Interventions to increase youth employment: An evidence and gap map

Abstract Background Globally, 13% of the youth are not in education, employment or training (NEET). Moreover, this persistent problem has been exacerbated by the shock of Covid‐19 pandemic. More youth from disadvantaged backgrounds are likely unemployed than those from better off backgrounds. Thus, the need for increased use of evidence in the design and implementation of youth employment interventions to increase effectiveness and sustainability of interventions and outcomes. Evidence and gap maps (EGMs) can promote evidence‐based decision making by guiding policy makers, development partners and researchers to areas with good bodies of evidence and those with little or no evidence. The scope of the Youth Employment EGM is global. The map covers all youth aged 15–35 years. The three broad intervention categories included in the EGM are: strengthening training and education systems, enhancing labour market and, transforming financial sector markets. There are five outcome categories: education and skills; entrepreneurship; employment; welfare and economic outcomes. The EGM contains impact evaluations of interventions implemented to increase youth employment and systematic reviews of such single studies, published or made available between 2000 and 2019. Objectives The primary objective was to catalogue impact evaluations and systematic reviews on youth employment interventions to improve discoverability of evidence by decision makers, development patterners and researchers, so as to promote evidence‐based decision making in programming and implementation of youth employment initiatives. Search Methods Twenty databases and websites were searched using a validated search strategy. Additional searches included searching within 21 systematic reviews, snowballing 20 most recent studies and citation tracking of 10 most recent studies included in the EGM. Selection Criteria The study selection criteria followed the PICOS approach of population, intervention, relevant comparison groups, outcomes and study design. Additional criterion is; study publication or availability period of between 2000 and 2021. Only impact evaluations and systematic reviews that included impact evaluations were selected. Data Collection and Analysis A total of 14,511 studies were uploaded in EPPI Reviewer 4 software, upon which 399 were selected using the criteria provided above. Coding of data took place in EPPI Reviewer basing on predefined codes. The unit of analysis for the report is individual studies where every entry represents a combination of interventions and outcomes. Main Results Overall, 399 studies (21 systematic reviews and 378 impact evaluations) are included in the EGM. Impact evaluations (n = 378) are much more than the systematic reviews (n = 21). Most impact evaluations are experimental studies (n = 177), followed by non‐experimental matching (n = 167) and other regression designs (n = 35). Experimental studies were mostly conducted in both Lower‐income countries and Lower Middle Income countries while non‐experimental study designs are the most common in both High Income and Upper Middle Income countries. Most evidence is from low quality impact evaluations (71.2%) while majority of systematic reviews (71.4% of 21) are of medium and high quality rating. The area saturated with most evidence is the intervention category of ‘training’, while the underrepresented are three main intervention sub‐categories: information services; decent work policies and; entrepreneurship promotion and financing. Older youth, youth in fragility, conflict and violence contexts, or humanitarian settings, or ethnic minorities or those with criminal backgrounds are least studied. Conclusions The Youth Employment EGM identifies trends in evidence notably the following: Most evidence is from high‐income countries, an indication of the relationship between a country's income status and research productivity. The most common study designs are experimental. Most of the evidence is of low quality. This finding serves to alert researchers, practitioners and policy makers that more rigorous work is needed to inform youth employment interventions. Blending of interventions is practiced. While this could be an indication that blended intervention could be offering better outcomes, this remains an area with a research gap.

1 | PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY 1.1 | The evidence for youth employment interventions is unevenly distributed by geography and population sub-groups, and much of it is of poor quality There is considerable evidence on training-based youth employment interventions across all outcomes included in the evidence and gap map (EGM), but scarce evidence in the 'information services' and 'decent work policies' categories of interventions. Much of the evidence is of low quality.

| What is this EGM about?
Globally, approximately 13% of youth are 'not in education, employment or training' (NEET). This situation is aggravated by the shock of the Covid-19 pandemic. This EGM shows the available evidence on youth employment from systematic reviews and impact evaluations.
Decisionmakers and implementers across all countries should use context-specific evidence to increase effectiveness and sustainability of youth employment interventions and outcomes.
What is the aim of this EGM?
The aim of this EGM is to catalogue all the available evidence from impact evaluations and systematic reviews to increase youth employment across all countries. There is a general lack of high quality evidence given that the majority (73.4%) of impact evaluations have a low confidence quality rating. Three major flaws in impact evaluation reports are that: 1. many young people drop out of the interventions or authors fail to report that information 2. implementers fail to take into account other factors with the potential to affect interventions and outcomes 3. most studies have many variations in the characteristics of youth, like education level and age as a baseline or at the beginning of the interventions.

