Youth Employment Programs - Independent Evaluation Group

Table D.9Target Groups of Project Objectives over Time (percent)Percent of operations with individual attributes in projectobjective2001–05 (n=28) 2006–11 (n=62) 2001–11 (n=90)32 39 37Youth 4 21 16Disadvantaged, vulnerable or disabled 14 13 13Gender 4 3 3Poor 18 13 14Equity 7 10 9Source: IEG portfolio review based on World Bank data.What Types of Youth Employment Interventions Are BankProjects Supporting?In line with objectives, interventions mainly focus on skill development andschool-to-work transition. Bank projects include several components withactivities to support youth employment interventions in countries. Projectsgenerally include several interventions. Using the MILES framework, theportfolio review found that most Bank projects include interventions in skillsdevelopment (82 percent), and school–to-work transition (79 percent). Abouthalf of the projects include interventions to foster job creation and work opportunitiesfor youth (table D.10). It is likely that this share is lower becauseyouth are beneficiaries of other Bank support, which does not explicitlytarget youth, or identify youth as a beneficiary.Interventions reflect the priority of the managing sector. Education-managedoperations mostly include interventions in skill development and school-to-worktransition, but relatively few interventions that seek to create jobs. Operationsmanaged by Social Protection, FPD, PREM, and SDN are more balanced across allthree intervention categories and have a stronger focus on job creation. All fiveregions emphasize skill development and school–to-work transition, whereas jobcreation is most prominent in ECA (tables D.11 and D.12).Formal vocational training reform is most often supported in DPOs. The 15DPOs supported 115 prior actions, of which 30 (26 percent), mostly in Africa,emphasized the need to “improve the quality of formal secondary and postsecondaryvocational education and training.” Other relevant prior actionswere mentioned considerably less often, among them, the need to “improveinformation on the labor market” (five times) and support for “counseling,job search skills, matching and placement” (four times). Prior actions tosupport job creation and the investment climate were only mentioned fourtimes (table D.13).Projects equally target their interventions to young women and men, butlittle is known about whether women have benefited. Youth employment112 Youth Employment Programs