The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia Project Information Document/ Identification/Concept Stage (PID) Public Disclosure Copy Concept Stage | Date Prepared/Updated: 06-Jul-2018 | Report No: PIDC129678 Jul 06, 2018 Page 1 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia BASIC INFORMATION A. Basic Project Data Environmental Project ID Parent Project ID (if any) Project Name Assessment Category Entrepreneurship-focused B - Partial Assessment socioemotional skills for the P165310 (B) most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia Region Country Date PID Prepared Estimated Date of Approval EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC Mongolia 06-Jul-2018 Initiation Note Review Financing Instrument Borrower(s) Implementing Agency Public Disclosure Copy Decision Investment Project Save the Children The review did authorize the Save the Children Japan Financing Japan preparation to continue PROJECT FINANCING DATA (US$, Millions) SUMMARY -NewFin1 Total Project Cost 2.75 Total Financing 2.75 Financing Gap 0.00 DETAILS -NewFinEnh1 Non-World Bank Group Financing Trust Funds 2.75 Japan Social Development Fund 2.75 B. Introduction and Context Country Context 1. Mongolia is the least densely-populated and the second largest landlocked country in the world. Out of 3 million inhabitants living within 1.6 million square kilometers, approximately 1.4 million people reside in Ulaanbaatar, the nation’s capital, and the rest reside in small urban centers and vast grasslands (National Statistical Office of Mongolia, 2016). Administratively, Mongolia is divided into Ulaanbaatar and 21 aimags (provinces). Ulaanbaatar is divided into districts and khoroos (city wards), while aimags are divided into soums (rural districts) and further into baghs (villages). About a quarter Jul 06, 2018 Page 2 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia of the population is nomadic. The Khalkh ethnicity constitutes 84.5 percent of resident Mongolian nationals. Kazakhs constitute 3.9 percent of the population, ranking as the second largest ethnic group in Mongolia. Other ethnic groups such as Buriad, Bayad, Zakhchin and Uulds are also resident in Mongolia. Mongolian is spoken by 95 percent of the population; a variety of dialects are spoken across the country. In the west of the country, Kazakh and Tuvan are also spoken. 2. Earlier in the last decade, Mongolia made significant progress in poverty reduction. Mongolia transitioned toward a market-driven economy in 1990. Although it initially faced sluggish growth, the country experienced rapid economic transformation early on in the last decade, largely due to discovery of mineral reserves. Mongolia also made impressive progress in reducing poverty, with poverty incidence declining from 38.8 to 21.6 percent between 2010 and 2014, and robust gains evident across all regions of the country (World Bank, 2016). In an environment of high returns to education, rising levels of educational attainments during this period put households on a higher earning path. Despite increases in educational attainment, the better-educated continued to earn Public Disclosure Copy more on average, and were less likely to be poor. 3. Since 2014, Mongolia has faced severe economic challenges from major shocks compounded by expansionary policy. The economic boom in 2013 fueled by strong mineral exports and foreign direct investment and expansionary fiscal policy left Mongolia highly vulnerable to external shocks. These risks materialized in 2014. With minerals accounting for almost 90 percent of exports, a sharp drop in commodity prices and slower growth in China significantly weakened the external and fiscal positions. The economy also took a major hit from a collapse of foreign investment. Expansionary policies compounded these shocks. Economic policy turned expansionary during the double-digit growth period despite high inflation and a sharp widening of the current account deficit. Economic policy was loosened further from 2014 in response to the external shocks through fiscal expansion and monetary easing, driven by off-budget expenditure and quasi-fiscal lending. The economic stimulus, however, came at the cost of a significant increase in economic vulnerabilities. Government debt has increased almost fourfold since 2011, with the budget deficit reaching 17 percent of GDP in 2016. Mounting pressure on the balance of payments caused a sharp currency depreciation and a significant loss of reserves since 2013. 4. Rural areas lag behind urban ones, with higher poverty rates and lower access to wage employment. In 2014, the poverty headcount rate stood at 26% in rural and 19% in urban areas, varying from 22 to 31% between Mongolia’s four main regions outside of Ulaanbaatar (World Bank, 2016). Poverty incidence was highest for those without productive and well-paying jobs. In rural areas, the majority of poor households had no access to wage employment: only 39.4 percent of poor households in rural areas had one or more household members with income from wages, compared to 79.9 percent of poor urban households. About one-third of the economically active population is involved in agriculture, where productivity, wages, and salaries are comparatively low. Informal work, defined as self-employment or unpaid work, accounts for 39 percent of total employment in Mongolia, is the predominant form of employment in rural areas (68 percent) and is lowest in Ulaanbaatar (18 percent). Nomadic families, households headed by women, and urban migrants have a particularly high incidence of poverty and are more vulnerable to the country’s extremely cold winters. Jul 06, 2018 Page 3 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia 5. The economic slowdown has brought a significant decline in the labor force participation rate and a rapid rise in the unemployment rate, threatening Mongolia's progress in reducing poverty. The labor force participation rate declined from 63.7 percent of the adult population in the third quarter of 2014 to 61.6 percent in the third quarter of 2016 and the unemployment rate rose from 6.4 percent of the labor force in the third quarter of 2014 to 9.4 percent in the third quarter of 2016. In the first quarter of 2016, it even reached 11.6 percent. More structurally, even during the economic boom between 2010 and 2014, the unemployment rate stayed relatively elevated and rarely dropped below 7 percent. Many remain vulnerable to falling back into poverty. In 2014, about 11% of the country’s population had incomes of no more than 10% above the poverty line. Poor households have been significantly affected by the current prolonged economic crisis and are coping by (i) reducing food consumption and its quality; (ii) limiting health expenditure; (iii) increasing debt; and (iv) absorbing the impacts of delayed wages and reduced employment opportunities. The poverty rate at the national level reversed back to 29.6 percent in 2016 on account of slower economic growth, Public Disclosure Copy higher unemployment, and sluggish income growth. Sectoral and Institutional Context 6. Nationally, a large and growing share of Mongolia’s workforce is self-employed. In 2013, 41 percent of the employed workforce was employed as waged or salaried workers in the formal sector, 22 percent were self-employed and another 26 percent were engaged in animal husbandry (RAND, 2015)[1]. Not only is the self-employed share of the Mongolian workforce large, it is also increasing (World Bank, 2015). The Mongolian economy is thus dominated by micro and small enterprises. Of the just over 90,000 businesses registered in Mongolia in 2013, more than two-thirds were classified as SMEs (ILO, 2017). Small companies generate around 20 percent of the national GDP and provide employment to almost 750,000 people, representing 70 percent of the workforce. 