Landscape of Programs
indicative of a focus on the economic empowerment for marginalized groups. While there is little direct information on the outcomes of identified ETPo programs in the case countries, due in large part to a lack of monitoring and evaluation, available research on ETPo programs in Sub-Saharan Africa provides insight into programs’ potential to deliver on objectives. In McKenzie and Woodruff’s (2012) review of ET programs in developing countries, the authors indicate that some of the stronger effects relate to helping potential owners launch new businesses more quickly. This study, however, finds that at least among the more rigorously evaluated ETPo programs, few evaluations look explicitly at rates of new business start-ups. Instead, as appears to have been the approach with the McKenzie and Woodruff review, proxies for business start-up, such as self-employment and increased business income, are more common in these evaluations. In terms of income generation for marginalized groups, rigorously evaluated programs in Sub-Saharan Africa demonstrate promising findings. The Economic Empowerment of Adolescent Girls and Young Women program in Liberia evidenced gains in weekly income and savings among trainees compared to a control group (World Bank 2012e). Furthermore, the WINGS (Women’s Income Generating Support) program in Uganda, which targeted poor and capital- and credit-constrained women, also found significant impacts on income, as well as consumption, and savings (Blattman and others 2013). However, there is little evidence to suggest that the training’s impacts on new businesses were sustained over time. Another outcome of interest for ETPo programs in Sub-Saharan Africa is the enhancement of business practices, with several program evaluations indicating improved record keeping, formal registration, access to new loans, and a more strategic orientation of the businesses concerned. For example, the Youth Opportunities program in Uganda (Blattman, Fiala, and Martinez Forthcoming) found improvements in business practices across two-year and four-year intervals. While the promotion of high-growth entrepreneurship is a focus within ETPo across the case countries, there is little available evidence demonstrating ETPos’ contributions to the creation of high-revenue or high-employment firms in the long run. In Relation to Global Practice: • A means of poverty alleviation. The diversity of ETPo programs within and across the case countries echoes the diverse landscape of ETPo programs globally. In the case countries, ETPo programs also tend to target specific groups, often marginalized populations, another shared finding from global EET research. In these contexts, EET is viewed as a means to the end of immediate poverty alleviation, rather than as a means to the end of fostering entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. Further reinforcing this focus, several ETPo evaluations give attention to participants’ psychological and social wellbeing, such as participants’ self-confidence and teamwork. The focus on such indicators is a reminder that many ETPo program evaluations cover interventions aimed at improving the immediate, material well-being of vulnerable Entrepreneurship Education and Training • http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-0278-2
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