hours) Basic Life Skills Training (BLST) at the start of the program, which aims to improve the soft skills of project participants.

The project operates on a continuous basis, with new batches/intakes of youth (of about on average 500 per intake) participating in a project every few months, though the numbers recruited per intake are now increasing.<sup>6</sup> The new batches/intakes are usually taken from districts that have not previously participated in the project. In total, the project aims to reach approximately 10,500 disadvantaged urban youth between the ages of 16 and 35 who have limited social and economic opportunities in its first five years of operation. So far, as of December 2015, about 8,500 youth have participated in the project. The project was recently extended an additional two and a half years, and is now expected to reach 15,500 youth over a period of 7 years.

The project’s rigorous data collection system is the first of its kind in PNG. All youth who expressed interest in participation were first screened through the Eligibility Screening Survey (ESS) instrument, which, in addition to verifying the basic eligibility criteria (such as age and residency requirement), also collects information on the key socio‐economic characteristics of youth. In selected intakes, youth who were deemed eligible, and were selected for participation in the project, were then given the Eligibility Baseline Survey (EBS), which collected a richer set of socio‐economic variables compared to ESS, including data from a survey module on crime and social behavior.

As part of the impact evaluation effort, a control group was identified in districts around Port Moresby that did not participate in the project.<sup>7</sup> The baseline survey instrument was administered to both the “treatment” group (youth selected for the 4<sup>th</sup> and 5<sup>th</sup> intake of the Project), and the “control” group. This allowed the research team to establish a solid baseline for both groups. Following the participation of the 4<sup>th</sup> and 5<sup>th</sup> intakes in the Project, a follow‐up survey (FUS) was conducted on the samples of “treatment” and “control” groups in the summer of 2015 (about a year to a year and a half after these intakes participated in the Project) to evaluate the changes in the outcomes of interest over time. A detailed timeline of the study/evaluation is presented in Annex 1.

This paper summarizes estimated impacts of program participation on youth crime and anti‐social behavior, and suggests possible channels through which this impact may take place. It is the first such evaluation in the context of Port Moresby. Overall, the results indicate that the program had strong and lasting effects on participants’ social behavior. Participants, relative to controls, became 9 percentage points less likely to hang out with friends late at night, 12 percentage points less likely to have a best friend engaged in crime, and 16 percentage points less likely to have friends involved in fights or robberies. These represent reductions of 20, 50, and 45 percent respectively from their baseline values. Participants also

> 6 The 1st intake started the program in September 2012 and consisted of 240 participants. The 2nd intake started in October‐November 2012, and consisted of 354 participants. The average size of the intakes has grown over time. 7 The control group was defined during the 4th and 5th intakes of the Project, which took place in mid‐2013. In the first and second intakes, the program was oversubscribed and randomly selected participants among a large pool of applicants with the intention of conducting a randomized control trial to evaluate the program. However, controls were not clearly informed that they had to reapply to the program in subsequent intakes, and reportedly expressed their displeasure by physically attacking participants selected in later intakes. As a result, the NCDC and the World Bank decided to evaluate the program against a control group selected from neighboring villages.

3