7. Despite relatively high educational attainment, unemployment and inactivity remains high in some groups, particularly among youth. Access to basic education is nearly universal in Mongolia, but drops at the upper-secondary level[2]. The adjusted net attendance ratio for primary education stands at 98 percent of children of primary-school age, 93 percent of children of lower-secondary- school age, and 85 percent among youth of upper-secondary-school age. Upon exit from school, rates of informality, unemployment, and inactivity are elevated for a number of groups, including women, seasonal workers, rural-to-urban migrants, but particularly among youth. Together with Indonesia and the Philippines, Mongolia is one of the three countries in the East Asia and Pacific Region where the problem of high youth inactivity is most acute, with 21 percent of young people between the ages of 15 and 29 years not in employment, education, or training (World Bank, 2014). Rates of long-term unemployment for youth are also elevated. The unemployment rate for youths aged 20–24 years has been persistently high at around 18 percent since 2014, well above the national unemployment rate of between 7 to 9 percent during this period. While high rates of youth unemployment are linked to dearth of employment opportunities available to youth, it should be noted that even during the mining boom prior to the current economic slowdown, as many as 40 percent of unemployed youth Jul 06, 2018 Page 4 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia remained unemployed for over two years after entry into the workforce, and for about a third of new entrants to the labor market, it took over 2 years to acquire a job. 8. Mongolian women have higher rates of educational attainment than Mongolian men, but significantly lag behind in labor market outcomes, including in self-employment. Among children of secondary-school age, the share of boys out of school is almost three times that of girls (UNICEF, 2016). At the higher education level, the gender gap is compounded with 61 percent of women between the ages of 18 and 24 years enrolled in a college or university in 2013, compared to 44 percent of men. Despite the advantage in educational attainment, women lag behind in labor market outcomes. At 55 percent in 2016, labor force participation among women was lower than that for men (68 percent). Women, particularly in rural areas, are in informal sector jobs or unpaid family work, and are far less active than men in entrepreneurial endeavors (World Bank, 2018). The latter finding has been linked to smaller amounts of human capital appropriate for setting up businesses and limited economic opportunities, including access to finance (IFC, 2014). Public Disclosure Copy 9. Youth resident in soums are most disadvantaged, exhibiting the lowest school enrollment rates in the country and facing virtually no job opportunities upon exiting school other than self- employment. Adolescents living in soums are at much higher risk of not being enrolled in school than adolescents elsewhere in the country. Among youth of upper-secondary-school age in 2013 (16-18 years), the share of soum residents out of school was 18 percent, compared to 6 and 7 percent of aimag center and Ulaanbaatar (UB) residents respectively (UNICEF, 2016). Further, for out-of- school youth in rural areas, labor market opportunities are extremely limited, leading to high inactivity. In 2013, 29% of rural youth aged 15–29 years were not engaged in employment, education, or training. Among rural youth who were employed, unpaid work and self-employment in the informal sector dominated the job profile, with average earnings of employed youth 25 percent lower in rural areas than in Ulaanbaatar. 10. Low productivity linked to high informality constrains the potential of self-employment to serve as a route out of poverty, especially among rural youth. Across the world, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are important generators of jobs and income, and often drive innovation and growth. In Mongolia, too, SME development offers a viable option for private-sector-led growth that reduces poverty and creates jobs in rural and urban areas (ILO, 2017). SMEs are also vital for diversification of the Mongolian economy and for enhancing its competitiveness. However, many microenterprises face barriers to productivity and to generating decent employment (World Bank and IFC, 2013)[3]. High-productivity jobs remain concentrated in formal sector waged and salaried work (RAND, 2015). Own-account or self-employed workers, including those self-employed in animal husbandry, have the lowest earnings. This is not surprising given that self-employed workers are usually small-scale and family-based businesses, including kiosks and small vendors (ILO, 2017). These and other microenterprises in Mongolia end up in the informal economy, where low incomes and poor working conditions prevail and lack of enforcement of legal and social protections contributes to low productivity. Informality is particularly high among rural youth, of whom over 90 percent work in the informal economy. These conditions limit the potential for self-employment to reduce poverty and improve social mobility, and its role remains restricted to a “coping mechanism” (ILO, 2015). 11. Low productivity is also linked to a shortage of non-cognitive or “socioemotional” skills needed for success in the labor market, including self-employment. Given that Mongolia was a centrally planned Jul 06, 2018 Page 5 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia economy only two decades ago, self-employment and entrepreneurship culture is still in a fledgling state, and young Mongolians do not regard it as a viable employment option (ILO, 2017). Many are wary of starting a business. In addition to this lack of a “business mindset” and general entrepreneurial awareness, stakeholder consultations also reveal perceptions of deficiencies in entrepreneurship-related socioemotional skills and capabilities among youth and adults alike. For example, even existing recipients of microcredit are often unable to articulate their business development and training needs[4]. More broadly, there is a widespread lack of soft or “socioemotional” skills needed in the labor market. Most employers bemoan lack of creativity and skills related to innovation, time management, communication, leadership, interpersonal relationships, adaptability, problem-solving, critical thinking, and teamwork (RAND, 2015). Employers also report deficiencies in technical, language, and information and communication technology (ICT) skills. 12. Across the world, a strong foundation of socioemotional skills is associated with success in school Public Disclosure Copy and improved labor market outcomes. Following Guerra et al (2014), this PIN defines social- emotional skills as the broad range of malleable skills that enable individuals to navigate interpersonal and social situations effectively. Studies suggest that (i) such skills mediate cognitive performance, educational attainment, and labor market outcomes; (ii) the lack of socioemotional competencies, together with the lack of connection to the schooling environment, can harm academic performance; and (iii) noncognitive or personality skills rival IQ in predicting educational attainment and labor market success (Sanchez Puerta et al, 2016). Socioemotional skills predict a range of important life outcomes, and have a positive and strong influence on schooling decisions, employment, work experience, occupational choice, and wages, while simultaneously minimizing risky behaviors. Personality traits, and especially locus of control, have an important effect on wages. And, as in Mongolia, employers across the world acknowledge the importance of these skills in the workplace. Guerra et al (2014) identify the eight skill areas that employers demand (summarized in the acronym PRACTICE): (a) Problem solving, (b) Resilience, (c) Achievement motivation, (d) Control, (e) Teamwork, (f) Initiative, (g) Confidence, and (h) Ethics. 13. In Mongolia, the employer-reported deficit in socioemotional skills is linked to low quality and relevance of training at the secondary and higher education levels, especially among rural youth. Mongolia’s senior secondary and tertiary education programs do a poor job of preparing students for work, as evidenced by the low labor force participation rate among youths nationally and a low employment rate of only about 50 percent among graduates of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and tertiary education. This is in large part due to weak linkages of the system with industries and employers. Rural youth are particularly disadvantaged, as youth employment centers that exist in universities and TVET schools serve urban areas only. These centers do very little to alleviate employment constraints among urban youth, and virtually nothing for youth in rural areas. 14. The education system offers little to support socioemotional skill formation, and has no effective mechanism to facilitate the school-to-work transition. Career information and guidance has been provided since 2016 to junior secondary students as part of civic education in the eighth and ninth grades, but the system employs no practical strategy to support students’ transition from school to work. Despite emphasis on a “whole-child approach”, national curricula and classroom practices Jul 06, 2018 Page 6 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia remain focused on academic learning only. Lifelong learning centers (LLCs)[5], which target school dropouts under supervision of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, and Sport (MECSS), offer catch-up “equivalency” programs also of an academic nature, and teachers in these centers lack the technical expertise to foster skills relevant for local labor market needs in rural areas, such as self- employment. 