Youth Employment Programs - Independent Evaluation Group

The Juventud y Empleo program in the Dominican Republic, which issupported by the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank,features several weeks of basic skills and technical/vocational training bya private training provider, followed by an internship with fully-subsidizedwages to ensure training responds to the needs of the local employers. Duringthe internship, participants received limited follow-up with counseling andtechnical assistance. Nearly all interns were let go after the internship. Theprogram had no effect on participants “employability” and employment, buta modest impact on earning (table F.4) (Card and others 2011). The ColombiaJovenes en Acción program, supported by the Inter-American DevelopmentBank, has a significantly positive impact on formality of employment forboth young men and women. For young women with skills training, earningsincreased by 19.6 percent and their probability of paid employment by 6.8percent when compared to women without training and to men (Attanasioand others 2011).Transport and Residential ChangeMany skills-building programs support the transport and residentialexpenses of trainees, which is helpful for youth from lower-income groups. InHonduras, participants receive a stipend during the training and internshipto cover the costs of transportation and food for each day of attendance.In St. Lucia, trainees receive a stipend to pay for transportation, childcare,and other costs of participation. In Burkina Faso, Bank support financedresidential boarding capacities for engineering students. In Grenada,trainees are paid a stipend during course work for transport and other costs;once they start their on-the-job apprenticeship, the stipend is paid by theemployer. TVET trainees in Liberia receive a stipend to pay for transport andother expenses from the employer or the training institutions. The Bankis supporting transportation for girls to and from the training locations inPakistan.Summing up the experience from TVET and remedial skills building, twokeys to success emerge, namely, a comprehensive approach and private sectorinvolvement:• First, comprehensive programs with a counseling and job search componentin addition to the skills training perform stronger than programsthat focused exclusively on skills training. The combination of labormarketrelevance of skills training and career guidance are key.• Second, private sector participation in skill development programs—includingin the program design, the private provision of classroom andwork-based training, the accreditation of training, as well as training ofteachers—leads more often to success. Remedial education and non-formaltechnical and vocational training programs were especially sensitiveto private sector participation.Appendix F: Lessons from Impact Evaluations and World Bank Group Operations 157