2017 | Skills Portfolio Review Background Across World Bank Group client countries, skills development The Skills GSG set about conducting a has become a priority. Skills are at the core of improving portfolio review of skills work across the individuals’ employment, incomes, and standards of living. Bank to answer questions such as: Having a skilled workforce is necessary for countries to In what types of skills projects is the boost their global competitiveness and foster creativity and World Bank investing, and where? innovation. Which Global Practices have active ­ The Skills Global Solutions Group (GSG) practice or region. And the definition of and pipeline projects that contain brings together a community of hundreds “skills” is broad, as it includes the types skills-related components? skills experts from across the World Bank of cognitive skills traditionally taught in Global Practices. However, defining the the classroom, technical skills learned How much do these projects cost? World Bank’s skills portfolio has been a on the job or through training programs, What beneficiaries do such programs challenge: skills is a cross-sectoral topic, and the socioemotional or life skills target, and how do they measure one that that is not limited to a single necessary for success. their results? This portfolio review seeks to answer these questions by analyzing 105 active and pipeline IBRD/IDA lending projects that include skills components. 2 | 2017 Skills Portfolio Review Methodology Methodology To conduct the portfolio review, we used Number of Active/Pipeline IBRD/IDA Projects* the search function of the World Bank Operations Portal to identify relevant 150 projects. 150 We applied the following filters to limit the project to a manageable scope: Product Line: for this initial review, we included only IBRD/IDA lending projects 100 Status: we filtered results to include only 91 active and pipeline projects The Operations Portal allows users to limit searches to keywords found in specific areas: Project Development Objective (PDO), Results, and/or Project Documents. 50 Avg We selected all of these areas in order to 38 cast a wide net. 24 To The Right 5 5 4 With product line and status filters applied, the search 0 terms identified the following number of projects: Skills Training Vocational TVET Youth Youth Job Program Employment Training Training 4 | 2017 Skills Portfolio Review *Project numbers as of March 10, 2017 Methodology Of course, many of the identified projects contained multiple keywords. Once duplicate projects were removed, we were left with 208 skills projects. Next, we reviewed all project PDOs Of the remaining 105 skills and components to determine projects, we conducted a basic each project’s relevance to skills analysis of project information, development. We removed 103 using Project Appraisal Documents projects due to lack of relevance, (wPADs) and Project Information or because they did not contain at Documents (PIDs) as our sources. least one component that explicitly focused on skills. For details on how these decisions were made, please see the appendix. 5 | 2017 Skills Portfolio Review Findings Findings | How is the World Bank Investing in Skills? Project Status Average Project Cost Funding The majority of the projects—72%- -were funded through International Development Association (IDA) loans 72% and grants, versus International Bank (76 Projects) IDA funded for Reconstruction and Development projects (IBRD) loans, which financed 28% of the projects. Most countries included in the analysis are thus classified as $116.95 Million 92 low-income countries, rather than Total: 105 Projects Active Projects middle-income countries. Total: $85.27 28% Million by (29 Projects) 13 World Bank IBRD funded Pipeline Projects Commitment projects 7 | 2017 Skills Portfolio Review Findings | Where is the World Bank Investing? Well over one-third of the skills projects are in the Africa region. South Asia had the second-highest number projects, followed by Latin American and the Caribbean. Skills Projects by World Bank Region Individual Countries with the Most Current and Pipeline Skills Projects 12% 13% East Asia and Latin American the Pacific and the Caribbean 9% India 9 Europe and Central Asia China 6 Bangladesh 6 5 4% Middle Tanzania 5 East and North Africa Jamaica 4 19% South Asia Nigeria 4 43% 0 2 4 6 8 10 Africa 8 | 2017 Skills Portfolio Review Findings | Where is the World Bank Investing? As we might expect, the largest numbers Skills Projects By Lead Global Practice of projects were led by the Education Global Practice (41 projects) and the Education 39% (41 projects) Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice (26 projects). However, projects Social Protection & Labor 25% (26 projects) across a broad range of Global Practices Social, Urban, Rural and 11% (12 projects) included components that focused Resilience Global Practice on skills development, ranging from Agriculture 7% (7 projects) Agriculture to Energy and Extractives to Social, Urban, Rural, and Resilience. Energy & Extractives 4% (4 projects) Finance & Markets 3% (3 projects) Trade & Competitiveness 3% (3 projects) Transport & ICT 3% (3 projects) Governance 2% (2 projects) Environment & Natural Resources 1% (1 projects) Health, Nutrition & Population 1% (1 projects) Macro Economics & Fiscal 1% (1 projects) Management Poverty and Equity 1% (1 projects) 0 10 20 30 40 50 9 | 2017 Skills Portfolio Review Findings | In what types of skills training projects is the World Bank investing? “Skills development” is a broad concept, In our analysis, we categorized the identified projects into five types of training: one that includes interventions that take place throughout the lifecycle (from early childhood, through the school years,  Labor Market Training Training to assist under-or unemployed individuals find and and while in the workforce), in different 46 projects maintain employment, typically short-term. contexts, and for different purposes. Technical Training Training programs at a formal technical or vocational Skills development projects at the World 27 projects institution, typically-long term. Bank can range from: Job training for out-of-work adults Sector-Targeted Training Training undertaken in the workplace to improve the skills of 19 projects workers in a specific sector. Socioemotional skills development programs for at-risk youth Tertiary Education Non-academic skills training programs as a part of a formal How much do these projects cost? 7 projects academic post-secondary program. Vocational training programs that Entrepreneurship Training for business creation and development for the provide learners with the skills they purposes of personal socioeconomic development. 