Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes

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  • Publication
    Case Study in Outcomes Evaluation : Mongolia
    (Washington, DC, 2014-05) World Bank
    From 2010 to 2013, the World Bank governance partnership facility (GPF) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) helped build the capacity of Mongolian civil society organizations (CSOs) to promote good governance and an effective civil society engagement in procurement and service delivery monitoring. An assessment of results from the interventions was needed to satisfy accountability and learning needs and to inform decisions on future programs and funding. However, the short-term, complex nature of the interventions, numerous CSOs involved, and scarce documentation meant that knowledge of results was largely limited to activities and impact will be difficult to measure. In fall 2013, the World Bank and Mongolia office of SDC decided to use an outcome mapping approach to evaluate the effectiveness, sustainability, and relevance of these interventions. Outcome mapping is a participatory methodology useful for evaluating complex programs that involve capacity and coalition building, multiple actors, and tacit knowledge. It looks beyond outputs and delivery efficiency to institutional behavioral changes that occur in and among social actors influenced by interventions. The evaluation provided benefits to the stakeholders in several ways: results were packaged into an accessible, narrative format for various communication purposes; lessons were identified on what worked and did not work to inform the design of future CSO support, particularly concerning social actors and their roles, innovative solutions, and how to adapt or scale up a program; and the participatory process promoted stakeholder learning and ownership of results achieved to date. Thus, the evaluation generated robust, locally validated data that demonstrated the value of the interventions to stakeholders and donors and revealed ways to improve implementation and management for future efforts.
  • Publication
    Workforce Development: Matching Education Systems to Workforce Needs
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-01) World Bank
    Equipping national workforces with job-relevant skills is a continuing challenge, and mismatches are a present concern. Many school graduates cannot find jobs commensurate with their education and training. Employers complain of difficulty in filling vacancies and bemoan the scarcity of soft skills for boosting productivity. More broadly, skills constraints make it difficult for companies to innovate and invest in more lucrative economic areas. A goal of SABER-Workforce Development is to help countries improve their workforce development framework.