IYF Releases Evaluation of Youth Employment Initiative:

Effectiveness of Alliance Building Strategy Validated

Baltimore, Maryland:  Some 319 partners, nearly half from the private sector, helped expand education and employability opportunities for 30,000 young people in Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan and the Philippines, according to an evaluation report of five countries within the Education & Employment Alliance (EEA). ** An initiative of the International Youth Foundation (IYF) with key support from USAID, EEA was established to build public-private partnerships to maximize the impact, reach, and sustainability of its programs.

“A significant element in EEA’s success has been the high level of corporate support for our efforts to prepare underserved youth to join the job market,” said Awais Sufi, Vice President, Work Programs at IYF. “Bringing the private sector together with government leaders and the NGO community helped us to equip far more young people with marketable skills as well as promote collaboration as a model for change in these communities.”

Launched in 2005, EEA was designed to benefit disadvantaged, unemployed youth in countries with emerging economies and high rates of youth joblessness. According to the evaluation report, the EEA program demonstrated how multi-sector alliances can help broaden the number of project donors and supporters, encourage the exchange of best practices, support large numbers of beneficiaries, and promote cost efficiency.

Among the report’s key findings:

* Strong employment outcomes: Of the EEA graduates eligible and ready to work, 56 percent secured jobs or set up small businesses, including 1,000 new entrepreneurs.
* Reaching at-risk youth: Nearly 30,000 youth benefited from participation in EEA education and training programs.
* Sustainability: Forty percent of EEA projects are continuing their activities beyond initial funding.
* Broad Corporate Support: Companies made up 45 percent of Alliance partners, including Chevron, Cisco, ExxonMobil, Gap, GE, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Nike and Oracle, as well as over 100 local businesses who donated cash or in-kind contributions.
* High employer satisfaction: 79 percent of surveyed employers rated EEA graduates as good or excellent as compared to youth of a similar age.
* Cost effectiveness: The alliance model helped EEA to become cost efficient compared to generally higher cost estimates of similar interventions.

In addition to EEA’s accomplishments, the report offers important lessons learned and identifies best practices, with a focus on partnerships.  The knowledge and experience gained through EEA as well as IYF’s entra21 youth employment program in Latin America and the Caribbean has helped strengthen IYF’s capacity to develop similar alliances in other parts of the world, including through IYF’s Youth:Work initiative, a global partnership with USAID to promote multisector partnerships that address youth employment needs.

** EEA programs were also undertaken in India, with core support from USAID/India. Evaluation of this program centered on the sustainability of a new entity to promote partnerships in support of technology-based education and employment programs. This organization, the QUEST Alliance, is now fully operational and can be visited at www.questalliance.net.

Download the Executive Summary of the ‘Education and Employment Alliance: An Evaluation of Partnerships in Support of Youth Employability”.

Download the Full Global Evaluation.

Country: Philippines