of the life skills component of the classroom‐based training (compared to the technical sector‐ specific and core business training), which proved successful in building confidence and improving communication and behavior in the workplace. Nevertheless, the impact evaluation estimated that impact of the two weeks of life skills training were not significant for any outcome in the endline survey carried out 18 months and 22 months after the participants had completed their life skills training.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: Section 2 discusses the context and content of the program, Section 3 presents the experimental design, and Section 4 presents our data collection and estimation methodology. Section 5 presents descriptive statistics and discusses program take‐ up rates, while Section 6 presents the program’s impact on employment, earnings, financial behavior, and further skill development and examines heterogeneous effects. Section 7 discusses the cost‐effectiveness of the program, and Section 8 presents the conclusions of the paper.

# **II. Background and Description of the Program**

In 2010, the Government of Kenya with funding support from the World Bank launched the Kenya Youth Empowerment Project (KYEP) as a pilot in Nairobi and Mombasa, as well as in Kisumu at a later stage. The primary objective of the KYEP was to increase the employability and the earning potential of vulnerable youths by providing them with the skills and work experience demanded by private employers. Between 2011 and 2014, the program trained approximately 14,000 youths over its first five cycles and is expected to train additional 6,000 youths in its sixth and final cycle by the end of September 2015.

The pilot training and internship program was designed and implemented to address key constraints on both demand and supply in the labor market. On the demand side, the program mobilized private employers, gave them incentives to accept interns and teach them job‐relevant skills, and encouraged them to create jobs (and retain interns who successfully completed the program). On the supply side, the program aimed to reduce skills constraints in the six sectors where growth is expected according to Vision 2030, Kenya’s national development strategy, by providing youths with job‐relevant skills (technical and life skills) as well as workplace experience.

To ensure private sector ownership of the program and the effectiveness of the program’s demand‐ driven design, the intervention operated as a private‐public partnership. The Government of Kenya set the strategic vision for youth employment and financed the program while KEPSA, a policy advocacy organization for private employers, defined the competencies needed by employers in the six growth sectors, mobilized and motivated employers to participate in the program, recruited training providers on a competitive basis, and managed and implemented the overall program.

The pilot program was designed in response to the issue raised by Kenyan employers that many youths who come out of schools and training centers lack the relevant work experience and competencies needed for employment. To ensure that the program was demand‐driven, employers’ organizations in each sector were invited to identify their skill needs and to develop sector‐specific training plans.

The program targets vulnerable youths defined as males and females between ages 15 and 29 years who have a minimum of eight years of schooling, have been out of school for at least one year, and are not in employment at the time of their application to the program. While not easy to 6