| What do the findings of the map mean?
Mastercard Foundation and the Youth Futures Foundation plan to use this EGM to promote innovation and knowledge-sharing, and to inform their funding decisions on programmes and systematic reviews.
While the evidence base is relatively large, it is weak when it comes to disadvantaged populations of youth as well as interventions under 'decent work policies', which include labour standards and accountability systems, and 'information services', such as value chain development and labour market information.
The quality of systematic reviews and impact evaluations requires improvement. More studies from low-income countries are needed, especially on disadvantaged youth.

| How up-to-date is this EGM?
The authors searched for studies published up to January 2020.

| BACKGROUND
Globally, the population of young people is estimated at 1.2 billion, which is 16% of the world's population (United Nations, 2018).
Worldwide, approximately 13% of young men and 30% of young women were classified as not in education, employment or training (NEET) in 2018. Youth who are NEET are almost excluded from the labour market because they are not gaining any skills to prepare them for future employment. Moreover, in the long run, a high NEET rate undermines the growth of a national economy over a sustained period (International Labour Organization [ILO], 2019a).
In 2017, the global rate of youth unemployment was estimated at 13%, though Sub-Saharan Africa and, Latin America and the Caribbean had the most disturbing situations. While youth unemployment in Sub-Saharan Africa was 11.7%, some countries experienced extraordinarily high rates of youth unemployment. For instance, in South Africa youth unemployment rate was about 57.4%, and the highest in the region. In Lesotho, Mozambique and Namibia youth unemployment rates were estimated at 38. 5%,42.7% and 45.5%,respectively. Similarly,in Latin America and the Caribbean, Argentina, and Brazil registered highest youth unemployment rates of 24.7% and 30.5% respectively, pushing the regional average to 18. 9%, in 2017(United Nations, 2018. Regions of the world often have some unique causes of youth unemployment. For instance, young women are generally discriminately unemployed than young men, with the situation exceedingly high in Middle East. However, this phenomenon is flipped in Western Europe and Eastern Asia where unemployment is higher among young men than young women. In the case of Eastern Asia, the situation is driven largely APUNYO ET AL. | 3 of 28 by China's inclusion of young women in its expanding manufacturing sector (ILO, 2019a). In Middle East and North Africa, the higher unemployment of young women than men can be attributed to the conservative social norms that may determine opportunities considered appropriate for women. So, women may mainly seek out opportunities in the public sector and avoid jobs in industries dominated by men (ILO, 2019b). In Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the major causes of youth unemployment stems from the weak education systems leading to huge skills mismatch between skills provided by the education systems and labour market needs. In addition, Sub-Saharan Africa, has experienced a bulging young population despite the small sizes of economies (The African Capacity Building Foundation, 2017).
Moreover, most of the world and particularly Africa is experiencing high growth in youth population, where the situation is envisaged to increase the continent's labour force to 375 million by 2030. The implication is that by 2035, there will be more young people in Africa available for the labour market each year than in the rest of the world combined (Mastercard Foundation, 2019). At a macro level, some drivers to youth unemployment include huge increases in labour supply, low aggregate demand for labour and, a mismatch between economic growth path and skills requirements majorly as a result of training deficits (De Lannoy et al., 2018). Unfortunately, the predicament of youth has been exacerbated by the shock of Covid-19 pandemic, which is worsening employment, livelihoods and poverty around the world.
Employment and economic empowerment are essential components of a strong foundation for all youth regardless of their gender identity and disadvantaged status. So, having decent work is crucial for young people and their future but it also has multiplier effects on local communities and the world as a whole (United Nations, 2018).
Decent work refers to a composition of the aspirations of people in their working lives. It involves opportunities for work that are productive and deliver fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for families, better prospects for personal development and social integration (International Labour Organization, 2019a).
Addressing youth unemployment requires investment in job creation initiatives for the ever-increasing population and tackling the skills mismatch problem contributing to the low school-to-work transition situation. Clearly, efforts to stimulate youth employment require diversification of employment sector through investment in education, skills training, bolstering small and medium-sized enterprises and, microcredit provision (United Nations, 2018).
The UNDP Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 8 and SDG 10 seek to reduce youth unemployment and inequality of all forms respectively (United Nations, 2019a). The SDG 8 sets three targets for youth employment. Target 8.5, expects countries, by 2030 to achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value. Target 8.6, expects countries, by 2020 to substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training and, target 8.b, by 2020, develop and operationalise a global strategy for youth employment and implement the Global Jobs Pact of the ILO (United Nations, 2019b). The SDG 10, 'Reduce Inequality within and among countries' in Target 10.2, expects countries by 2030, to achieve empowerment and promotion of social, economic and political inclusion of all people irrespective of age, sex disability, race, ethnicity and economic status (United Nations, 2019c).
Consequently, global, regional and country-based initiatives have been put in place to deal with youth unemployment. For instance, the United Nations Youth Strategy has been developed with several priorities of which the third talks about prompting economic empowerment through decent work, by supporting young people's greater access to decent work and productive employment (United Nations, n.d.). Similarly, Mastercard Foundation through its 'Young Africa Works Strategy' has set out an ambitious goal to enable 30 million youth in Africa to find jobs by 2030 partly through the promotion of sharing evidence-based knowledge and innovation with stakeholders; supporting use of technology to drive impact and scale and; empowering young women (Mastercard Foundation, 2019).
To respond to the above, there is an increased need to invest in making available evidence on youth employment interventions discoverable by decision makers, development partners, researchers and other stakeholders. Evidence and gap maps (EGMs) can contribute to achieving this by identifying areas in which there are good bodies of synthesised knowledge to inform policy, and those areas in which there is little or no evidence to guide commissioning of coordinated research programmes.

