Youth Employment Programs - Independent Evaluation Group

evaluations on what works best to promote youth employment. In 2007,Betcherman and others analyzed the effectiveness of interventions collectedin an inventory of 289 youth employment interventions in 84 countries.Only 73 interventions (25 percent) were properly evaluated, most of themfrom OECD countries, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Program successwas determined not by the type of intervention but by its design andappropriateness to tackle the problem identified. Recommendations highlightthe need for a careful diagnostic of the youth employment problem, and theneed for interventions to be closely monitored and evaluated.A “comprehensive approach” is a multipronged strategy that includescomplementary interventions aimed at removing key constraints to youthemployment across multiple elements, namely: influencing the job creationand work opportunities for youth (both demand for youth by firms and selfemployment),labor and credit market characteristics, and labor supply (box 3.1).Most country strategies (Country Assistance Strategies and CountryPartnership Strategies) do not identify youth employment as a strategicissue. All 18 country programs examined for this study have either highyouth unemployment rates, large youth cohorts, or high inactivity rates(appendix B, table B.7). In 5 of these countries, the Bank’s country strategiespresented youth employment as a strategic issue with specific actions (lending,nonlending, donor coordination) for implementation (World Bank 2009a(Dominican Republic); World Bank 2009b (Morocco); World Bank 2009c (Nigeria);World Bank 2009d (Tunisia); and World Bank 2008 (Turkey). However, the issueonly recently became prominent, and none of the strategies focuses on youthin agriculture and rural non-farm sectors. Most country strategies only brieflymention youth employment with limited or no follow-up. Strategy indicatorsrarely collect age-specific labor market outcome data.Box 3.1A Comprehensive Approach in Youth Employment ProgramsA combination of complementary interventions and a positive growth environment are needed.The IEG systematic review of 38 impact program evaluations from 19 countries and 4 regionsfinds that a positive growth environment helps to ensure the success of the interventions. Inlow- or no-growth environments in which there are no jobs, wage subsidies, skills training, andjob search will not have much of an impact on jobs.Factors that increase the probability of success include participation of the private sector, personalmonitoring and follow up of individual participants, and a combination of complementaryinterventions, such as training with job search and placement assistance, rather than isolatedinterventions. Programs that combine smoothing the transition from school to work with workbasedskills development appear to be most effective for youth employment and earnings.Counseling and job search assistance is the only type of intervention that most often appears toprovide positive labor outcomes. However, its applicability to developing countries with a largeinformal sector is limited. Almost all other interventions work in some cases, but not every case.Source: IEG analysis.What is the Evidence of Support for Youth Employment Priority Country Needs? 29