Publication: Can Results-Based Financing Improve the Effectiveness of Short-Term Education and Skills Training Programs?
Loading...
Date
2021-06-07
ISSN
Published
2021-06-07
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Globally, an estimated 267 million youth aged between 15 and 24 are neither in education nor employed, with most of these youth residing in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This number is likely to increase substantially due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Short-term education and skills training programs can help unemployed and out-of-school youth acquire the qualifications and skills they need to secure and maintain productive jobs. Such training programs typically combine elements of classroom education with more practical workplace training and are offered by governments, often in partnership with the private sector. Given the large amount of money that governments channel into such programs, there is a growing interest in using results-based financing (RBF) to maximize returns on their investment. This study explored whether the use of financial incentives for training providers and participants improved the impact of short-term education and skills training programs on out-of-school and unemployed youth.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2021. Can Results-Based Financing Improve the Effectiveness of Short-Term Education and Skills Training Programs?. RBF Education;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35781 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Review of the Evidence on Short-Term Education and Skills Training Programs for Out-of-School Youth with a Focus on the Use of Incentives(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-01)Short-term education and skills training programs are a popular way to meet the needs of unemployed, out-of-school youth by providing them with an opportunity to quickly acquire qualifications and skills that can lead to productive employment. This paper reviews the global evidence to identify which programs are most effective at delivering results. How incentives for stakeholders are incorporated into the program design is given particular attention. Based on the findings, recommendations are offered for the future design of these training programs.Publication How Does the Short-Term Training Program Contribute to Skills Development in Bangladesh?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-09)Skills development is one of the priorities for national economic development strategies of Bangladesh. The vision 2021 of the Government of Bangladesh gives the highest priority to building a large base of skilled workers in order to achieve a poverty-free middle-income country by 2021. The skills development sector is highly complex due to multiple service providers, a vast spectrum of target audiences, a large range in modalities of service provision, and varied emphases in terms of skills levels and types. The short-term training, a formal channel of six months training, is an important instrument for bridging the gap between the needs of the labor market for increasing the pool of skillful workers and the aspiration of the students for finding a good job. In order to assess the performance of short-term training and interventions by Skills and Training Enhancement Project (STEP), a tracer study was conducted between December 2013 and January 2014. Skills and Training Enhancement Project (STEP) is jointly financed by the World Bank, Canada and the Government of Bangladesh (GoB), which started in 2010 for contributing to Bangladesh’s medium to long-term objective of developing its human resources as a cornerstone of its strategy for poverty alleviation and economic growth. It supports competitively selected 42 public and 8 private short-term training institutions for improving the quality of training and providing opportunities to the disadvantaged youth for obtaining skills from the select training providers.Publication Can Understanding How Middle Managers Make Decisions Help Design Effective Results-Based Financing Mechanisms in Education?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-03-01)The Results in Education for All Children (REACH) Trust Fund supports and disseminates research on the impact of results-based financing on learning outcomes. The Evidence series highlights REACH grants around the world to provide empirical evidence and operational lessons helpful in the design and implementation of successful performance-based programs.Publication Results-Based Financing in Education(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03)Result-based financing (RBF) captures the essence of how the World Bank Group (WBG) is implementing its education strategy, Learning for All. The strategy emphasizes learning (rather than just schooling), since that is what leads to economic growth, development, and poverty reduction. Second, the strategy calls for investing For all so as to ensure the equity dimension behind the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Bank’s Twin Goals of reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity. These goals can be achieved through strengthening education systems. This paper largely focuses on how finance, and RBF specifically, can be used as a lever to pull education systems into coherence. RBF encompasses all of the four transformations called for: performance, innovation, inclusion, and finance. Specifically, putting results first (performance), and embracing results-based approaches to finance (finance) is at the heart of the WBG approach. The approach also offers a new way of approaching problems (innovation), and incentivizing results allows for differentiating levels of rewards, in order to favor traditionally disadvantaged groups, such as rural girls or children living with disabilities (inclusion).Publication Results-Based Financing in Education(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-01)Results-based financing (RBF) has gained popularity in the international development community because of its potential to make education spending more effective and efficient. In the education sector, RBF has been primarily applied to four levels: teachers; students and families; schools; and governments. The results overall have been mixed, with some notable successes and some disappointing experiences. This report explores when and how RBF can help achieve better impacts in education. While there is no rigorous evidence available to suggest that RBF on its own is better at producing learning outcomes relative to other development financing modalities, there is a significant amount of research that shows RBF can have positive effects by incentivizing specific stakeholders in the education system. In addition, there is operational evidence available on how RBF can be designed and implemented with country partners more effectively. It is important for practitioners and policymakers to learn from this evidence as the RBF portfolio in education grows across development agencies.