Community Jameel and J-PAL Europe Renew Their Commitment to Advancing Social Inclusion in Europe

PARIS, FRANCE—Community Jameel and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Europe (J-PAL Europe) are pleased to announce a renewed commitment to advancing social inclusion in Europe through J-PAL’s European Social Inclusion Initiative (ESII). 

Since its launch in 2019, ESII has successfully fostered new research to generate widely applicable lessons to inform the design of policies and programmes geared towards promoting social inclusion in Europe, with a focus on migrants and refugees as well as children, youth, and their families. 

In 2024, nearly 1 in 5 people across the European Union, some 93 million individuals, were at risk of poverty or social exclusion. This rate is even higher for children, with nearly 1 in 4 children in the EU being at risk (Eurostat, 2025). Promoting social inclusion means helping individuals fully participate in the social and economic life of their communities and exit situations of economic precarity. ESII aims to support this process by funding randomised evaluations of promising interventions and working closely with policymakers and practitioners to apply the learnings emanating from this rigorous evidence.

To date, ESII has supported 16 evaluations across critical areas of social policy, including education, labour market, gender-based violence, and homelessness. These studies are being implemented across nine European countries and reflect the diversity of challenges and solutions across the continent. 

Nader Iskandar Diab, Head of Programmes, Community Jameel, said: “Since launching ESII with J-PAL Europe and Porticus in 2019, we have seen the initiative generate practical evidence to inform policymaking to improve the lives of migrants and refugees across the continent. Today, Community Jameel is proud to be scaling up our support for ESII, which stands alongside the Displaced Livelihoods Initiative as one of the twin pillars of J-PAL’s work on social inclusion in Europe.”

Cillian Nolan, Executive Director of J-PAL Europe, underscored the increasing importance of addressing social inclusion across Europe. “Since we launched ESII as the first dedicated pool of research funding for randomised evaluations to focus on challenges in Europe in 2019, recent shocks, including the large-scale displacement following the invasion of Ukraine, as well as dramatic rises in the cost of living across Europe, have accentuated these challenges. We are excited to be able to deepen our work to contribute to sustainable improvements to households’ ability to fully participate in the social and economic life of their communities.”

Community Jameel and J-PAL Europe’s renewed commitment to advancing social inclusion in Europe also follows the launch of a Displaced Livelihoods Initiative (DLI). In partnership with Innovations for Poverty Action, and with generous support from the IKEA Foundation, this global initiative works to advance the evidence base on creating sustainable livelihoods for displaced populations and host communities and strengthen their self-reliance and economic inclusion. So far, DLI has funded 38 projects across all regions, including five in Europe, with interventions ranging from labour market inclusion to providing mental health support to refugees. 

Anchored by these two primary research projects, ESII and DLI, J-PAL Europe will intensify efforts to support new research in this area and expand the available evidence base to ensure that social inclusion policies across Europe improve lives. 

For more information about Community Jameel, visit www.communityjameel.org. For more information about J-PAL Europe, visit www.povertyactionlab.org, and for more information about the IKEA Foundation, visit www.ikeafoundation.org.

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Media contact: Joseph Thornton