically into social protection during crises, in which pre-existing provision and services become background and history – rather than factors in people’s current experiences of crisis-responsive assistance. A key example of this kind of responsive, historicised approach has been in Amhara, Ethiopia, where research amid ongoing conflict would have been impossible without the pre-existing relationships built by GAGE researchers, not only with participants but with community facilitators too. Longitudinal data collection rounds in Amhara helped to identify conflict-related disruption to the pre-existing PSNP, wherein it became difficult for government and NGOs to deliver food aid, due to looting of trucks en route to distribution centres and the collapse of government structures at local levels in areas where rebel groups had obtained control. However, for security reasons, young people reported that they were not able travel to woreda towns for aid distributions. The security situation has also not allowed government officials to operate in more remote communities – many of which are controlled by ethno-nationalist Fano rebels. As a consequence, many people reported being unable to access emergency support through either existing social protection systems or humanitarian assistance.

The perspective of officials such as those in Gaza and Ethiopia, which were able to be elicited as a consequence of relationships built over time, have been integral. Not only have key stakeholder perspectives offered a sense of shifts in implementation and assistance, they have also shared observations about gaps, challenges, effectiveness, linkages to other providers in the humanitarian space, and what is behind any changes noted over time. In Gaza, a key informant working for a Palestinian NGO explained that since the beginning of the war, social protection payments that were provided through the government had stopped, ⁵ resulting in a significant surge in demand for assistance from civil society:

Since the war began, cash assistance has been halted. It was operating every three months, but – again – at one point, they stopped assistance for many people. It’s even said that 60% of those who used to receive aid had it cut off.

In Amhara, Ethiopia, in 2023, ⁶ meanwhile, key informant interviews revealed continued tensions that risked being exacerbated by the lack of a coordinated and clear social protection strategy. A key informant in local government described how initial assistance by the federal government was waning, leading to distrust by people in the kebele towards local leaders:

I appreciate the government’s attempt to provide the people with food and other support, especially during the immediate post-conflict time. Soon after the TPLF [Tigray People’s Liberation Front] forces left our area and people returned to their homes, the government provided food and other support like utensils, blankets, mattresses and others. Moreover, the government promised the people to provide food support for six consecutive months until people resumed their normal life. But the government couldn’t continue the food support after one month. We don’t know why… [it] stopped after one month… Nowadays people are asking us why the food support stopped and why the government couldn’t keep its promise. This situation caused the people to develop suspicion about us.

Insights into the complex dynamics of social protection delivery help to underscore the relationship between short-term, crisis-related assistance and long-term planning. These linkages may be more difficult to capture in short-term research focusing on the initial emergency phase.

The Psychosocial Impacts of Crises and Gaps in Social Protection

One of the consequences of the relationships built through GAGE’s longitudinal research is that many young people felt more able to confide in researchers about their distress and anxieties. Across contexts, many participants drew attention to psychosocial vulnerabilities they were experiencing as a consequence of crises, underlining the prevalence and depth of trauma in such settings. Psychosocial programming, such as counselling and other mental health and support services, is key to helping young people cope with the impacts of crises and enabling their recovery in the aftermath. However, GAGE observed significant limitations in terms of such support being integrated into social protection packages. In Lebanon, access to psychosocial services has long been limited due to broader socioeconomic challenges that have seen such programming steadily decline over recent years, leaving communities affected by the 2024 conflict with few spaces for emotional relief or social connection. Services offering psychosocial support were also sometimes seen as being dislocated from participants’ everyday economic realities. An adolescent boy in Baalbek laughed as he remarked on the connection between financial and psychological stresses:

The charities also provided psychological support to people during the war. [Respondent laughing] I am laughing because financial support affects psychological support. If people receive financial support, they won’t need psychological support.