6 projects need for jobs of the future 10 | 2017 Skills Portfolio Review Findings | In what types of skills training projects is the World Bank investing? Type of Skills Training Each project was assigned one category; in cases of projects that included components that fit into multiple categories, we selected the one that 18% appeared to be the greatest focus of the Sector-Targeted 6% Training Entrepreneurship project. Labor market training programs, 6% which are typically short-term trainings Tertiary designed to trainees gain and succeed Education in employment, are the most commonly 26% funded, consisting of 44 percent of the Technical Training projects. Technical training—typically, longer-term traditional technical and vocational training (TVET)—and sector- targeted training are also common. 44% Labor Market Training 11 | 2017 Skills Portfolio Review Findings | Who are skills projects targeting? Target Groups We also created 4 very broad categories to describe the target groups or beneficiaries for relevant project components: 23% 6% Out-of-school youth Current Current workers Those receiving upskilling training on-the-job. Workers Out-of-school Youth (most frequently defined as ages 15 to 35, although this Youth varies by project) not currently enrolled formal education Under- of Working age adults seeking new or better employment. unemployed adults Upper-secondary or Youth enrolled in academic or vocational programs at formal 34% 37% Under- or unemployed Upper-secondary or tertiary students institutions. adults teritary students Because the project beneficiaries outlined of the project. Projects targeting in project documents were very specific, those enrolled in formal education we selected just 4 target groups designed or vocational programs and targeting to be as general as possible. For projects under- or unemployed adults made up with multiple types of beneficiaries, we over two-thirds of the portfolio. selected the one that fit the main focus 12 | 2017 Skills Portfolio Review Findings | How does the World Bank measure the outcomes of skills projects? To conclude our analysis, we asked: How is the World Bank measuring the outcomes of all of these skills programs? We categorized the many, very-specific Our findings indicate that most skills project indicators for relevant project projects determine outcomes by components into a list of general indicator measuring employment or placement types. Most projects had multiple rates less than one year after program indicators. Virtually all projects measured completion, overall program enrollment demographic breakdowns such as rates or total number of beneficiaries, the number or percentage of female program completion rates (including participants, so we did not include these rates of certification among participants), as categories, except when such outcomes earnings and other socioeconomic were used as key overall indicators. outcomes, and whether or not certain regulatory or policy changes were initiated. Few programs measured employment rates after one year, specific cognitive or noncognitive learning outcomes, or participant satisfaction with the program. 13 | 2017 Skills Portfolio Review Findings | How does the World Bank measure the outcomes of skills projects? Skills Project Indicators Employment/placement rates less than one year after program completion 33 Enrollment rates/number of beneficiaries 28 Program completion rates/certification rates 28 Earnings/socioeconomic outcomes 19 Regulatory or policy changes initiated 13 Institutional improvements, such as decreased costs or increased efficiency 13 Number/percentage of participants from disadvantaged groups* 11 Employment/placement rates one year or more after program completion 9 Employment/placement in a specific sector 8 Number of beneficiaries starting a business or small enterprise 7 Cognitive/learning outcomes, such as test scores 5 Employer satisfaction 5 Business/financial improvements 5 Industry-specific outcomes 5 Drop-out or retention rates 2 Socioemotional/noncognitive outcomes 2 Performance of training providers 1 Participant satisfaction 1 Expansion of geographic coverage 1 0 10 20 30 40 Number of Projects 14 | 2017 Skills Portfolio Review *such as females, urban, poor, etc. Appendix Appendix In conducting this portfolio analysis, we reviewed all 208 projects that our Operations Portal keyword search returned in order to determine which projects should correctly be classified as “skills projects.” Below are some additional methodology notes about how we made these determinations. We only included projects that contained Such projects accounted for most of the at least one component with a major skills projects from practice areas outside focus on skills development (such as of Human Development that we included job skills, life skills, financial skills, and in the final analysis. We also included socioemotional skills). This included education projects with a major teacher projects that focused on improving skills career training component. in a specific sector or industry—such as mining or information technology—as long as there was a significant emphasis on improving the skills of individual workers. 16 | 2017 Skills Portfolio Review Appendix The following types of projects and components were excluded from our Additional Notes: definition of “skills projects:” “Additional financing” projects were  rojects that Including Training for the Staff or Contractors who P included, and counted and analyzed would be carrying out World Bank work. separately from their original projects. Health Education Projects that focused on increasing general For some pipeline projects, for which knowledge or behavior change, rather than training in specific skills. final documents had not yet been published in ImageBank, we referred to Education Projects focused exclusively on basic or cognitive skills. working documents that may be subject to further changes or revisions. All Tertiary Education projected focused exclusively on institutional information is current as of May 2017. development. The term “youth” may be defined Managerial Training for country leadership, policymakers, etc. differently across different projects, and we did not seek to distinguish Industry specific projects in which worker training was only implied or between these definitions. briefly mentioned. Knowledge sharing, consulting, and project management support. Women and girls’ empowerment programs that did not focus specifically on skills development. 17 | 2017 Skills Portfolio Review