INTEGRATED SAFEGUARDS DATA SHEET CONCEPT STAGE Public Disclosure Copy Report No.: ISDSC1618 Date ISDS Prepared/Updated: 13-Feb-2013 Date ISDS Approved/Disclosed: 13-Feb-2013 I. BASIC INFORMATION A. Basic Project Data Country: Ghana Project ID: P132248 Project Name: Ghana Youth Employment Project (P132248) Task Team Andrea Vermehren Leader: Estimated 10-Jun-2013 Estimated 17-Sep-2013 Appraisal Date: Board Date: Managing Unit: AFTSW Lending Specific Investment Loan Instrument: Sector: Other social services (80%), Adult literacy/non-formal education (20%) Theme: Improving labor markets (70%), Social safety nets (30%) Financing (In USD Million) Financing Source Amount BORROWER/RECIPIENT 20.00 Public Disclosure Copy International Development Association (IDA) 60.00 Total 80.00 Environmental C - Not Required Category: Is this a No Repeater project? B. Project Objectives The objective of the proposed project is to contribute to improved employability of youth, with a particular focus on at risk youth, through strengthening of skills- and business development services, as well as labor market informational services. C. Project Description The proposed project will be implemented by the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship Development Agency (GYEEDA), formerly the NYEP. It is expected to contribute to the country’s growth as well as the social inclusion agenda by addressing supply and demand side constraints of the labor market that particularly youth are confronted with when seeking employment. It draws on the experience of similar programs worldwide for improving youth employability, such as the "Jovenes" Programs in Latin America, the Kenya Youth Empowerment Project and the Second Northern Uganda Social Action Fund Project. Latest evidence from the Dominican Republic Juventud y Empleo Program’s Impact Evaluation confirms the importance of life skills development, Public Disclosure Copy as well as the effectiveness of on-the-job training, while it puts in doubt the effects of institution based, technical training. The proposed Ghana Youth Employment Project therefore focuses on on- the job training and helps introduce life skills development in GYEEDA for wage and self- employment. It also responds to the increasing evidence that private sector based training is more effective than public sector training, including for internships. Finally, it builds on the experience particularly in middle income countries of providing enhanced information and guidance services for young job seekers as a cost-effective means to help with the often difficult school-to-work transition, guiding and accompanying young people into their work life when families and educational structures face limitations. The focus of the project will be on youth who are at risk of staying unemployed in the longer term by virtue of their lack of skills (including appropriate behaviors) and work experience. The project will provide on-the-job training, life skills and self-employment support to youth who are out of school and not working in a full-time job. It will enhance their potential for wage or self- employment (labor market supply side). In addition, it will address demand side constraints of the labor market by supporting small businesses through services and matching grants to grow and create additional jobs, against their obligation to take interns and train them. At the same time, it will provide a missing link between low skilled youth and the formal skills development system using COTVET’s evolving certification system to acknowledge training in the informal sector. The project will further offer counseling and guidance and advisory services at GYEEDA’s district offices to help young people navigate the emerging opportunities that Ghana as a MIC provides. It will build information resources and strengthen counseling and guidance services at the district level to help youth identify emerging employment and business opportunities, as well as options for acquiring the necessary skills needed to take advantage of these opportunities. Thus, the project will help fill the critical information gap that hinders so many young people in entering and remaining in Public Disclosure Copy employment, including those emerging from traditional apprenticeships. Finally, the project would enable GYEEDA to establish itself at the local, regional and national level to fulfill its mandate of coordinating youth employment policies and effectively implement programs. This would be accompanied by a strong evaluation and research agenda for evidence based implementation. The project would be started under a Project Preparation Facility and implemented over a five year period including four components: Component 1: Improving Employability of at-risk youth (US$ 30 million). This component would seek to expand GYEEDA’s partnerships with small, medium, and large enterprises in urban and rural areas that offer at-risk youth internships of six to nine months duration. The internships provide on-the-job training and work experience, as well as life skills training to develop the skills and behaviors needed for success at work. As appropriate, start-up tools would be offered to those youth who after completing the internships elect to start their own businesses. Selection of service providers/partners: Based on a call for proposals, GYEEDA would select partner institutions in rural and urban areas that would be able and willing to either provide on the job training and life skills development services themselves, or who would manage such services provided by enterprises. NYEP has already ongoing contracts with a number of such partners who mostly provide on-the-job training and support for start-up tools. GYEEDA would scale up this activity with support from the project. As agreed, modules for enhancing beneficiaries’ life