ILAB facilitates opportunities for learning and reflection by publishing learnings documented in project evaluation reports. Lessons learned and promising practices found in these reports are presented here in a searchable database so that these valuable learnings may be considered in the development of new programming. To view the evaluation reports and other research from which these learnings are collected, please see our performance, monitoring and accountability page.
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Showing 111 - 120 of 1122Project Title | Evaluation Type | Learning Type |
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Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description Motivation is not, in and of itself, enough to reduce desertion. Click here to access the report |
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Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description Include younger children in youth clubs. Click here to access the report |
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Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description When designing a binational (or multi-national) project, do not assume that having teams in both countries will guarantee an exchange of experiences and learning between them. Incorporate concrete actions for information and experience exchange within the project design. Furthermore, have reasonable expectations about the extent to which these exchanges are applicable between countries. YPCA implementation has shown that although countries have similarities, administrative regulations, laws, and other conditions generally vary Click here to access the report |
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Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description Youth Pathways - Central America (YPCA) provides support in the search for a job, which is considered a significant added value and a highly successful and positive aspect of the methodology when compared to other projects in the area. This was a strong positive for YPCA and Catholic Relief Service and the Team considers that projects for youth employability should include this kind of support. Click here to access the report |
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Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description According to the feedback received by most interviewees and employers, the promotion of soft skills is more relevant than vocational training to entering the labor market in both countries. This differentiates Youth Pathways - Central America (YPCA) from similar workforce-development projects that may offer vocational training but lack the soft-skills approach. The YouthBuild component provides a comprehensive and effective set of soft skills in areas such as values, leadership, conflict resolution, self-esteem, communication, teamwork, and interviewing that help prepare youth for jobs or self-employment. Click here to access the report |
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Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description Youth Pathways - Central America's (YPCA’s) effective start date was October 2015, but development of the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems and plans, as main parts of theComprehensive Monitoring and Evaluation Plan (CMEP), took about a year and caused important activity delays. During the first year, a cohort study to complement the CMEP and its performance monitoring plan was also designed. The project was not fully operational until early 2017, when all activities were initiated. A shorter period of time devoted to planning purposes on the M&E subject matter would allow additional time for activity implementation and improve actual project outputs and outcomes. Click here to access the report |
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Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description Youth Pathways - Central America's (YPCA’s) strategy to recruit participants through different channels (such as online social media, oral presentations in schools and municipalities, and dissemination of brochures and booklets) ultimately engaged an adequate number of participants. Attrition was not a significant problem in the Clubs component, but the YB component faced important desertion rates in some program sites in El Salvador and Honduras—in Honduras, desertion rates increased during the political unrest in 2017–2018. Technical staff reported that economic reasons, such as lack of resources to afford transportation and meals to attend program activities, was a major restriction to participation. Although the program design anticipated providing support to participants, not all implementing partners provided it from the beginning or to all participants. Some girls deserted because they got pregnant or had children and could not paid for child care services. Once the program provided additional support for transportation, meals, and child care, desertion rates diminished. Learning from this experience shows that consistently providing mobilization, food, child care and other essential items early in the program and across all implementing partners may widen the level of participation. Click here to access the report |
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Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description When selecting program sites for project offices in the field, conduct a thorough situational diagnostic to assess the existence of enough children and youths who meet selection criteria and ensure that there are no restrictions to mobility of potential participants (due to gang disputes or territories). This was not a concern for Fe y Alegría, which has had a long presence in the municipalities targeted by the program but was a factor for the others. There were cases in El Salvador and to some extent in Honduras where implementing partners faced low registration rates and therefore had to look for other sites better suited to program operations. As the selection of new program sites within boundaries of a “neutral zone” took time and delayed delivery of services, it is highly probable that a diagnostic of the geographic zones at the beginning of the project may have assisted in the achievement of results. Click here to access the report |
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Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description When working with children and youth with poor academic profiles and a lack of job experience, carefully consider the probability of success in setting a target number of formal jobs for participants. This may require examining realistic, evidence-based targets and baselines from previous research or past evaluations of similar programs. Click here to access the report |
