Cash transfers to reduce barriers to youth participation in workforce development programs

• In Event: Roundtable Session 9
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Supporting Transitions, Reducing Barriers, and Promoting Positive Youth Development: From Guatemala to MENA

Proposal

In Guatemala, 40% of the population is made of youth between the ages of 10 and 29, many of whom live in situations that do not allow them to develop the skills they need to reach their potential as individuals and citizens. 41% of 15 year olds have dropped out of school (Ministry of Education, 2020), and unemployment rates are 5 times higher for youth between 15 and 25 than they are for those above the age of 25 (INE, 2004). These factors contribute to high out-of-country migration rates.
The USAID-funded Puentes Project provides disadvantaged youth ages 15-29 opportunities to further/complete their education, to start small businesses and to find jobs. This includes alternative education for completing primary and secondary school, vocational training, STEAM makerspaces, entrepreneurship support and job placement. The project does not charge for any of these services. Nevertheless, some youth, especially in rural areas, are not able to take advantage of the opportunities Puentes offers due to the high opportunity cost it represents for them and their families to access the training and technical support programs, especially in the case of young women and youth with disabilities. In order to level the playing field, increase equity for disadvantaged youth to access opportunities like their better-off peers, and based on the experience of previous USAID youth projects, the Puentes Project incorporated a Barrier Reduction Mechanisms (BRM) to address financial barriers to participation in project activities.
Since 2018, the project has tried different approaches for selecting youth and for getting funds to youth respectively: socio-economic studies and lotteries, bank transfers, vouchers and mobile money. These conditional cash transfers (CCT) have supported youth in the following ways: transport, food and lodging when they need to travel to attend workforce development programs, covering the cost of childcare for youth who are parents, internet access for virtual sessions (since the pandemic), procuring assistive devices that can facilitate the participating of youth with disabilities, prototyping a new business product or service, purchasing materials required for vocational training courses, and covering costs related to internships or new jobs until they get their first paycheck. Over the last five years, the project has supported 11,600 youth, 65% of whom are female, with $1.2 million from the BRM.
The Puentes Project is continually reviewing the procedures delivering BRM to youth in a timely and efficient manner, while still complying with donor regulations. To this end, the BRM manual has undergone six revisions since the beginning of the project, in a continuous effort to simplify and streamline processes. We will share our principal lessons learned from these experiences.
Many youth participants and project staff have testified that without the BRM they would have remained stuck in their situation, without the resources to improve their options to learn and grow, to do something different than their parents and grandparents, to expand their horizons and contribute to the development of their communities as responsible, self-assured and productive members of society.

Author

• Sara Sywulka, World Vision Guatemala