Encouraging Youth Entrepreneurship in Kenya: A Study of Vocational Training and Cash Grants

This project will examine the effectiveness of potentially complementary interventions aimed at boosting the employability of youth and the productivity of their self-employment ventures in a less-developed country. In particular, we seek to compare and contrast the relative efficacy of vocational training voucher and unconditional cash grant provision in Kenya by studying two overlapping programs administered by a local NGO involving nearly 2,200 youth. The vocational training voucher program selected applicants by lottery to receive vouchers which permitted them to enroll in training programs of their own choosing between 2009 and 2010. The cash grant program was launched in mid-2013, and provided grants to a randomly selected subset of voucher winners and non-winners. The proposed project will undertake detailed, high-quality data collection among the full sample of program applicants, in order to evaluate the medium-longer term effectiveness of these programs in improving youth employment, entrepreneurship, and other important life outcomes.