Helvetas' Skills and Knowledge for Youth Project: A Case Study of Results-Based Financing for Vocational Education and Training
By Lea Zanola, Markus Maurer, Chalachew Gebeyehu, Sabrina Würmli, and Bettina Jenny.
The Skills and Knowledge for Youth (SKY) project is an example of results-based financing (RBF) in education, where performance-based contracts and financial incentives are used to focus service providers’ attention on quality vocational training, leading to long-term gainful employment of the beneficiaries. Accordingly, the vocational training institutions supported through the project only receive partial payments for the beneficiaries completing the training and full payment once the trainees have found steady and gainful employment (meaning earning at least the minimum wage) or have successfully established their own business. Helvetas has been implementing the SKY project since 2015 in Bahir Dar, Debretabor and Dangila Town of the Amhara National Regional State in the North-West of Ethiopia. The main aim of the SKY project is to increase employability and labour market insertion of disadvantaged youth, to create more jobs (self-employment), and to empower youth in order to escape the ‘low/no skill – no job – no income’ poverty trap.