skills will be added, focusing on work ethics, communication skills, conflict resolution, HIV/AIDS and other relevant topics. The training would start with such life skills to ensure that the selected beneficiaries Public Disclosure Copy are sufficiently motivated and can find the time for the full time training before they are sent to their internships. The remuneration of service providers will be elaborated during project preparation but would be at least partially results based to ensure that they provide quality services. Component 2: Building Partnerships to support Young Entrepreneurs in Creating and Enhancing Jobs (US$ 20 million). This component would facilitate the creation of jobs for at-risk-youth through a variety of innovative business driven approaches. It would support the growth of businesses conditioned on their willingness to train at risk youth. Helping successful entrepreneurs grow. The component would target budding entrepreneurs (5 to 50 employees) in urban and rural areas that exhibit a potential for further growth by virtue of having been successfully established for at least three years and having begun to hire wage workers. GYEEDA, or an institution designated by GYEEDA such as one of the Employers' Associations, would offer selected enterprises a voucher for purchasing business development services that provide them with access to business planning, production, marketing, and other services needed to grow the enterprise and help it improve access to credit markets. In return for the voucher (inviting proposals from firms with these criteria to submit proposal and create a lottery for those who qualify, you can control the cost of the voucher) enterprises would be expected to select, and train NYEP youth for internships for at least 6 months. Support business start ups. As a pilot, the component would also include some financing for new business start-ups by youth, to be implemented in a manner that reduces the risk of business failure and ensures that the support is offered in a transparent manner with clear criteria for selection. In addition, a business plan competition for budding youth entrepreneurs will also be piloted to provide further opportunities for job creation. The approach will include a period of entrepreneurship training resulting in preparation of a well-crafted business plan vetted and ranked by successful Public Disclosure Copy entrepreneurs. Business plans approved in this manner will be eligible for financial support and access to business development services. The requirement of this training and a business plan will serve as a screen to assess the commitment and ability of young people to starting a new business. GYEEDA would seek partners to provide these services in a professional, qualified manner. Employers' Associations would play an important role in the selection, and also in matching young entrepreneurs with successful business people. Piloting, evaluating and learning. Overall, this component will seek to pilot options to reach out and foster entrepreneurship within a hard to serve segment of the Ghanaian population, unlike the other components of the project which are grounded in evidence from other youth development programs around the world. The evidence for youth entrepreneurship development is mixed, and it is not a panacea for everyone . Therefore, special attention will be given to piloting, evaluating and learning under this component with the objective to make any operational adjustments quickly, and also to add to the global body of evidence on youth entrepreneurship. The modalities for this component are being developed in close coordination with some of the large Employers' Associations of Ghana , to ensure proper design, selection and management. The Employers' Associations are also expected to take an active role in the selection of proposals, in providing business advisory services, and in monitoring the implementation of the business proposition. Component 3: Promoting Job Intermediary Services for Youth (US$ 4 million). This component would help establish intermediary serv ices at the district and regional offices of GYEEDA to offer a “one-stop shop� for orientation on job and training opportunities, counseling and Public Disclosure Copy advisory services, and information about business development services, second chance education, micro-finance, etc. A key target group for these services will be youth in traditional apprenticeships as well as the GYEEDA direct beneficiaries, but the services would be open to any youth seeking guidance and advice on education and job related matters. GYEEDA has established local offices in every district of the country, staffed with 3-4 employees that are presently mostly responsible for managing the application process for the internships, and for organizing youth entrepreneurs. Its management intends to expand the scope and depth of the local offices to serve the broader youth public with informational, counseling and coordinating, hence intermediary labor market services. The project would provide technical assistance, materials, goods, capacity building and IT based systems connecting the offices to the information and data bases needed to provide these services. The project would provide financing for public communication and outreach activities (e.g. job fairs) to support the employment facilitation services. To this end, GYEEDA would contract a social marketing agency to develop informational and training materials, as well as other means for public outreach. Furthermore, professional services would be acquired to continuously train local staff in providing quality advisory services, in reaching out to the business community and in working with young people preparing them for the labor market. As GYEEDA has many regional and local offices, this component would