15. A new business course developed by MECSS for use in secondary schools does not address socioemotional skill formation among adolescents, and has little relevance to rural settings. MECSS recently developed a curriculum for a school-based business course, and schools were given the option to implement the curriculum as an elective subject at the secondary level. While introduction of the course reflects recognition on the part of the government for the need to nurture entrepreneurship skills at an early age, the curriculum is constrained due to its focus on abstract business concepts with virtually no guidance on how schools and teachers can support socioemotional skill formation, specifically among adolescents. Further, despite interest from Public Disclosure Copy students, administrators in rural schools find that the course has little relevance to training needs of students in rural areas. Teachers have not been trained on the curriculum and are unwilling to teach it. Finally, there is no guidance provided on how to track progress towards specific competencies or skills. 16. Existing government programs for workforce development do not address skill development needs among rural youth. The Employment Promotion Law, adopted in 2011, stipulates a set of responsibilities for the government, which include a training provision for the workforce that is aligned with labor demand[6]. Active labor programs of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection (MLSP) include (i) the Program for Providing Employment Skills and Retaining Work Places and (ii) the Entrepreneurship Development Program. The former provides jobseekers with technical skills through six-to-eight-week classroom-based trainings, but is insufficiently demand-driven and fails to comprehensively address skills constraints faced by program beneficiaries due to lack of integration of vocational and on-the-job-training through internships or similar means. The latter program supports micro-entrepreneurship by giving microloans to new and existing microenterprises, but largely fails to address nonfinancial hurdles to starting or growing a microenterprise, especially among youth and women. 17. Skill deficits among youth in rural areas are also not addressed by ongoing donor-financed operations. Ongoing education sector operations financed by the World Bank in Mongolia focus on quality of primary education through interventions to improve primary grades learning outcomes, and to strengthen school-level planning processes. Needs covered by other development partners center on construction of new schools and renovation of existing ones, school dormitory upgrades, and deepening of curriculum reform and its implementation. None of these projects address socioemotional or entrepreneurship skill development needs among adolescent youth. The ongoing WB-financed Employment Support Project aims to provide jobseekers and microentrepreneurs in Mongolia with improved access to labor market opportunities, but targets urban areas only. Other donor-financed projects supporting skill development target the TVET system, seeking to make it more industry-driven, upgrading capacity among providers, and implementing competency-based training and assessment. In sum, while existing projects are national in scope and aim to strengthen Jul 06, 2018 Page 7 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia the foundations of education and labor market institutions, they do not address the specific socioemotional skill development needs of youth in rural areas. 18. This PIN proposes piloting of a novel and innovative approach to address these skill deficits through a school-based, community-driven socioemotional skills program focused on entrepreneurship. The proposed operation will be the first in Mongolia to provide school-level support in rural areas for integrated student development for entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional and personal growth, tailored to facilitate entry into self-employment or other career opportunities upon exit from school. This novel approach is distinct from traditional labor market programs in Mongolia, which focus on improving access to labor market opportunities in the current workforce, but ignore future workers still in school. Also, socioemotional skill formation in the context of secondary education has not been attempted before in Mongolia, and certainly never before developed within the cross-sectoral and participatory approach proposed here. The proposed pilot will thus be an innovation in the Mongolian setting. Public Disclosure Copy 19. A growing body of evidence shows that socioemotional skills can be nurtured during middle childhood and adolescence, and that these skills can improve schooling outcomes. The socioemotional skills covered under the PRACTICE skills framework are best developed before reaching the labor market (Guerra et al, 2014). International evidence shows that primary school children can develop and crystalize socioemotional skills indirectly through teacher modeling and through reinforcement in a positive school setting. In countries across the world, children have learned these skills directly through classroom-based lessons, pedagogical methods that teach academic content using PRACTICE skills, and through after-school programs. Socioemotional skills interventions leverage the mediating effect of these skills on cognitive performance to improve educational attainment, and enhance school performance as well as a range of other welfare- enhancing outcomes (Sanchez Puerta et al, 2016). Strengthened socioemotional skills allow beneficiaries to benefit even further from existing or complementary investments in cognitive skills, e.g. mathematics and science education (OECD, 2015). Improvements in mindsets and abilities related to optimism toward the future, self-esteem, and other positive attitudes and mindsets, e.g. self- efficacy, perseverance, taking initiative, creativity and problem solving, can improve schooling outcomes. 20. Socioemotional skills, abilities, and mindsets associated with success in self-employment can also be cultivated through entrepreneurship-focused skills programs. Entrepreneurship training has the potential to enable graduates to gain skills and create their own jobs. Such interventions have shown to be effective in fostering self-employment and earnings, including among low-skilled individuals[7]. Benefits include enhanced skills to enter self-employment through increased entrepreneurial attitudes and perceived behavioral control, and increased entrepreneurial intentions which in turn impact behavior associated with creation of new business ventures. But such interventions, depending on how they are designed, can also shape a variety of socioemotional skills personality traits that support entrepreneurship, leading to increased perceptions of self-efficacy in the labor market, need for achievement and risk-taking propensity, entrepreneurial passion, persistence, pro- activity and creativity. Meta-cognitive goal-setting and planning strategies, such as mental contrasting with implementation intentions (Oettingen 2015), are also beneficial, as these are needed for academic performance and are necessary for entrepreneurs, who need not only to set ambitious but Jul 06, 2018 Page 8 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia realistic goals but also to understand the obstacles that stand in their way, and to plan how to overcome or prevent those obstacles. Indeed, these skills are transferrable to areas of economic engagement and the labor market outside self-employment as well. 21. Informed by this body of evidence, the proposed pilot will nurture socioemotional skills essential for economic empowerment of Mongolia’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged rural youth. The project will target disadvantaged youth resident in the country’s poorest soums at high risk of becoming unemployed after leaving school, or entering unpaid work or self-employment in the informal sector, and will include children of nomadic herders, poor households, consistently low academic performers, and those not in school. The socioemotional skills training delivered will empower these adolescents by equipping them with skills that are needed to succeed in school, and which, at the same time, are highly valued in the labor market, particularly in self-employment. Beneficiaries are expected to increase their self-efficacy, need for achievement, and risk-taking propensity, and become more persistent, pro-active and creative. The venue and mode of training Public Disclosure Copy delivery will be designed to accommodate the specific constraints faced by vulnerable youth in the target group. For example, for youth that have already dropped out of school, the training would be delivered in LLCs. 22. The design and implementation of the pilot hinges on intensive community participation and mobilization at the grassroots