The Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE) sought to create decent employment opportunities for 200,000 young people, with a specific commitment to ensuring that at least half of the beneficiaries are women.
Our evaluation aimed to provide actionable insights and strategic learning for programme adaptation.
Our role
Itad led the independent evaluation of the Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE) and was responsible for the overall design and implementation of the evaluation approach. As the evaluation partner, we brought expertise in assessing complex development programmes to generate actionable insights and strategic learning.
The evaluation was designed to support adaptive management within CFYE, provide accountability to the funder (the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and contribute to broader evidence on what works in promoting quality youth employment through challenge fund mechanisms.
About the Challenge Fund for Youth Employment
Funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and managed by Palladium, the CFYE was a multi-country initiative aimed at addressing youth unemployment in Africa and the Middle East.
The programme adopted a private sector-driven model by supporting innovative and scalable projects that either expanded the availability of jobs or improved their quality. Grants were awarded through competitive challenge fund calls, and projects were co-invested across 11 countries.
The CFYE not only provided financial support but also offered targeted technical assistance to enhance project outcomes and align them with the programme’s objectives. This portfolio-based approach ensured strategic support and monitoring of individual projects. By prioritising inclusivity, quality, and sustainability, the programme aimed to catalyse structural changes in labour markets and stimulate broader economic impact.
Overall, CFYE served as a dynamic mechanism to harness private sector innovation in solving persistent employment challenges among youth, particularly young women, in diverse and often complex regional contexts.
Our role
Our role encompassed a full suite of evaluation services across the life of the Fund. This included the design and application of a robust, theory-based evaluation framework that captured performance and impact at project, programme, and portfolio levels.
Specifically, Itad conducted a comprehensive document review, undertaking primary data collection both remotely and in-country, and integrating secondary data sources to construct a retrospective baseline.
Data was analysed and synthesised using mixed-methods approaches, including contribution analysis, to understand the extent and nature of CFYE’s impact.
Methods and approaches
The evaluation used a theory-based and multi-level approach to assess the Fund’s design, performance, and impact.
It was structured around two main phases: midline and endline. Data was collected through a mix of primary and secondary sources, both remotely and in-country.
Key methods included:
- Case Studies: both in-depth and light-touch case studies were used to represent the portfolio and serve as the main units of analysis.
- Organisational Review: conducted to understand how the Fund was managed and delivered.
- Reconstructed Baseline: created using secondary data to provide context for evaluating change over time.
- Contribution Analysis: used at endline to assess the extent to which the CFYE contributed to observed outcomes.
The evaluation explored impact at three levels:
- Project Level: reconstructing project-level theories of change (ToCs) and comparing them to the overall programme ToC.
- Programme Level: assessing alignment with and implementation of the programme’s ToC.
- Portfolio Level: identifying broader causal pathways and lessons for similar challenge funds.
The evaluation addressed six core questions related to relevance, coherence, efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability, and inclusivity, aiming to generate both real-time learning and broader strategic insights.
Outcomes and impact
The ultimate aim of Itad’s work was to assess the relevance, coherence, efficiency, effectiveness, inclusivity, and sustainability of the Fund’s interventions.
By delivering rigorous, evidence-based findings through midline and endline evaluations, we informed the Fund’s ongoing strategy, accelerated its impact, and generated valuable learning for policymakers, practitioners, private sector actors, and donors engaged in employment generation and challenge fund programming globally.