be rolled out gradually focusing first on the offices in areas of higher economic activity and high case load. The regional office would take on the role of facilitators as well as monitors of the quality of advisory services provided. Component 4: Establishing GYEEDA as an effective facilitator for Youth Employment (US$ 6 million). GYEEDA is a fairly new institution that is presently undergoing a substantial reform process towards establishing it as the country’s main promoter of youth employment. To grow into these big shoes, a Public Disclosure Copy lot of institution and capacity building will need to be done at all levels. The approach taken by the project would be to establish robust systems, emphasize communication, monitoring and evaluation, and establish effective controls with the objective of achieving tangible and broad based results in youth employment. The Technical Assistance, goods and services provided would focus on the following areas: • Further development of the GYEEDA’s Management Information System (MIS) and related hardware for monitoring, management and client service provision. The system would seek to integrate the operational and financial management of the entire institution. • Introduction of a robust and transparent selection system for beneficiaries that would introduce filters including for poverty, gender, and disability. • Development of a national Communications Strategy and its implementation, development of training and public communication materials, • Establishment of guidelines and implementation capacity for procurement and financial management, • Strengthening of institutional controls and accountability mechanisms through operational audits, client surveys, external financial audits, etc. • Establishment of social accountability mechanisms including beneficiary complaint mechanism, to ensure proper implementation, particularly at the local level, • Implementation of an Impact Evaluation, graduate tracer and policy studies etc. on youth employment related activities and programs. • Provision of Technical Assistance for developing innovative approaches and new service delivery modules to employability and job creation, Public Disclosure Copy • Support to project management, monitoring and reporting, • Training of staff, study tours, workshops, knowledge sharing events, etc. The project would include a strong evaluation and analytical program for learning and achieving results. It would seek opportunities for evaluation of different treatment options and combinations. For example, randomly selected beneficiaries could receive on the job work experience only, while others benefit from life skills training and work experience as well. Furthermore, the value of job information and other support services could be tested on decisions taken by beneficiaries, disaggregated by gender, poverty levels, abilities etc. Finally, behavioral changes would be investigated include those related to social cohesion. D. Project location and salient physical characteristics relevant to the safeguard analysis (if known) Project activities will be carried out nationwide. E. Borrowers Institutional Capacity for Safeguard Policies The Government project team has no previous experience working with safeguard policies and will require relevant capacity development on the policies and their operationalization within the context of the project. F. Environmental and Social Safeguards Specialists on the Team Moses Yao Duphey (AFTN3) Angela Nyawira Khaminwa (AFTCS) II. SAFEGUARD POLICIES THAT MIGHT APPLY Public Disclosure Copy Safeguard Policies Triggered? Explanation (Optional) Environmental Assessment OP/ No The project will not undertake any activities or BP 4.01 works that have negative environmental and social impacts. The project will finance the training of more than 50,000 youth at any time and may be working with a master crafts person acquiring skills and work experience for a period of six months. This skill acquisition involves occupational health and hazards impacts to both the apprentices and the masters. Manuals will have to be produced to outline safe occupational health and safety procedures. Proposals under component 2 will be screened to ensure that proposals with environmental and social impacts are not financed. Natural Habitats OP/BP 4.04 No Forests OP/BP 4.36 No Pest Management OP 4.09 No Physical Cultural Resources OP/ No Public Disclosure Copy BP 4.11 Indigenous Peoples OP/BP 4.10 No Involuntary Resettlement OP/BP No The project will not finance any activities that 4.12 result in the involuntary acquisition of land or the involuntary restriction of access to legally designated parks and protected areas as per OP 4.12 para 3. Activities under component 2 will be screened to ensure that activities with these impacts are not financed. Safety of Dams OP/BP 4.37 No Projects on International No Waterways OP/BP 7.50 Projects in Disputed Areas OP/BP No 7.60 III. SAFEGUARD PREPARATION PLAN A. Tentative target date for preparing the PAD Stage ISDS: 30-Apr-2013 B. Time frame for launching and completing the safeguard-related studies that may be needed. The specific studies and their timing1 should be specified in the PAD-stage ISDS: The safeguard related studies can be financed under the requested PPF and should be carried out between January and April 2013. IV. APPROVALS Public Disclosure Copy Task Team Leader: Name: Andrea Vermehren Approved By: Regional Safeguards Name: Alexandra C. Bezeredi (RSA) Date: 13-Feb-2013 Coordinator: Sector Manager: Name: Stefano Paternostro (SM) Date: 04-Dec-2012 1 Reminder: The Bank's Disclosure Policy requires that safeguard-related documents be disclosed before appraisal (i) at the InfoShop and (ii) in country, at publicly accessible locations and in a form and language that are accessible to potentially affected persons.