level, aligning it with the principles of the Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF). Given the unique labor market conditions in rural Mongolia that limit employment opportunities to informal sector jobs and self-employment, and as confirmed in consultations with community-level stakeholders, any intervention that seeks to serve the most vulnerable and disadvantaged youth in rural areas requires a bottom-up approach, informed by and consistent with local labor market conditions and needs. Existing donor-funded projects relevant to skills development are typically implemented by MECSS and MLSP or other line ministries, while the implementing agency for the new operation is Save the Children Japan (SCJ), a non-governmental organization with deep soum-level networks to conduct the outreach needed in remote, rural parts of Mongolia for design of a pilot that hinges on intensive community participation and consultations at the grassroots level – networks that UB-based government implementing agencies do not possess. Existing projects also do not have in place the cross-sector implementation arrangements necessary for this pilot, which spans the education and labor sectors. The intensive community participation and mobilization at the grassroots level underlying the pilot aligns it with JSDF’s financing principles. Footnotes: [1] The self-employed and those engaged in animal husbandry were mainly own-account workers or contributing family workers. [2] Schooling is mandatory up to Grade 9 only. Jul 06, 2018 Page 9 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia [3] Also reported during project focus group discussions with government Employment Promotion Program beneficiaries, conducted during preparation of the Mongolia Employment Support Project. Discussions were held in Tuv Aimag and Bayangol District. [4] See footnote 1. [5] LLCs cater to youth aged fourteen to eighteen years, adults, and people with disabilities of all ages. The centers have a branch office in each soum, each with one teacher. In general, branch offices attract school- age rural youth, while the aimag centers cater more to adults. The majority of out-of-school youth who study at LLCs are either children of herder families whose cannot afford to send them off to study at soum schools or children who could not keep up with school due to poor grades. The centers offer programs that allow school dropouts and out-of-school youth to obtain a certificate of high school equivalency and to apply to universities. The general curriculum of the programs offered is developed by staff at its center in Ulaanbaatar Public Disclosure Copy under the auspices of MECSS, while course materials are normally designed by the teachers at the centers. [6] In addition, Mongolia’s Sustainable Development Vision 2030 recognizes the need to equip the younger generation with the knowledge and skills to help them secure decent work and/or run a private business. [7] For examples, see list in Premand et al (2012). Relationship to CPF 23. The proposed project is consistent with the Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for Mongolia for the period FY 2013–2017. Among its three main pillars, the third pillar of the CPS—addressing vulnerabilities through improved access to services and better service delivery, safety net provision, and improved disaster risk management—identifies two outcomes that are particularly relevant to the proposed project: (i) working with the government on the design, adoption, and implementation of a comprehensive social protection system that supports the poor and (ii) supporting better delivery of basic education services. While the proposed pilot project will be implemented by SCJ, both SCJ and the Bank will work closely with government authorities at the national, provincial, and district levels throughout the project cycle. In doing so, the project will establish modalities for sustainable scale-up to ensure a more inclusive social protection mechanism that facilitates improved and more equitable access to the labor market for poor and vulnerable youth. Furthermore, the project’s emphasis on community engagement in its implementation, including the implementation of participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), is well aligned with the CPS’s call for more responsive and accountable local service delivery through the strengthening of participatory processes. 24. Upon development of the new CPF, the project will review its relationship with the CPF and make adjustments to improve its alignment, as needed. The World Bank Group (WBG) is currently conducting the Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) in Mongolia—in consultation with national authorities, the private sector, civil society, and other stakeholders—to identify key development opportunities and challenges and to prioritize critical interventions to accelerate the ending of poverty while boosting shared prosperity in a sustainable way. Building on the SCD and aligning with Mongolia’s development priorities, a new Country Jul 06, 2018 Page 10 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia Partnership Framework (CPF) for Mongolia will be developed, which will guide the WBG’s engagement in Mongolia over the coming four to six years and determine priority areas for WBG support. Upon development of the new CPF, the project will review its relationship with the CPF and make adjustments to improve its alignment, as needed. C. Project Development Objective(s) Proposed Development Objective(s) 25. The project development objective (PDO) is to empower 6,000 vulnerable, disadvantaged youth in 25 of Mongolia’s poorest rural districts across five provinces with socioemotional skills for improved performance in school and preparation for entry into the labor market. Public Disclosure Copy The PDO will be achieved through a school-based, community-driven youth program for supporting acquisition of socioemotional skills that are linked not just to success in school, but are also highly valued in the labor market. Older youths will receive training targeted more specifically to enhancing entrepreneurial knowledge and skills. The project will address the largely unmet need for socioemotional and entrepreneurship skills stemming from extremely limited labor market opportunities that lead to high inactivity among youth in these locations and a job profile dominated by traditional herding, unpaid work and self-employment in the informal sector. Key Results 26. The achievement of the PDO will be measured by the following PDO-level indicators: (i) Number of direct beneficiaries reached (of which percent female) (ii) Share of beneficiaries with improved academic performance (disaggregated by gender). Academic performance will be assessed as a composite of performance on school examinations and engagement in various aspects of classroom and school life. (iii) Number of beneficiaries with enhanced capacity of doing business (of which percent female). “Capacity of doing business” will be assessed through examination of changes in entrepreneurial attitudes and mindsets achieved under component 1 of the project. 27. Proposed intermediate results indicators are: Component 1 Development and implementation of an innovative community-driven program on entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for vulnerable rural youth (i) Share of beneficiaries with strengthened life aspirations (disaggregated by gender) (ii) Number of teachers trained (iii) Number of Soum-Level Committees (SLCs) established Jul 06, 2018 Page 11 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia Component 2 Introduction of a small grant mechanism to enable target youth to practically apply entrepreneurship knowledge (iv) Number of beneficiaries with better market linkages (of which percent female). “Market linkages” will be assessed through measurement of the extent to which seed capital recipients meet or interact with the Mongolian National Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other private sector stakeholders, under component 2. (v) Share of seed capital applicants who are female (vi) Share of seed capital recipients who build their businesses within 3 months after receiving the funds (disaggregated by gender) Component 3 Project Management and Administration, Monitoring and Evaluation, and Knowledge Public Disclosure Copy Dissemination (vii) Scale-up or mainstreaming of the project's socioemotional skills training in education or labor interventions. This will result from recommendations produced under component 3 and dissemination of project results for integration of entrepreneurship skills development into national curricula and/or pedagogy policies, and/or other donor- or government-funded operations. D. Preliminary Description Activities/Components 28. The project will consist of three components. Component 1 will support development and introduction