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Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description Reducing school desertion does not depend solely on generating greater motivation. A number of participants abandoned the program due to migration, relocation to other cities/neighborhoods, and the family’s need for them to work. Click here to access the report |
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Project Title | Evaluation Type | Learning Type |
---|---|---|
Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description Motivation is not, in and of itself, enough to reduce desertion. Click here to access the report |
|
|
Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description Include younger children in youth clubs. Click here to access the report |
|
|
Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description When designing a binational (or multi-national) project, do not assume that having teams in both countries will guarantee an exchange of experiences and learning between them. Incorporate concrete actions for information and experience exchange within the project design. Furthermore, have reasonable expectations about the extent to which these exchanges are applicable between countries. YPCA implementation has shown that although countries have similarities, administrative regulations, laws, and other conditions generally vary Click here to access the report |
|
|
Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description Youth Pathways - Central America (YPCA) provides support in the search for a job, which is considered a significant added value and a highly successful and positive aspect of the methodology when compared to other projects in the area. This was a strong positive for YPCA and Catholic Relief Service and the Team considers that projects for youth employability should include this kind of support. Click here to access the report |
|
|
Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description According to the feedback received by most interviewees and employers, the promotion of soft skills is more relevant than vocational training to entering the labor market in both countries. This differentiates Youth Pathways - Central America (YPCA) from similar workforce-development projects that may offer vocational training but lack the soft-skills approach. The YouthBuild component provides a comprehensive and effective set of soft skills in areas such as values, leadership, conflict resolution, self-esteem, communication, teamwork, and interviewing that help prepare youth for jobs or self-employment. Click here to access the report |
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Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description Youth Pathways - Central America's (YPCA’s) effective start date was October 2015, but development of the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems and plans, as main parts of theComprehensive Monitoring and Evaluation Plan (CMEP), took about a year and caused important activity delays. During the first year, a cohort study to complement the CMEP and its performance monitoring plan was also designed. The project was not fully operational until early 2017, when all activities were initiated. A shorter period of time devoted to planning purposes on the M&E subject matter would allow additional time for activity implementation and improve actual project outputs and outcomes. Click here to access the report |
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Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description Youth Pathways - Central America's (YPCA’s) strategy to recruit participants through different channels (such as online social media, oral presentations in schools and municipalities, and dissemination of brochures and booklets) ultimately engaged an adequate number of participants. Attrition was not a significant problem in the Clubs component, but the YB component faced important desertion rates in some program sites in El Salvador and Honduras—in Honduras, desertion rates increased during the political unrest in 2017–2018. Technical staff reported that economic reasons, such as lack of resources to afford transportation and meals to attend program activities, was a major restriction to participation. Although the program design anticipated providing support to participants, not all implementing partners provided it from the beginning or to all participants. Some girls deserted because they got pregnant or had children and could not paid for child care services. Once the program provided additional support for transportation, meals, and child care, desertion rates diminished. Learning from this experience shows that consistently providing mobilization, food, child care and other essential items early in the program and across all implementing partners may widen the level of participation. Click here to access the report |
|
|
Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description When selecting program sites for project offices in the field, conduct a thorough situational diagnostic to assess the existence of enough children and youths who meet selection criteria and ensure that there are no restrictions to mobility of potential participants (due to gang disputes or territories). This was not a concern for Fe y Alegría, which has had a long presence in the municipalities targeted by the program but was a factor for the others. There were cases in El Salvador and to some extent in Honduras where implementing partners faced low registration rates and therefore had to look for other sites better suited to program operations. As the selection of new program sites within boundaries of a “neutral zone” took time and delayed delivery of services, it is highly probable that a diagnostic of the geographic zones at the beginning of the project may have assisted in the achievement of results. Click here to access the report |
|
|
Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description When working with children and youth with poor academic profiles and a lack of job experience, carefully consider the probability of success in setting a target number of formal jobs for participants. This may require examining realistic, evidence-based targets and baselines from previous research or past evaluations of similar programs. Click here to access the report |
|
|
Youth Pathways – Central America (YPCA): Promoting Youth Employment through Employer Partnerships in El Salvador and Honduras Learning Description Reducing school desertion does not depend solely on generating greater motivation. A number of participants abandoned the program due to migration, relocation to other cities/neighborhoods, and the family’s need for them to work. Click here to access the report |
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