Evaluating the Effectiveness of Child Friendly Spaces in IDP Camps in Eastern DRC: Goma Field Study Summary Report

Child Friendly Spaces (CFSs) are used by humanitarian agencies as a means to promote protection and psychosocial wellbeing for children in emergency settings. World Vision International together with Columbia University conducted a series of studies to investigate the effectiveness of CFSs in various humanitarian contexts in order to document evidence of the positive effects they have in relation to child wellbeing and protection, to identify good practice in their design and implementation and to develop improved monitoring and evaluation approaches for CFSs. The case studies have so far all been focused on refugee settings and while internally displaced populations (IDPs) share many of the circumstances and challenges of refugees it was decided that CFSs operating in IDP settings warrant a particular investigation in order to assess their relevance and effectiveness in promoting child protection and psychosocial wellbeing. This report thus presents the findings from an IDP focused study on CFS effectiveness in three camps near Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).