of a community-driven, locally-tailored, innovative socioemotional skills program for vulnerable rural youth. Older youths will receive training targeted more specifically to enhancing entrepreneurial skills and knowledge. Component 2 will establish mechanisms for the target youth to practically apply entrepreneurship knowledge to meet the local market needs and business opportunities. Component 3 will enhance the policy environment in support of entrepreneurship education through evidence-based advocacy and public outreach campaigns, and provide support for participatory M&E and project management. Component 1: Development and implementation of an innovative community-driven program on entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for vulnerable rural youth (estimated cost: US$993,025) 29. This component will undertake the following activities: (i) develop a hands-on, innovative entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional learning (ESEL) curriculum and associated package of learning materials for use by youth and teachers in schools and LLCs in target soums; (ii) develop materials to train teachers in target schools and LLCs on implementing the ESEL course, including counseling and mentoring of students, and deliver the teacher training; (iii) design and implement community awareness information campaigns in each year of the project; (iv) design and implement sensitization trainings for parents; (v) establish a multi-stakeholder networking platform consisting of local councils at the aimag and soum Jul 06, 2018 Page 12 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia levels to undertake bottom-up design of all project deliverables, ensure alignment with local economic conditions, and support implementation of project activities, including design of localized solutions to challenges faced. 30. Link with PDO: These activities, targeted to the most disadvantaged and vulnerable adolescents in Mongolia’s poorest soums, seek to empower beneficiaries economically by imparting to them a set of socioemotional skills linked with success both in school and, in the longer run, the labor market. For the subset of older beneficiaries of upper-secondary-school age, as well as adolescents who have dropped out of school, additional entrepreneurship-focused training will help prepare for transition to a labor market dominated by informal work and self-employment. Beneficiaries are expected to increase their self-efficacy, need for achievement, and risk-taking propensity, and become more persistent, pro-active and creative. In settings across the world, such skills and personality traits have proven to be associated both with improved academic performance and superior labor market outcomes, particularly in relation to entrepreneurial Public Disclosure Copy attitudes and intentions. In addition, the training delivered to teachers will improve teachers’ knowledge and understanding of the significance of social emotional learning among children and adolescents, and build their competencies in mentoring and shaping mindsets to exercise creativity, innovation and measured risk- taking, and develop other soft skills needed to thrive academically and later in life. Subcomponent 1.1 Development and piloting of an innovative, locally-tailored entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional learning (ESEL) curriculum and training package (estimated cost: US$920,525) 31. The main activity of this sub-component will be development of a one-year course curriculum and training materials for 8-12th grade students, to be delivered by teachers in schools and LLCs. Four experts (two experts with extensive experience and knowledge of the education system, one of entrepreneurship, and one of socioemotional skills) will develop a training package for both teachers and students. The course content will be customized to the somewhat different needs of the lower- and upper-secondary-school age youth. All participants will receive training on socioemotional skills (self-efficacy, perseverance, taking initiative, risk taking, creativity, problem solving). But for older youth of upper-secondary-school age (16-19 years), as well as those who have already dropped out of school, additional course content will focus more concretely on the school-to-work transition, through modules on technical knowledge for entrepreneurship (e.g. basics of entrepreneurship, value creation, economic and financial literacy, etc.) and entrepreneurship- specific skills (e.g. creation of business and financial plans, leadership, etc.). These technical knowledge and skills training modules will draw on the abstract business concepts covered under MECSS’s existing business course curriculum, and will customize it for practical application using real-world business scenarios relevant for the rural settings in which the youth are resident. This will be done under MECSS’s supervision. The venue and mode of training delivery will be designed to accommodate the specific constraints faced by vulnerable youth in the target group. For example, for youth that have already dropped out of school, the training would be delivered in LLCs. The course materials will be made available in languages other than Mongolian in the event of presence of ethnic minorities in the project’s target soums. 32. The training package will consist of a teacher training manual (teachers’ guide) that will cover pedagogy methods for the targeted soum-level LLC and secondary school teachers, as well as a students’ workbook. Jul 06, 2018 Page 13 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia The teacher training will aim to develop teacher competencies related to creativity and entrepreneurship to help inspire students, and to nurture entrepreneurial attitudes among them. A range of teaching, facilitation, and learning methodologies (including presentations, individual assignments, group meetings with guest speakers, case studies, real-life business simulations, group exercises, and internet-based learning) will be introduced. Training of trainers will be organized at target aimag centers during school holidays, once teacher training materials have been developed by the experts. The curriculum will be delivered annually over the course of 35 weeks of the academic year. Training on entrepreneurship will also be provided for the parents of youth enrolled in the ESEL course. 33. The ESEL course curriculum and the main components of the training package will be pre-tested in one soum within 5 months after project initiation; based on the pre-test results, the content of the package will be revised and finalized. For 8th -12th grade students enrolled in secondary schools in target soums, the course will be offered as part of elective courses offered during the school year. For out-of-school youth, Public Disclosure Copy including those attending catch-up “equivalency” programs, the course will be offered at the LLCs attached to schools in target soums. The project will carry out community awareness and information programs prior to rollout of the pilot, and prior to each subsequent school year of the project. 34. ESEL course participants will be provided with access to a designated counsellor at each target school and LLC, available throughout the duration of the course and through its completion. The counsellors will be trained to identify and develop strategies to work with youth most vulnerable to dropping out of school, e.g. those from herders’ families. The mentoring will aim to prepare, coach, and encourage youth to complete the ESEL course. The counselling will seek to identify and alleviate personal issues and dysfunctional attitudes, as well as values and behaviors that could be a barrier to success both academically at the secondary school and higher education levels and later on when entering the labor market through self- employment or otherwise. Counsellors would support participants’ decision-making on schooling and life transitions, liaising with parents when necessary. Referrals will be provided for further training opportunities, including TVET and higher education, scholarship services for further education, and health and employment services. 