Pathways to Opportunity – Supporting Rural Youth to Leverage Decent Work: Evidence from the cross-sectoral Youth in Action program

While there is a growing body of research on programming for youth livelihood development, the evidence on the effectiveness of these programs is mixed. Additionally, there are still questions around equity: who benefits from these programs and who is left behind? To address some of these research gaps, Save the Children embedded 32 studies into the six years of implementing Youth in Action (YiA). The studies included summative outcomes assessments in each country; the remaining 23 studies were operational research, primarily using mixed methods approaches, to understand the dimensions of youth skill development, family support, mentorship, business development, and gendered barriers to livelihood development. The goal of this report was to synthesize the findings from this formative and summative research in YiA to reflect on the key evidence-based lessons and provide recommendations for future programming and research.