Training Service Delivery for Jobs and Productivity Lessons Learned

Between 2008 and 2014, MCC invested over $148 million in its “First Generation” of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) programs, aimed at promoting economic growth and poverty reduction. Independent evaluations from El Salvador, Morocco, and Namibia revealed that MCC achieved many output targets but failed to achieve the intended labor market outcomes. This is in line with the mixed results of TVET interventions in the literature. Weak TVET service provider accountability, especially accountability to firms, is identified as the core constraint to achieving employment and income impacts for individuals and productivity impacts for firms.

Drawing on the evaluations of the First Generation programs and additional lessons from the design and implementation of a “Second Generation” of TVET projects, a new results framework is presented, pointing to five key lessons for the design and delivery of improved TVET. TVET interventions should:

1. focus on addressing identifiable skills gaps;
2. ensure programs measurably contribute to labor market outcomes and firm productivity;
3. strengthen provider accountability to clients, especially employers;
4. strengthen the ability of policymakers to hold providers accountable; and
5. should contribute to addressing pre-existing inequalities in the labor force. An emerging toolkit describes how MCC plans to operationalize these lessons for future projects.