Youth Employment Programs - Independent Evaluation Group

egulations, as well as improving the quality of the formal technical andvocational education system.Job search assistance is one part of a multi-service youth employmentprogram in Bank projects, and little is known about its impact. In Bulgaria,the Bank helped reduce the social benefit payments made under theGuaranteed Minimum Income Program (GMI) to 18 months. GMI recipients hadto participate in an employment activation program that included job searchassistance. Within one year, the GMI program expenditures were reducedby 50 percent; however, this could have been due to benefits expiration orrecipients finding work. In the Maldives, the Bank funded infrastructurefor an employment service center to facilitate job search, but a qualifiedcandidate to manage the center could not be identified, so the center did notbecome operational.Job search assistance is common in youth employment programs in middleincomecountries in a positive growth environment. These programs generallycater to all unemployed citizens. In Colombia, the public employment serviceto help individuals with job search and career guidance was expanded to 32municipalities with Bank support. An additional 300 offices are to be createdin the medium term. The Bank-supported Secondary Education Reformproject in Turkey includes career guidance and counseling services and theintroduction of the National Career Information System, which subsequentlyreported 1.2 million registered users within 2 years. Bank support in ElSalvador helped strengthen 66 Bolsas de Empleo job search assistance offices.In Honduras, graduates of training and internship programs are registeredin the National Employment System and receive counseling services,employment referrals, and follow up. About 33 percent of 4,800 disadvantagedyouth found employment. Similarly, in Armenia, the Bank supported a jobcounseling service center for youth and for the disabled, which was widelyused by the unemployed.Three-quarters of the 90 Bank projects included in this review supportimproving information about the labor market (figure 2.2). While thisinformation tends to be used by employment offices, little is known abouthow accessible job information is to job seekers in low-income countries.Two IEG Project Performance Assessment Reports on education in Yemen andJordan found high unemployment rates among university graduates. Theynoted that more up-to-date labor market information was needed to informjob seekers, as well as more private sector representation in the governance oftertiary institutes (IEG 2011a).The Bank-supported Serbia Employment Promotion Project undertook twoimpact evaluations to assess the effectiveness of “vacancy and job fairs”and “virtual enterprises.” Findings show up to 10–15 percent of participantsfound a job immediately following the job fair, with low unit costs of jobfairs (on average $200–$500 per 400–600 participants). The placement ratesof beneficiaries of virtual enterprises were up to 30 percent after completionAppendix F: Lessons from Impact Evaluations and World Bank Group Operations 147