With the COVID-19 crisis canceling many events, many summer youth employment programs/internships have also been scrapped. This toolkit is orientated toward addressing common challenges imposed by social distancing and the need to pivot to virtual experiences. 
 

This report refers to four fundamental tensions holding back education in the MENA region: Credentials and skills, discipline and inquiry, control and autonomy, and tradition and modernity. If not addressed, MENA will continue to operate below its potential. Addressing these tensions and unleashing the potential of education requires a new framework with a three-pronged approach: A concerted push for learning that starts early for all children regardless of background, with qualified and motivated educators that leverages technology and uses modern approaches and monitors learning. It also requires a stronger pull for skills by all stakeholders in the labor market and society and involves coordinated multi-system reforms within and outside the education system. Finally, it requires a new pact for education at a national level with a unified vision, shared responsibilities and accountabilities.

This paper explores the "Scholas Occurrentes" pedagogical approach to addressing dropouts. "Scholas" focuses on the voice of students. It seeks to act positively on their motivation by listening to them, creating spaces for discussion, and strengthening soft skills and civic engagement. This paper presents "Scholas" work with three examples from Paraguay, Haiti, and Argentina. It analyzes the positive impacts that the "Scholas" intervention had on the participants. Then, it focuses on future challenges regarding the scalability and involvement of the institutions in the formulation of new public policies. The approach highlights the participatory nature of education and the importance of all actors' engagement.

Humans in the Loop uses the AI annotation market to create livelihoods opportunities for conflict-affected people and communities. This report summarizes how Humans in the Loop is impacting conflict-affected communities by connecting them to digital work programs and training during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This toolkit highlights recent innovations and suggests strategies for strengthening apprenticeships in the fast-changing world of work. Considering technological advances, digitalization, and the growing importance of digital skills, it offers over 20 digital tools that can play an integral part in delivering, monitoring, and evaluating apprenticeship programs.

This report analyzes the inclusion of socio-emotional skills in 12 education systems in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region and the training that teachers receive to develop these skills in their students.

This brief outlines the elements of the improved apprenticeship model developed by Global Communities in the construction sector in Ghana and examines its effectiveness as an avenue to provide skills training to disadvantaged youth, facilitate their entry into employment, and provide some lessons learned.

The knowledge brief describes Global Communities' approach to implementing sustainable workforce development interventions at scale that targeted the informal construction sector. It outlines the key elements of the approach, assesses whether there are early signs of sustainability, and presents some recommendations. 

Digital technologies can facilitate new opportunities and create challenges for the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) sectors. This report provides a global, high-level snapshot of the digitalization of TVET and skills systems in a set of countries and international organizations.

This Short Note talks about how the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with the Environmental Service Providers Association (ESPA Ghana), and Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO Global) trained about 100 leaders of waste pickers and collectors groups in Accra and Tema on best waste management practices and procedures to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 infection.

The objectives of this study were to (i) assess the participation of youth in fisheries and aquaculture, including opportunities and challenges for participation, (ii) understand what WorldFish and key partners (government organizations, nongovernmental organizations [NGOs] and others) are doing in the focal countries in relation to youth participation, and (iii) provide potential areas for further research that could support improved youth participation in aquaculture, small-scale fisheries, and value chains.

E-mentoring elevates the unique intersection of mentoring and technology by providing mentees and mentors with a diverse field of programs that center availability and accessibility of platforms, eliminate geographic barriers for matches, encourage improvement of social and relationship skills, and offer specialized academic or career related support. MENTOR’s e-mentoring resource offers best practices for e-mentoring programs.

There are over 1.2 billion adolescents in the world today, an all-time high. The vast majority of these 10-to-19-year-olds live in lower and middle-income countries (LMICs). Adolescence is a transformational phase of human life, but also a period of heightened risk and vulnerability. International literature identifies quality secondary education as a pivotal factor in raising future opportunities for adolescents. This publication explores the critical difference quality secondary education makes for adolescents, especially for adolescent girls and other vulnerable groups, explains VVOB's three priority dimensions of action for quality secondary education, and shares how VVOB puts this approach into practice in Rwanda, DR Congo, Uganda, Cambodia, Ecuador and Suriname.

Sport for Development (S4D) camps are special events that deliver S4D activities in a condensed manner over several days or weeks. An S4D-camp is a valuable learning opportunity for children, youth and coaches. This guideline shows what to consider when planning and implementing S4D-camps. 

This is a stocktake summarizing evidence on “what works” in youth employment programs on both the supply and demand side. This paper is based on an extensive desk literature review and analyzes the major meta-analysis and literature reviews on both the labor demand side and labor supply.

This guide aims to provide general guidance to project managers and project teams on the design and implementation of integrated, cross-sectoral youth employment programs. Governments and development institutions too often implement activities and programs that target either the supply side or the demand side of the labor market without coordination or an explicit intent to create linkages that will maximize the impact of their interventions and improve job opportunities for youth.

In this first-of-its-kind effort in India, KnackApp’s robo-career discovery and guidance solution will help match candidates undergoing vocational training program with over 90 careers opportunities spanning across 17 industry sectors.

The objective of the report is to explore the overarching factors in the Central African Republic (CAR) that contribute to the out-of-school youth phenomenon to provide recommendations for improving existing policies and programs.

This study presents novel evidence from Lebanon on the impact of offering a volunteering program that consisted of inter-community volunteering activities and soft skills training on self-reported social cohesion values in the short term. 
 

This report assesses Sub-Saharan Africa’s achievements in skills development and weighs those achievements against the challenges the region faces. It argues that policymakers in the region need to make strategic and smart investments in the early years, education and training.