| Intervention: All interventions that increase youth employment
All interventions or programmes or projects aimed at helping youth to find and sustain employment are the focus of this EGM. This EGM broadly categories the interventions into three domains: strengthening training and education systems, enhancing labour market and, transforming financial sector markets.
Strengthening training and education systems, includes the conventional education systems and various forms of training such as direct training often provided to the unemployed. The other types of training namely; up-skilling and retraining/re-skilling normally target youth who are already in employment, to ensure that their skill relevant to the changing demands of employers.
Enhancing labour markets category of interventions includes: decent work policies, support to employment services, and Information services. Decent work polices generally regulate the relationship between employers and employees in the employment environment through application of labour standards, regulations and accountability systems. Support to employment interventions are generally meant to help youth find jobs through provision of jobs via initiatives like programmes for overseas employment and public works programmes.
Transforming financial sector markets based interventions focus on entrepreneurship promotion and financing. This category of interventions tend to be popular for targeting disadvantaged youth especially those with low levels of education. As Datta et al. (2018) observe, labour market opportunities are significantly influenced by the reverence of skills for the existing job market. An intervention like self-help or financing groups tends to be dominant among youth with less education and training. Self-help groups are small groups that save a certain amount of money on weekly or monthly basis and issue loans to members out of their collective savings (Flynn, 2013).
The focus of this EGM is therefore broad, for example covering economic and welfare dimensions. So, outcomes of the various interventions go beyond the youth getting employment which is often the primary motivation of implementing youth employment programmes. For researchers, the youth employment EGM has identified research gaps for new primary research and new synthesis. This can inform strategic policy-oriented approach in commissioning relevant and coordinated research programmes (White et al., 2020).

|
Before the production of this EGM, two pre-existing evidence gap maps on youth employment-related interventions were inadequate in a number of ways. For instance, each of those maps had a narrow scope (geographical, study publication period and, area/interventions and outcomes). The maps were limited to low-and middle-income countries and publication period of 1990-2015. Moreover, development interventions are often best appreciated and understood in a contemporary context (Mawn et al., 2017). Further, both maps did not include economic outcomes while one did not include welfare outcomes. In addition, at least one of the maps suffered methodological limitation stemming, whereby the study search strategy and screening of studies were conducted by individuals rather in pairs for validation. This is stated to have led to some studies being missed. Never the less, the two pre-existing maps provided a basis for the development of the current youth employment EGM, with a broader focus (geographical, study publication period and, area/interventions and outcomes). Methodological limitations were also avoided by better planning for sufficient time and human resources.

