Employment Effects of Skills Trainings in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review of Recent Randomized Controlled Trials

Bernd Beber (), Tabea Lakemann, Regina Schnars and Jann Lay
Additional contact information
Bernd Beber: RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research
Tabea Lakemann: German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA)
Regina Schnars: German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA)
Jann Lay: German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA)

De Economist, 2025, vol. 173, issue 1, No 3, 87-120

Abstract: Abstract This study provides a comprehensive systematic review of recent randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate the employment effects of skills training programs in sub-Saharan Africa. The review focuses on studies conducted between 2019 and 2024, a period marked by a significant increase in the number of RCTs of training interventions in this region, and we thus fill a gap left by earlier reviews that did not reflect this recent surge in experimental studies. We employ the standard SPIDER approach for defining search terms and the PRISMA procedure for search and selection to systematically analyze the impact of these training programs on employment outcomes. The findings reveal a shift towards a more optimistic assessment compared to previous analyses, suggesting that many recent skills training programs do contribute to improving employment-related outcomes.

Keywords: Systematic review; Skills training; Randomized controlled trials; Sub-Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 I25 J24 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10645-024-09442-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:decono:v:173:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s10645-024-09442-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10645/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10645-024-09442-6

Access Statistics for this article

De Economist is currently edited by Rob Alessie, Bas ter Weel, Casper van Ewijk, Jan C. van Ours and Frank de Jong

More articles in De Economist from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().