Assessing the labour market outcomes of beneficiaries of the Sierra Leone Skills Development Project

The paper provides insight into the background and gender heterogeneity of the labour market outcomes of the World Bank-funded Sierra Leone Skills Development Project (SDP) beneficiaries. The SDP offered grants to technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions for skills training (window 1) and employers for employee upskilling (window 2). Analysis of 1699 SDP graduates highlighted that the project targeted vulnerable youth, including out-of-school youth, the poor, and single mothers, with window 2 beneficiaries being the most disadvantaged. Although employment outcomes improved for both men and women post-training, women were 14.8 percentage points less likely to be economically active than men. For men, the top training sectors were construction and agriculture, while for women, they were agriculture and tourism. The study concludes that while the SDP improved employment outcomes for both genders, more efforts are needed to close the employment gap for women.