In Ethiopia, young people observed that the absence of psychosocial support was a critical gap in humanitarian social protection responses. Interviews with young people in Tigray in particular highlighted a dearth of support, triangulated by key informants who underscored that they themselves have been traumatised and need support before they can support others. This is particularly crucial when all members of a community, regardless of age and gender, experience serious psychological trauma. A female local official in Tigray explained that although the need for mental health and trauma support was obvious, leaders were themselves still trying to recover from the conflict and its impacts. This was making it very difficult for them to provide, informally, the kinds of support that communities needed:

We cannot provide support to adolescents and their families because first we also need support. We all suffered from the trauma and are still suffering. We did not get any psychosocial support from the government and NGOs. It is only when we get psychological treatment that we can support the others.

In Gaza, meanwhile, some psychosocial support was reported to be available, though not widely; and where this support had been accessed by young people, it was described as limited in helpfulness compared to other forms of support. Analyses in the wider literature observe that services are often not tailored to the intersecting challenges facing adolescents and their evolving gendered and developmental needs (Hamad et al., 2020). The emphasis on mental health by NGOs in Gaza has also been critiqued as pathologising Palestinian suffering in the face of occupation and sustained, protracted violence and denial of human rights (Helbich & Jabr, 2022).

Collective debriefings, undertaken at various time points during the course of research, have also enabled pooling of findings on more ambiguous informal coping strategies, including community-sanctioned child marriages for orphans into polygamous households, and obligatory religious conversion at the point of marriage in post-conflict Afar and Tigray for adolescent girls from ethnic minority communities. Discussions between researchers identified these as protection mechanisms promoted by community and clan leaders, given the dearth of adequate formal social protection in the immediate post-conflict period. Such mechanisms are often obscured within the social protection literature, which emphasises the role of formalised assistance, and frames coping mechanisms such as child marriage as counter to social protection.

Discussion

Findings from GAGE longitudinal research during humanitarian crises in Ethiopia, Gaza and Lebanon evidence an evolving social protection environment for young people affected by the material, economic and emotional impacts of conflict and displacement. Social protection during crises is centrally concerned with the redistribution of resources to the most vulnerable groups or individuals (Roelen et al., 2018; Sabates-Wheeler et al., 2022; Ulrichs & Sabates-Wheeler, 2018). GAGE’s research builds a nuanced picture of the core issues and actors involved in social protection in each context from the perspective of young people and service providers, as well as the complexities and challenges of social protection over time within the context of evolving, dynamic crises. Through adaptations to core qualitative and participatory research tools to support the inclusion of the most marginalised young people, within the context of these pre-existing relationships and networks, it has been possible to draw out temporal aspects of crisis-related provisioning.

The findings also highlight areas of significance such as psychosocial programming, which are often overlooked in existing work on social protection in crises. GAGE methods and tools generate evidence in ways that support the inclusion and participation of diverse young people but also create space and time for the processing of emotional distress, in the face of a wider dearth of support for young people within humanitarian settings. Reflecting Young’s (2011) call to address structural injustices through building caring, reciprocal connections that recognise the power inequalities that undergird them, a feminist ethic of care demands that resources and time are given to supporting the building of relationships and acting in solidarity. Many young people who are given contact information for researchers avail themselves of the invitation to stay in touch, underlining the moral imperative of reciprocity within the relationship between researchers and participants, and the urgency of avoiding care relations that reassert power relations under the guide of ‘caring’ (Narayan, 1995). This attention to continuity of care beyond research interactions is again essential for embedding a radical ethic of care within the GAGE study.

Longitudinal research relationships are not only built between participants and researchers; they also extend to relationships between research teams and local and regional networks of supportive NGO and governmental actors with whom researchers can engage and problem-solve to seek solutions for particularly at-risk adolescents – even when systems are disrupted or dysfunctional. This approach reflects the principle that far from being abstract theory, a critical care ethics must be grounded within ‘concrete activities of real people in the context of webs of social relations’ (Mahon & Robinson, 2011, p. 2). Without a long-term presence in communities and the rapport that is built up with community facilitators, this type of access to committed, flexible individuals would risk either becoming mired in bureaucratic red tape, or there would be insufficient rapport and trust to navigate fragile systems and services.

