The ILO and J-PAL Executive Education course is a five-day training on evaluating social programmes which provides participants with a thorough understanding of randomized evaluations and pragmatic, step-by-step guidance for conducting their own evaluations. Through a combination of lectures and case studies from real randomized evaluations, the course focuses on the benefits and methods of randomization, choosing an appropriate sample size, and common threats and pitfalls to the validity of the experiment. While the course is centred around the why, how, and when of randomized evaluations, it also discusses the importance of a needs assessment, measuring outcomes effectively, quality control, and monitoring methods that are useful for all kinds of evaluations. The course also provides the opportunity to learn from and interact with ILO and J-PAL affiliated researchers and practitioners.
Youth unemployment rates are disproportionality high in many regions of the world, particularly in the Middle East. In the face of this challenge, policymakers and practitioners need more evidence on which social programmes work and why, especially for youth labour market programmes. This course is intended to equip academics, evaluators, implementers, and researchers with the skills necessary to produce and consume rigorous impact evaluations. Lecturers include: Bruno Crépon, Samer Kherfi, Meghan Mahoney, Rohit Naimpally, Shawn Powers, Roland Rathelot, among others.
The course was offered by the ILO and J-PAL and hosted by the American University of Sharjah from Sunday, 16 November 2014, to Thursday, 20 November 2014.
