employment program evaluations in Europe and found that the programs tended to have larger impacts for women than men. However, Card (2009) found that programs tended to work equally well for men and women.

In general, program evaluations from developing countries show larger impacts than programs conducted in other regions. Based on 289 youth employment interventions in 84 countries, Betcherman et al. (2007) show higher impact in developing countries than in developed ones.<sup>6</sup> Most of the rigorous evidence on training programs in developing countries is from Latin America, where positive impacts are particularly pronounced (Gonzalez-Velosa et al., 2012; Attanasio et al., 2008).<sup>7</sup> Attanasio et al. (2008) evaluate the _Jovenes en Acción_ job training program in Colombia. _Jovenes en Acción_ provided three months of classroom training followed by a three month unpaid internship at a company. Attanasio et al. (2008) detect positive employment effects for women (4 to 7 percentage points), no employment effects for men and positive earnings effects for both men (8 percent) and women (18 percent). The study argues that the increase in earnings is due to increased employment in formal sector jobs upon training completion.<sup>8</sup> In Nepal, a wide variety of public and private technical education and vocational training (TEVT) programs are available to youth. Youth unemployment is frequently cited as a driver of the ten-year conflict from which Nepal emerged in 2006 (Macours 2011, ILO 2014), and since then international donors have invested heavily in the TEVT sector. Additionally, a combination of age, low educational attainment, and norms around marriage and childbirth confers multiple additional disadvantages to young women in the labor market. Their labor force participation rate is 43.0 percent compared to 51.7 percent for young men (ILO 2014). Concerns about the social exclusion of women, ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples, and other historically disadvantaged groups have also spurred advocacy and investment in training opportunities for these groups. The sector remains fragmented, however, with many public, private, and non-governmental training providers of varying quality and weak links to the job market. Among development partners, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are particularly active in this area, with the ADB’s US$25 million Skills for Employment project and the World Bank’s US$30 million Enhanced Vocational Education and Training Project. To the best of our knowledge, no rigorous evidence yet exists on the impacts of these programs on the labor market outcomes of participants.

Using a quasi-experimental approach, this report presents the short-term effects of skills training and employment placement services in Nepal. Founded in 2008, the Employment Fund (EF) is operated by Helvetas, a Swiss NGO, in partnership with the Government of Nepal. It is currently one of the largest youth training initiatives in the country, serving almost 15,000 youth annually. In partnership with the

> 6 Betcherman et al. (2007) also found that only one-quarter of the 289 studies reviewed included an experimental or quasiexperimental design. Among this particular subset of studies, 40 percent showed zero or negative impact on employment and earnings outcomes. Betcherman et al. (2007) concludes that observational studies were almost 50 percent more likely to exhibit positive impacts than programs with experimental or quasi-experimental designs.

> 7 Only Card et al. (2007) detects no statistically significant effect. Card et al. (2007) evaluate a job training program in the Dominican Republic which included classroom training and a private sector internship. The impact evaluation shows no effect on employment and a marginally significant earnings effect of about 10%.

> 8 Two previous evaluations of Jovenes-type programs in Argentina and Peru similarly found larger impacts for women than for men, with employment impacts for women of 9 to 12 percentage points in Argentina (Aedo et. al. 2004) and 6 to 15 percentage points in Peru (Ñopo et. al. 2007).

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