35. A total of 125 participants (i.e., three teachers and two counsellors from each of the 25 soums) will be trained during the first year of the project implementation. These teachers and counsellors of secondary schools and LLCs will be provided with monetary incentives, based on the rate set under teachers’ hourly remuneration system. After the pre-testing and finalization of the ESEL course curriculum and the main components of the training package, training of both teachers and counsellors will be organized at target aimag centers. The UB-based project management team and consultants will travel to target aimags and soums for training sessions and other project-related activities. Four field facilitators/trainers will provide support for project implementation in close coordination with the UB-based project team, and aimag- and soum-based stakeholders. The project’s aimags and soums are some of the remotest locations in Mongolia: In general, distance between soums ranges between 50 and 300 kilometers, while distance between aimags ranges between 400 and 1500 kilometers. Jul 06, 2018 Page 14 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia Subcomponent 1.2 Establishment of a multi-stakeholder coordination and networking platform to support implementation of the training program (estimated cost: US$72, 500) 36. Upon commencement of the project, local councils at the aimag level and at the soum level will be established. The aimag-level council (ALC) will be comprised of technical experts including business associations, private sector stakeholders, government officials including investment, local development policy and planning department, education and labor departments, Mongolian National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MNCCI) and relevant NGOs. The ALC’s role is to provide inputs for development of the ESEL curriculum and training package under subcomponent 1.1 as well as technical guidance to the soum-based local councils (SLCs). ALCs will also be responsible for creation of panels of judges to organize the soum-level competition for the award of grants under component 2. SLCs created under this subcomponent will work under the direction of their respective ALCs and will consist of representatives from among parents of the targeted youth, teachers and other school administrators, private sector stakeholders, Public Disclosure Copy and soum government. SLC will support all project activities within soums. The SLCs and ALCs together constitute a multi-stakeholder networking platform that will come together in quarterly meetings to review project implementation and outputs produced, suggest improvements needed to fine-tune alignment of project activities with local economic and school conditions, and brainstorm solutions to problems reported by project school teachers and other school administrators. The project will provide support for the ALCs and SLCs to build their capacity to conduct project monitoring activities. Special attention will be paid to ensure that representatives of ethnic minority communities are represented on ALCs and SLCs, in soums where these communities are resident. Component 2: Introduction of a small grant mechanism to enable target youth to practically apply entrepreneurship knowledge (estimated cost: US$809,900) 37. This component will undertake the following activities: (i) design and pilot an innovative seed capital scheme to finance competitively-selected business proposals developed by youth teams in target soums who would receive customized business training and personalized coaching and mentoring, and implement their proposals under supervision of ALCs and SLCs; (ii) sensitize stakeholders to and align all project activities with the Children's Rights and Business Principles (CRBP); (iii) disseminate the most successful business ideas implemented under the seed capital scheme, including through experience sharing events for target youth and community-based information campaigns; and (iv) conduct a comprehensive economic assessment and market analysis to explore potential for creation of school-based enterprises (SBEs) in the project’s target soums. 38. Link with PDO: The seed capital (or small grant) scheme will provide a mechanism to enable older youth in the project’s target group to practically apply entrepreneurship knowledge and social emotional learning acquired under component 1 to identify and harness unexploited business opportunities at the local level. Thus, component-2 activities associated with the small grant scheme will deepen the development impact of the ESEL training under component 1, further strengthening potential for self-employment and economic Jul 06, 2018 Page 15 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia empowerment among target youth through enhancement of entrepreneurial attitudes, intentions and behaviors, leading to enhanced capacity of doing business. 39. To ensure that grants are used for exploiting untapped business opportunities available at the soum level and proceeds directed towards activities with potential for economic productivity that allow practical application of skills acquired under the ESEL course, the business idea selection criteria will be carefully prepared in consultation with soum labor and economic development authorities. Aimag and soum governments regularly publish economic development plans and priorities which identify sectors with greatest potential for growth. Selected proposals will demonstrate adequate alignment with these soum- level priorities. Ensuring this alignment will also allow for mobilization of supplementary resources available at the soum level through the local government and through schools, and enhance potential for sustainable implementation of successful business ideas. Close attention will be paid to the relevance of the business proposal, its feasibility, and its approach to measured risk-taking and managing risks, given the economic Public Disclosure Copy conditions of each soum. Together, these measures are intended to ensure that the grants are not considered to be handouts or social transfers; rather, these are investments intended to nurture entrepreneurial skills and mindsets through giving target youth a chance to creatively explore, assess and harness business opportunities that they could have never explored or tapped in the absence of such grants. 40. Under a designated supervisor, ESEL course participants will work in teams to develop business plans for submission in a soum-level competition, organized under the project, for a chance to win seed capital to fund business ideas proposed. Team members will need to be at least of upper-secondary-school age (16-19 years). At the end of the ESEL course, each team would submit a proposal describing a business idea feasible for implementation at the soum level, a basic marketing and primary customer assessment, and an estimated budget. The business proposal template would be introduced to target youth as part of the ESEL course. Up to 6 teams will be selected from each of the 25 soums to receive small project-financed grants of up to US$1,000 per team each year to implement their business ideas over the course of one to two years, under guidance of the team supervisor. Local trainers in each aimag will also receive coaching from UB-based business consultants to build capacity to provide mentoring to successful teams. All teams preparing proposals will receive business training and personalized coaching organized through school extracurricular activities such as entrepreneurship clubs. Local stakeholders including private sector representatives will also be invited to provide coaching and mentoring to support teams in development of their business plans. Activities will be aligned with Children's Rights and Business Principles (CRBP)[9], which will be disseminated during project workshops, meetings and campaigns to all stakeholders, including the youth teams. 41. Teams whose business ideas are selected for implementation will be partnered with relevant stakeholders including the local government office and members of the Mongolian National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MNCCI), to improve quality of implementation. Where relevant, ALCs will work with MNCCI and other stakeholders to develop relationships between the youth teams and potential markets external to the team’s soum or aimag, and facilitate market linkages. Experience sharing events among participating teams will be organized to observe the best business ideas in other soums. This hands-on approach will strengthen youths’ enthusiasm for the course by engaging them in a creative exercise that is relevant to the economic life of their community. It will also give participating youth an opportunity to gain Jul 06, 2018 Page 16 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia the experience of working in teams and practically apply communication and other skills developed throughout the course. 42. A grant manual will be developed and disseminated in order to clarify requirements for key elements expected in youth’s business proposals, criteria and procedures for short-listing and selection of proposals, youth team composition, beneficiary eligibility and selection criteria, the governance structure for grant award and implementation, the grants’ expected outcomes, grant agreement signing and termination procedure, and reporting and monitoring, among others. The manual will be made available in languages other than Mongolian in the event of presence of ethnic minorities in the project’s target soums e.g. Khovd soum of Khovd aimag. The following paragraphs of the PIN outline the key elements of the governance structure and criteria for awarding grants, and these elements will be fleshed out in the grant manual. 