# 3 Program Eligibility, Experimental Design, and Data

Eligibility to participate in the program was based on age, location, educational attainment, interest in pursuing entrepreneurial activities, and the submission of a short business plan that had to pass a basic quality screening. HELP‐SL and its partners conducted an intensive communication campaign to encourage all youth to apply who were ages 15–35, had some secondary education, were engaged in or interested in undertaking an entrepreneurial activity, and resided in one of the five urban areas where the program was implemented. Prospective applicants were required to present their birth and school certificates in person during registration at the nearest VTC. Participation and eligibility were determined based on the program budget and the impact evaluation design, as follows (appendix A, figure A1): _Step 1_ : All applicants (5,250 in total) were invited to a two‐day introductory seminar organized by HELP‐SL, with the support of the World Bank. At the seminar, applicants were given brief training on how to prepare a business proposal, together with the template for the business proposal, and were required to submit a short proposal on this basis. Applicants were also informed that the final selection of beneficiaries would be determined by the quality of their proposals and that those applicants passing the minimum quality threshold would be assigned to one of the training packages (or to a control group receiving no benefit) according to the results of a public lottery.

_Step 2_ : Business proposals produced by participants were subjected to a quality screening gauged by criteria established by the HELP‐SL finance unit. The criteria aimed to ensure that the business ideas in the proposals were clear, the business location was well defined, customers were clearly identified, and the inputs required were defined. A total of 3,854 of the 5,250 applicants who submitted proposals were shortlisted. More than half of those shortlisted (50.7 percent) were women.

_Step 3_ : The 3,854 shortlisted youth were invited to take part in a public lottery carried out by Statistics Sierra Leone at the VTCs where the applications were submitted; of these, 3,319 attended and were randomly assigned to four groups (49.5 percent were women). The evaluation design relied on a random assignment based on oversubscription. A maximum of 2,400 spaces were allotted for training. The sample was stratified by gender to achieve the target of a minimum of 40 percent of participation among women and facilitate gender‐disaggregated analysis. The random assignment resulted in 2,376 youth assigned to one of three treatment groups, while the remaining 943 were assigned to the control group, as follows:<sup>9</sup>

- Treatment A: this group received the technical skills package (791 participants)

- Treatment B: this group received the business skills package (791 participants)

- Treatment C: this group received package A, plus package B (794 participants)

- Control: no treatment (943 remaining eligible participants)

Treatment A participants received technical classroom training five half‐days a week between December 2013 and May 2014. Treatment B participants attended the business skills training sessions three half‐days a week from April to September 2014. During the months in which the technical and business skills training overlapped, treatment C participants attended three full days per week; during the remainder of the program they experienced the same training intensity as treatment A participants (appendix A, figure A2).

> 9 The initial design envisioned randomly assigning 800 individuals to each treatment group and 1,200 to the control group. However, fewer youth than expected applied, and therefore the numbers assigned to the control group were reduced; 800 were indeed assigned to the treatment groups, but a few participants did not take up the training.

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