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Remarks at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-12)World Bank Group President David Malpass discussed biodiversity and climate change being closely interlinked, with terrestrial and marine ecosystems serving as critically important carbon sinks. At the same time climate change acts as a direct driver of biodiversity and ecosystem services loss. The World Bank has financed biodiversity conservation around the world, including over 116 million hectares of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas, 10 million hectares of Terrestrial Protected Areas, and over 300 protected habitats, biological buffer zones and reserves. The COVID pandemic, biodiversity loss, climate change are all reminders of how connected we are. The recovery from this pandemic is an opportunity to put in place more effective policies, institutions, and resources to address biodiversity loss.Publication Economic Recovery(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04-06)World Bank Group President David Malpass spoke about the world facing major challenges, including COVID, climate change, rising poverty and inequality and growing fragility and violence in many countries. He highlighted vaccines, working closely with Gavi, WHO, and UNICEF, the World Bank has conducted over one hundred capacity assessments, many even more before vaccines were available. The World Bank Group worked to achieve a debt service suspension initiative and increased transparency in debt contracts at developing countries. The World Bank Group is finalizing a new climate change action plan, which includes a big step up in financing, building on their record climate financing over the past two years. He noted big challenges to bring all together to achieve GRID: green, resilient, and inclusive development. Janet Yellen, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, mentioned focusing on vulnerable people during the pandemic. Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, focused on giving everyone a fair shot during a sustainable recovery. All three commented on the importance of tackling climate change.Publication Supporting Youth at Risk(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)The World Bank has produced this policy Toolkit in response to a growing demand from our government clients and partners for advice on how to create and implement effective policies for at-risk youth. The author has highlighted 22 policies (six core policies, nine promising policies, and seven general policies) that have been effective in addressing the following five key risk areas for young people around the world: (i) youth unemployment, underemployment, and lack of formal sector employment; (ii) early school leaving; (iii) risky sexual behavior leading to early childbearing and HIV/AIDS; (iv) crime and violence; and (v) substance abuse. The objective of this Toolkit is to serve as a practical guide for policy makers in middle-income countries as well as professionals working within the area of youth development on how to develop and implement an effective policy portfolio to foster healthy and positive youth development.Publication Making Procurement Work Better – An Evaluation of the World Bank’s Procurement System(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-06)This evaluation assesses the results, successes, and challenges of the World Bank 2016 procurement reform. Procurements acquire the works, goods, and services necessary to achieve the World Bank’s project development outcomes. The World Bank’s procurement processes must ensure that clients get the best value for every development dollar. In 2016, the World Bank reformed its procurement system for Investment Project Financing and launched a new procurement framework aimed at enhancing the Bank’s development effectiveness through better procurement. The reform sought to reduce procurement bottlenecks impeding project performance and modernize procurement systems. It emphasized cutting edge international good practice principles and was intended to be accompanied by procurement capacity strengthening to help client countries. This evaluation offers three recommendations to scale up reform implementation and enhance portfolio and project performance: (i) Improve change management support for the reform’s implementation. (ii) Strategically strengthen country-level procurement capacity. (iii) Consistently manage the full spectrum of procurement risks to maximize project success.Publication Media and Messages for Nutrition and Health(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06)The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) has experienced rapid and significant economic growth over the past decade. However, poor nutritional outcomes remain a concern. Rates of childhood undernutrition are particularly high in remote, rural, and upland areas. Media have the potential to play an important role in shaping health and nutrition–related behaviors and practices as well as in promoting sociocultural and economic development that might contribute to improved nutritional outcomes. This report presents the results of a media audit (MA) that was conducted to inform the development and production of mass media advocacy and communication strategies and materials with a focus on maternal and child health and nutrition that would reach the most people from the poorest communities in northern Lao PDR. Making more people aware of useful information, essential services and products and influencing them to use these effectively is the ultimate goal of mass media campaigns, and the MA measures the potential effectiveness of media efforts to reach this goal. The effectiveness of communication channels to deliver health and nutrition messages to target beneficiaries to ensure maximum reach and uptake can be viewed in terms of preferences, satisfaction, and trust. Overall, the four most accessed media channels for receiving information among communities in the study areas were village announcements, mobile phones, television, and out-of-home (OOH) media. Of the accessed media channels, the top three most preferred channels were village announcements (40 percent), television (26 percent), and mobile phones (19 percent). In terms of trust, village announcements were the most trusted source of information (64 percent), followed by mobile phones (14 percent) and television (11 percent). Hence of all the media channels, village announcements are the most preferred, have the most satisfied users, and are the most trusted source of information in study communities from four provinces in Lao PDR with some of the highest burden of childhood undernutrition.