43. Selection of proposals and grant awards: ALCs, set up under component 1 of the project, will establish an Public Disclosure Copy independent panel of judges for each soum to organize soum-level competitions for the award of grants, and to review and evaluate the proposals received, jointly with the SCJ project management team. The panel of judges will consist of three individuals: two MNCCI or TVET representatives at the aimag center level, and one representative of the business community in the respective soum. Organization of grant competitions at the soum level is expected to attract more participants to the ESEL course. The selection criteria for proposals include, among others, potential to improve the quality and productivity of economic activity within the community and alignment with soum-level development priorities where beneficial, potential for sustainability, strong environmental awareness, innovativeness, and potential for profitability. The judges will score proposals that meet all the requirements and eligibility based on each selection criteria for short- listing. Applicants whose proposals are short-listed will present their business ideas to the judges at the grant competitions. Based on the teams’ presentation of proposals, the judges will select and award teams in accordance with the grant manual’s guidelines and selection criteria, also jointly with SCJ. The judges will receive a small daily remuneration to cover their per diem, accommodation, and transportation costs. Eligibility criteria for the grants would include age restrictions, with all team members required to be between 16-19 years old at time of grant application and resident in the project’s target soum. The grant manual would also include a template for youth team business proposals. 44. Implementation and monitoring of grant activities and expenditures: A trilateral agreement will be signed between SCJ, the selected school director (on behalf of the youth team), and the chairperson of the SLC. This agreement will be a legally-binding document that clarifies the role and responsibilities of each signatory in proposal implementation, monitoring and reporting on use grant of proceeds, and financial management. The chairperson’s written declaration of such purpose and his/her responsibility of using the account for the agreed purposes will be attached to the grant agreement. Overall, the roles and responsibilities will be shared between the three parties in the following manner: (i) The SLC and the youth team supervisor will monitor the day-to-day activities funded by the grant and carried out by the youth team, including adherence to sound financial management practices including audits to ensure that grants are not subjected to misuse and that expenditures exclude items from a negative list prepared in consultation with soum government and labor authorities; (ii) SLCs will work with ALCs to facilitate youth teams’ engagement with MNCCI and other private sector stakeholders; (iii) SCJ, together with each ALC, will monitor implementation Jul 06, 2018 Page 17 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia of grant-financed business ideas through joint supervision missions. A template for tripartite agreements will be included in the grant manual. The SLC will meet with youth teams at least once a month during the first four months of implementation to brainstorm solutions to problems faced; thereafter the meeting frequency will be reduced to once a quarter to receive an update from the team on implementation of activities, expenditures and profits to date. Non- or low-performing business ideas will be identified within the first quarter of implementation, reported to the respective ALC and SCJ, and will receive increased scrutiny and handholding from the SLC, ALC, and counsellors. The SLC will update ALCs and SCJ on grant activities and expenditures through quarterly reports mandated under component 3 of the project. The grant proceeds will be transferred to the SLC’s account in three installments, constituting 40, 50, and 10 percent of the total value of the grant, respectively. The transfer of the second and third installments will require joint approval by SCJ and the respective ALC. Criteria for approval of transfers will also be stated in the tripartite agreement. Public Disclosure Copy 45. Grant completion/closing formalities: A grant completion report describing achievement of business objectives and lessons learnt would be prepared by the youth teams upon completion of activities. As part of the counseling offered under the project, SLCs, in conjunction with ALCs and SCJ, would provide feedback to youth teams whose business ideas were not selected and advice offered on how the proposals could be improved for submission in the next round, and the teams would be encouraged to apply again in the subsequent year. All interested youth would be provided referrals to existing micro-finance or credit providers. Upon completion of grant implementation among youth teams whose ideas were selected, counseling sessions will provide an opportunity for teams to reflect on the work and learning achieved, the challenges faced, successful and unsuccessful strategies employed while implementing the grant, and practical life lessons learnt or skills acquired during the experience. 46. A large share of grant proceeds are expected to go towards initial investments in small equipment, tools, and materials, and operating costs at start-up, and youth team business ideas are expected to be concentrated in (i) services and sales (e.g. tourism and hospitality – tour operation, customer welcoming, sightseeing, theory of B&B; electrical product repair; tailoring; carpentry; vehicle repair/maintenance; Internet cafés/IT services; produce vendors); (ii) small-scale, labor intensive production of goods (handmade products from locally-sourced raw and other materials including those derived from livestock; leather crafts, woolen products, dairy products, arts and crafts, clothing and textiles, toys and learning materials for young children, shoes, etc.); and (iii) food production, agriculture and animal husbandry (e.g. running semi-settled or intensive farming, animal health and breeding, farming management, animal feed e.g. making fodder, greenhouse and food processing, vegetable planting, growing, cooking, pickling etc.). 47. A comprehensive economic assessment and market analysis will be conducted in each aimag by UB- based experts, jointly with ALCs and SLCs, examining potential for leveraging untapped resources available in schools to set up school-based enterprises (SBEs), and the role SBEs may play in advancing economic opportunities among vulnerable youth in target soums. An SBE is an entrepreneurial operation in a school setting that provides goods/services to meet the needs of the market. SBEs are managed and operated by students as hands-on learning laboratories that integrate national curriculum standards in marketing, finance, hospitality or management. SBEs are effective educational tools in helping to prepare students for Jul 06, 2018 Page 18 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia the transition from school to work or college. For many students, they provide the first work experience; for others, they provide an opportunity to build management, supervision and leadership skills. Therefore, SBEs will allow the project’s targeted youth to apply their ESEL training and further strengthen their capacity to put their business ideas into practice by increasing their exposure to business operations. SBEs, if implemented successfully, could also serve as an innovative model for enhancing school-community relationships and spurring growth of local businesses. In Mongolia, a draft amendment to the Law on Primary and Secondary Education was recently submitted to the Parliament aiming to give school directors the authority to rent out school canteen/food processing facilities for commercial purposes. Such a regulation has the potential to provide a legal basis for establishment of SBEs; the proposed assessment would thus explore opportunities for creation of such enterprises in target soums. If the assessment’s results (to be made available in the second year of the project) are promising, the project will work with business consultants to develop operational guidelines and provide coaching services to selected schools to pilot establishment of one SBE during the third and fourth years of the project. Public Disclosure Copy Component 3: Project Management and Administration, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), and Knowledge Dissemination (estimated cost: US$949,369) 48. This component will undertake the following activities: (i) support operations of SCJ project management team that will manage day-to-day activities and conduct M&E of project activities, including regular updating of the project’s results framework (RF) and management of a project-level Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM); (ii) design and conduct the baseline and end-line surveys as part of the project’s final evaluation; (iii) conduct an annual audit; (iv) conduct a mid-term Review (MTR) for the project; (v) produce an implementation completion results report (ICR); (vi) provide training support for participatory M&E by the project’s stakeholders; and (vii) undertake knowledge dissemination activities, including development of communication materials, public outreach campaigns, and consultations and fora at the local and national levels. 