Strengthening the government’s efforts to boost youth livelihoods in Uganda
Context
Uganda has one of the highest youth populations in the world, with more than three-quarters of the population below 30 years, and a large proportion of these youth struggle to find jobs. In 2015, the International Labour Organization reported that nearly a fifth (18 per cent) of Uganda’s youth were unemployed and that two in five unemployed young people had to look for jobs for longer than a year. Consultations conducted by Uganda’s Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and the World Bank in 2019 revealed that though youth find jobs difficult to secure and consider entrepreneurship an option, they lack the required networks, skills and access to finance.
YLP is the Ugandan government's flagship five-year development programme, providing skills and affordable start-up credit to poor and unemployed youth between the ages of 18 and 30 years. Under the programme, which MoGLSD started in 2013–2014, youth groups receive orientation on financial management, bookkeeping, procurement and managing group dynamics through a standardised two-day workshop. They also receive a grant worth UGX 9.2 million (US$2,500) on average, without any collateral, at an interest rate of 5 per cent from the thirteenth month onward.
Under the Uganda Policy Evidence Programme, 3ie supported the evaluation of priority government programmes and also built the capacity of government officials, particularly monitoring and evaluation officers, to generate and use evaluative evidence. In 2017, 3ie supported MoGLSD and researchers from Uganda Youth Development Link, Uganda’s Makerere University and the University of California to conduct process and impact evaluations of YLP and assess its impacts on youth employment, income and empowerment.
The researchers compiled a pool of 1,556 eligible youth applicants in 402 groups from 16 districts across all of Uganda’s regions and randomly assigned them into treatment or control/comparison arms for at least one financial year.
Evidence
After 12 months of implementation, YLP had no statistically significant effect on the socio-economic outcomes of the intervention group as compared to the control group. While measures of direct income show that youth in the intervention group lag behind their counterparts in the control group, the former’s asset portfolio increased faster. The study found that YLP beneficiaries are moving from unskilled to skilled, and unpaid to paid occupations, and report that they experience greater access to credit facilities. The YLP intervention also positively impacted employment for people outside the programme: youth in the intervention group employed more people (both relatives and non-family members) in their businesses compared to youth in the control group.
Process evaluation findings showed that implementers focused on disbursement and recovery of funds, while downplaying complementary activities to support the novice entrepreneurs through the entire business cycle. Findings also showed that a group size of over 10 members reduced the per capita funding share, complicated group dynamics and increased attrition.
Evidence impacts
'When you do these evaluations, they help you to inwardly reflect and look at what is working, what is not working and generate sufficient evidence to inform policy.'
Type of impact: Change policies or programmes
Decision makers use findings from an evaluation or systematic review to adjust their programming to fix targeting, cash transfer amounts, training modules or other factors that inhibit the policy or programme’s ability to achieve its intended impacts.
This is one of 3ie’s seven types of evidence use. Impact types are based on what we find in the monitoring data for an evaluation or review. Due to the nature of evidence-informed decision-making and action, 3ie looks for verifiable contributions that our evidence makes, not attribution.
Read our complete evidence impact typology and verification approach here.
Close windowUganda’s cabinet approved the recommendations from the YLP impact evaluation studies and the YLP annual reviews included in policy briefs prepared by MoGLSD. Based on study recommendations, the cabinet decided to reduce the group size from 10 to 5 members. The findings also informed the decision to increase the budget for institutional support from 10 to 20 per cent. The additional resources will be used for training, technical support and youth group supervision. In line with study recommendations, the government will also be strengthening programme implementation monitoring, as well as adding components for enterprise building and skill development.
Type of impact: Improve the culture of evidence use
When decision makers or implementers demonstrate positive attitudinal changes towards evidence use or towards information the research team provides. Examples include strengthening monitoring and evaluation systems, increasing understanding of evidence and openness to using it, integrating these systems more firmly into programming or commissioning another evaluation or review.
This is one of 3ie’s seven types of evidence use. Impact types are based on what we find in the monitoring data for an evaluation or review. Due to the nature of evidence-informed decision-making and action, 3ie looks for verifiable contributions that our evidence makes, not attribution.
Read our complete evidence impact typology and verification approach here.
Close windowIn addition to facilitating the collaboration on the process and impact evaluations of YLP, 3ie increased the ministry’s capacity to commission and manage its own evaluations. According to Tonnie Stieve Luyimbazi, the monitoring and evaluation officer for YLP, MoGLSD recently concluded an evaluability assessment of the Uganda Women Entrepreneurship Programme and put together a process evaluation proposal.
Suggested citation
International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), 2020. Strengthening the government’s efforts to boost youth livelihoods in Uganda [online summary], Evidence Impact Summaries. New Delhi: 3ie.
Related
Uganda Evaluation Week 2019: from evidence generation to utilisation
This website highlights the discussions held during a 2019 meeting at which government representatives in Uganda highlighted their experience with evaluations, including that of the YLP
Evidence impact summaries aim to demonstrate and encourage the use of evidence to inform programming and policymaking. These reflect the information available to 3ie at the time of posting. Since several factors influence policymaking, the summaries highlight contributions of evidence rather than endorsing a policy or decision or claiming that it can be attributed solely to evidence. If you have any suggestions or updates to improve this summary, please write to influence@3ieimpact.org
Last updated on 13th November 2020