Taqeem (meaning “evaluation” in Arabic) is a regional initiative of the ILO to increase effectiveness of youth employment and enterprise interventions in the Middle East and North Africa through improved results measurement and evaluation practices. Through its capacity development component, Taqeem offers technical assistance through a Community of Practice approach to assist youth-serving organizations in improving their ability to measure results. Taqeem responds to a niche demand among youth-serving organizations to provide technical assistance on M&E which is appropriate for their size and resources while, at the same time, creating learning opportunities that provide the broader youth employment community with better knowledge on what works in generating youth employment opportunities.
Taqeem Community of Practice
The Taqeem Community of Practice (CoP) is a collaborative approach to building capacity on monitoring, evaluation (M&E) and impact evaluation and to foster learning and cooperation among an action-oriented group of competitively selected youth-serving organizations in the Middle East and North Africa. Since 2009, the Taqeem Initiative has supported youth-serving organizations working across the Arab region, engaging representatives of these organizations in initial Evaluation Clinics focused on providing basic training in monitoring and evaluation methodologies.
The Initiative provides more targeted and in-depth support to CoP organizations focused on the development of individualized M&E strategies and the effective application of technology-enhanced, low-cost, high-impact monitoring and evaluation tools. In addition to learning provided through Evaluation Clinics, CoP organizations devise new and improved monitoring, evaluation and impact evaluation plans for their organizations. During this stage, participants receive coaching by technical experts. Small grants are provided to cover costs for critical expenditures to help the organizations implement their plans.
Members of the CoP benefit from regular interactions with researchers and evaluation experts, and meet regularly at workshops and youth employment-related events to share experiences. A web-based knowledge sharing platform and dissemination campaigns support the exchange of lessons learned from the M&E systems. Making Learning Count documents the progress made by the organizations that formed the first Taqeem Community of Practice.
Taqeem Impact Briefs
The Impact Briefs document how CoP organizations supported by Taqeem measure outcomes of their youth employment programmes, the tools that are applied and the findings and recommendations that emerge to assist them in improving impacts and programme design.
In 2015, a second group of organizations serving youth in the Middle East and North Africa region was competitively selected through the ILO Fund for Evaluation in Employment to receive technical assistance on monitoring and evaluation and to join the Community of Practice.