49. Link to PDO: Together, these activities will allow measurement of progress towards the PDO, and will support achievement of the PDO through participatory M&E and project management, generation and dissemination of information to hold all stakeholders involved in implementation of the project accountable for progress, including the implementing agency SCJ, and enhance the policy environment in support of entrepreneurship education through evidence-based advocacy and public outreach campaigns. Subcomponent 3.1 Project management and administration (estimated cost: US$653,641) 50. Day-to-day implementation and operational support for the project will be provided under this subcomponent. In addition to operational costs, it will finance the staffing required for the project’s implementation, which will include, among others, a Project Manager, two Project Officers and four Logistics Assistants, as well as 25 percent of staff time of a Human Resources and Administrative Manager, a Finance Manager and a Finance and Grant Management Officer providing procurement and financial management oversight and other support (see Annex 1: Stakeholder Mapping, which describes the roles of each stakeholder, including the members of the UB-based project team). A total of four annual audits are planned Jul 06, 2018 Page 19 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia for the duration of the project, and an Implementation Completion Results Report (ICR) will be produced at project closing. A project-specific GRM will be established and project stakeholders will be sensitized to the GRM. The goal of the GRM is to ensure that project activities are implemented transparently and accountably, that voices and concerns of targeted groups and other stakeholders are heard, and that the grievances raised are resolved effectively and expeditiously at the SLC or ALC level. Subcomponent 3.2 Participatory M&E system (estimated cost: US$164,000) 51. This subcomponent will support data collection to establish baseline and end-line values for the project’s RF indicators, and the MTR and final evaluation, all of which will feed into the ICR. The baseline survey will also collect data from local stakeholders to confirm presence of non-Mongolian speaking ethnic minorities in project soums; the findings of the survey will inform the decision of whether to translate ESEL course and grant scheme materials into Kazakh and/or Tuvan languages. This subcomponent will also finance activities Public Disclosure Copy that will provide training support for participatory M&E by the project’s stakeholders, including ALCs and SLCs. Each SLC will have a designated M&E focal point, who will be responsible for monitoring implementation progress, which will include the number of trainings delivered, program uptake, attrition, and academic performance, and providing regular implementation updates and data to the respective ALC and the SCJ project management team. Report formats will be designed to ensure that data are available to the SLC and other stakeholders to monitor progress and fix problems in a timely manner, and that challenges faced at the soum level and lessons learnt are adequately documented. Quarterly reports will be generated for MECSS and MLSP, who will jointly review performance and provide oversight. In order to ensure availability of an objective account of the impact of the grant upon completion, the final evaluation will include reporting of outcomes in a credible comparison group of youth similar to the project’s target group, but who are not able to participate in the project’s activities. Subcomponent 3.3 Knowledge generation and dissemination (estimated cost: US$131,728) 52. To sustain community ownership of the intervention and prepare for sustainable implementation and possible replication in other parts of Mongolia, this subcomponent will develop communication materials based on the project’s progress and intermediate results to conduct consultations and public outreach campaigns on the importance of early-age entrepreneurship education and its potential contribution to local economic development and employability of rural youth. ALCs will play the lead role in organizing advocacy and campaign work at the aimag level. The campaigns will draw on in-house evaluation of the project’s effectiveness, intermediate results, and outcomes, which will be conducted jointly with SLCs, ALCs, and other community-level and national stakeholders involved in the project’s implementation, through the dissemination of project results and best practices to policymakers, government and private sector stakeholders, and the Mongolian public, at national and regional fora. Successful business ideas and their implementation will be documented and disseminated through the media. The overall objective for this subcomponent is to document and disseminate evidence on the need for curricular and pedagogical reform at the national level and development of a roadmap for integration of contextually-relevant employment and entrepreneurship skills with foundational academic skills currently taught in schools. Jul 06, 2018 Page 20 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia 53. Note on the project's focus on gender: All activities will be gender-sensitive as they will be designed to address the different skills needs of young men and women. Project activities will aim to empower female students with entrepreneurial skills and attitudes mitigating the impact of gender-related constraints that lead to poorer labor market outcomes among rural Mongolian women when they exit school as well as low participation in self-employment. Specific activities include gender awareness modules in all student, teacher and parent trainings offered under the project, gender-sensitive counseling and mentoring, development of female-centered social and business networks and linking female students to these networks, and prioritization of financing and promotion of business proposals led by female students. The full set of gender- sensitive actions will be finalized at the appraisal stage, and will seek to build female students’ confidence and real-world experience of what it means to be an entrepreneur. Key outputs from these activities will be monitored via gender-disaggregated indicators in the Results Framework. Outcomes expected under the project include an increase in the number of female students with enhanced capacity of doing business and better market linkages, and improved engagement at school and strengthened life aspirations among female Public Disclosure Copy students. Footnotes: [9] Developed by the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Global Compact, and Save the Children, CRBP is the first comprehensive set of principles that provide guidance for businesses and firms on how they can take the full range of actions in the workplace, marketplace, and community to respect and support children’s rights. SAFEGUARDS E. Safeguard Policies that Might Apply Safeguard Policies Triggered by the Yes No TBD Project Environmental Assessment OP/BP 4.01 X Natural Habitats OP/BP 4.04 X Forests OP/BP 4.36 X Pest Management OP 4.09 X Physical Cultural Resources OP/BP 4.11 X Indigenous Peoples OP/BP 4.10 X Involuntary Resettlement OP/BP 4.12 X Safety of Dams OP/BP 4.37 X Projects on International Waterways X OP/BP 7.50 Jul 06, 2018 Page 21 of 22 The World Bank Entrepreneurship-focused socioemotional skills for the most vulnerable youth in rural Mongolia Projects in Disputed Areas OP/BP 7.60 X CONTACT POINT World Bank Contact : Rabia Ali Title : Senior Economist Telephone No : 473-1049 Email : Borrower/Client/Recipient Borrower : Save the Children Japan Contact : Mitsuaki Toyoda Title : Country Director Public Disclosure Copy Telephone No : 976-11-329371 Email : mitsu@savethechildren.mn Implementing Agencies Implementing Save the Children Japan Agency : Contact : Mitsuaki Toyoda Title : Country Director Telephone No : 976-11-329371 Email : Mitsu@savethechildren.mn FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20433 Telephone: (202) 473-1000 Web: http://www.worldbank.org/projects Jul 06, 2018 Page 22 of 22