stipend money, and they were formed into small groups or "EPAG teams", each with a coach or mentor, to foster support networks and boost attendance.

# **3. Methodology**

# 3.1. Research design

The impact evaluation of the EPAG project uses a randomized controlled trial, in which eligible applicants to the program were randomly assigned to participate in one of two cohorts (or “rounds”) of training. The treatment group is defined as those who were offered a space in the first round of training and the control group comprises those assigned to the second round. Selection into the training rounds was performed on a computer (using Excel) and was stratified by the track choice of the applicant (job skills versus business development skills), community, and service provider. Data were collected using three quantitative household surveys (baseline, midline, and endline) and two sets of qualitative focus group discussions (one after each round of training). A timeline of the impact evaluation is depicted in Figure 1. During both the baseline and midline surveys, the head of the household in which the EPAG participant was residing was also interviewed, in order to examine potential spillover effects of the program on non-treated household members. The household head interviews also provided an opportunity to gather useful household-level information (including assets, housing characteristics, and household head characteristics) to be used as control variables in our analysis. The baseline survey was conducted before participants were informed of the outcome of the randomization, and the midline survey was conducted one year after the baseline survey, one month after completion of the first round of training and before the start of the second round.

The results in this paper are based on a panel data set that includes data from the baseline and midline surveys as well as administrative and monitoring data from the program implementation team. Note that although the midline data collection occurred just one month after the completion of the intervention, the intervention itself includes 6 months of post-training follow-up; hence the midline survey captures outcomes of the first cohort 7 months after they exited the classroom-based training. This timing was necessary to prevent too long of a delay between cohorts; the second cohort of trainees started immediately after the midline survey was completed. Future analysis using endline data will examine the trends in outcomes of both groups after Round 1 completion, but will not involve comparison against a pure control group of non-participants.

# 3.2. Sample and attrition

Following the communications and outreach campaigns in each of the nine target communities, during which 2,106 young women were originally recruited to be a part of the EPAG program,<sup>8</sup> a randomized

> 8 The original recruitment effort fell short of the target of enrolling 2500 participants. Hence, before the second round of training, another recruitment effort was launched and an additional 617 girls were enrolled. These girls are not included in the impact evaluation since they were not subject to the initial random assignment.

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