seeking experience or advice in understanding the impact of skills development projects in low income communities

Hi there,

My name is Anna James and I am currently completing my masters under the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town.

I am engaged with a research project, exploring the long-term benefits of skills development for livelihoods through a household energy intervention. Certified training (plumbing, electrician etc) and temporary employment (in the installation and maintenance) were provided in a project, 2 years ago. Today's research is asking what has this aspect of the project achieved, what change has it caused?

I am interested to learn about other researchers/practitioners experience in terms of what framework/ theory/ concepts were applied. Specifically with respect to framing urban livelihoods and the link between skills development and employment.

Best wishes.

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Permalink Reply by Sonja Hofstetter on September 12, 2013 at 6:46am

Dear Anna,

The questions you raise are very interesting and I might be able to provide some answers for you. However, I can't tell you much on the conceptual side of this topic, but i provide some experiences from the project reality. My name is Sonja, and I work in Nepal for HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation in the Employment Fund project. We provide skills training to poor and disadvantages youth and link them with employment opportunities after completion. One of our donors, the World Bank, is conduction an impact evaluation of our project, in which they worked with control and treatment groups (just like in a lab experiment). There is no report yet, that I could send you, but the IE has found significant impact on the livelihoods of all participants, and especially women. They started on a base-line study, and now they are collecting the second mid-line data...so we are expecting further results early next year. I could tell you more about the preliminary findings in detail, if you like.

You can refer to our project's website for further information on how we work: www.employmentfund.org.np. The special approach of Employment Fund is that we don't just provide training, but we link our graduates to jobs. The training providers are responsible for this task, and only receive the funds if they are successful in placing their graduates in employment.

So much for now. If you are interested, do get in touch and I can provide you with further information.

Best regards,

Sonja

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Permalink Reply by Ramesh Adhikari Tharu on September 12, 2013 at 8:57am

Im Ramesh from southern part of Nepal. I am a teacher and also working among poor community with national and international volunteers on sanitation awareness solid waste management and environment protection program by using low cost technology. So I want to share my ideas with poor Community if I get an opportunity. Ramesh