Ensuring that participation in research by young people in all their diversity is positive, productive and empowering also means connecting participation with action. Networked research with government and NGO collaborations, as observed across settings, can further contribute to an ethic of transformative research because of channels for research impact. For example, observations by young people about the limitations of psychosocial support underline the importance of addressing distress and trauma through holistic and contextually relevant social protection interventions that are explicitly concerned with justice as well as alleviating distress. Although often conceptually treated as secondary in social protection literature (see Bauer et al., 2021) – and left for NGOs to provide in practice – GAGE research reveals the importance of embedding and interlinking psychosocial interventions with other forms of social protection that address the multi-faceted impacts of crises on young people’s lives, including the economic effects.

Limitations

Although the research approach described in this article offers numerous benefits for exploring and understanding social protection in crises, its implementation more broadly may be constrained by several factors. The first set of limitations are practical. Despite the power of longitudinal research for documenting changes over time, and the vital role of researchers’ long-term relationships with participants in generating the kinds of insights described here, studies such as GAGE require highly skilled personnel, ongoing training and support, and sustained in-country presence – all of which are costly. Attrition over time may also weaken sample sizes; although GAGE attrition rates are low, ensuring young people’s continued participation by renegotiating consent at every data collection encounter has also required careful attention to the maintenance of relationships with participants. Ensuring consistency and rigour in analysis across countries also requires ongoing coordination with and support for research teams. The management of qualitative longitudinal data to enable insights into changes over time for specific young people and crisis-affected communities can also be very time-consuming and complex, requiring dedicated systems to be set up for tracking participants (Devonald & Jones, 2023).

Alongside these practical considerations are some ethical concerns that are not fully addressed by work on a feminist ethic of care. The increased presence of external actors and NGOs during crises can also create challenges for maintaining a distinction between assistance and research, which inevitably has implications for interactions between researchers and young people in the humanitarian space. GAGE has continually reflected on the ethics of giving financial tokens and phone credit as compensation for participation in research. Redistributing resources by giving something of value to people who are in very desperate situations when GAGE has the capacity to do so, and when a tangible form of compensation would be deeply appreciated, is therefore assessed by researchers to be the most ethical choice. Nonetheless, it raises concerns about whether people may take risks in order to participate and access the (very limited) benefits of doing so, as well as questions about the boundaries of research and praxis around social protection. With a feminist ethic of care emphasising the need to critically attend to power relations in navigating boundaries, relationships and positionality (see Ackerly & True, 2008), such questions must be carefully navigated on a case-by-case basis that recognises their inherent complexity.

Conclusion

This article has examined how longitudinal research that is anchored within a feminist ethic of care can help to generate nuanced insights into diverse young people’s experiences of crises, and the extent to which social protection addresses key challenges. In Ethiopia, Gaza and Lebanon, relationships built over time between researchers and participants were fundamental not only to a caring research dynamic during emergencies, but also for identifying and attributing changes in adolescent experiences and trajectories to different factors within their socio-ecological environments. As shown, this observational and situated perspective generates a more nuanced depiction of targeting and programme reach and effectiveness. Longitudinal methodological design – as a backdrop for participatory and qualitative research tools, and guided by a feminist ethic of care – can strengthen understanding of which kinds of social protection are needed and are effective for young people, both during an immediate emergency and when conflict situations become protracted. Furthermore, building relationships with young participants and key stakeholders through longitudinal research can offer young people the kinds of emotional and psychosocial support that are often missing within humanitarian assistance and social protection modalities. Although research on social protection has historically been reactive to crises, this article underlines the importance of such relationships for improving the evidence base on what works to support young people. Future work is nonetheless needed to further explore the ethical dimensions of longitudinal qualitative research and concomitant relationships specifically in crisis settings, particularly from a feminist perspective that foregrounds care ethics.