| Objectives
The research question guiding the production of the youth employment EGM was stated as follows: What is the nature and extent of the evidence base of impact evaluations and systematic reviews on youth employment programmes in the world?
The primary objective was to catalogue impact evaluations and systematic reviews on youth employment interventions to enhance discoverability of evidence by decision makers, development patterners and researchers, so as to promote evidence-based decision making in programming and delivery of youth employment initiatives. This EGM was considered a primary input into the implementation of Mastercard | 5 of 28 (iv) To produce a narrative report of the youth employment EGM.
(v) To disseminate the EGM to users to increase awareness to support evidence-informed decision-making across countries.

| Existing EGMs on youth employment interventions
Before the production of this EGM, there were two evidence gap maps on youth employment. The two EGMs were reviewed to inform the development of the framework for this EGM. The descriptions provided below for each of the maps pointed out associated strengthens and limitations which were of scope and methodological nature.
The first evidence gap map was the 'Youth and Transferable Skills evidence gap map'. The map included 98 studies and is accessible at https://gapmaps.3ieimpact.org/evidence-maps/youthtransferable-skills-evidence-gap-map (Rankin et al., 2015). The map included studies published or made available between 1990 and 2015. The included studies were searched from January to February of 2015. The map is restricted to low-and middle-income countries.
In terms of youth employment as a development area, the map has a narrow focus, covering only transferable skills interventions and associated outcomes. For, instance economic outcomes are not covered, yet these set of outcomes for example 'cost effectiveness' often have important bearing on the implementation of programmes. The map also suffered methodological problems due to time constraints.
It was mentioned that the use of a single specialist to supervise and compile the search work as well as reliance on one person to screen studies on titles and abstracts, could have led to some studies being missed (Rankin et al., 2015). The map had an accompanying published narrative report which provided detailed information on areas such as methodology and results, which is a strength. In addition, this map used an extensive study search strategy covering 34 websites and 4 research registries.  (Kluve et al., 2017), titled 'Interventions to improve the labour market outcomes of youth: A systematic review of training, entrepreneurship promotion, employment services and subsidised employment interventions'. The map did not include economic and welfare outcomes. In addition, a narrative report accompanying the EGM was not accessible which is an indication of its absence. Although, a narrative report is an optional product in the production of an EGM (Saran & White, 2018), the absence or lack of access to such a document denies users vital information.
The above maps provided a basis for the development of the current youth employment EGM, with a broader focus (geographical, study publication period and, area/interventions and outcomes).

| Framework development and scope
Development of the framework is considered the first and most important part in the development of an evidence map (White et al., 2020). The framework was therefore the first activity undertaken in the production of this EGM, in the last quarter of 2019. The framework provided the structure or layout of the EGM and was a primary resource in the development of the search strategy, screening and coding tools. A typical framework for an effectiveness EGM refers to the matrix of interventions (in rows) and outcomes (in columns), developed through a review of existing maps on a related policy domain, policy literature and consultations with stakeholders (Rankin et al., 2015).
The development of the framework for this EGM was achieved through a consultative process involving authors of the map, Mastercard Foundation and stakeholders in the youth employment area. The consultative approach helped the capture of a wide range conceptual and contextual positions of Mastercard Foundation and stakeholders involved in youth employment programming and implementation. The steps followed are described below.
First, using a workshop approach in Uganda, the EGM authors constructed a draft framework by brainstorming and reviewing ex-

| Stakeholder engagement
Meetings and workshops to engage stakeholders were planned to be Business skills training is normally provided to increase entrepreneurial activities among youth (Kluve et al., 2017). In the case of life skills training, the objective is to strengthen trainees' self-esteem and work habits to help them achieve the goals set by employers (Lippman et al., 2015 • Asymmetric information, whereby youth often lack information due to information gaps, little or no work experience and limited access to social networks.
• Lack of assets and limited access to credit; which excludes young people from engaging in productive selfemployment opportunities especially among rural youth and economies where agriculture is the most dominant productive activity.
• Regulatory constraints to hiring youth. Decent work policies can deter employers from hiring young new employees. For instance, employee protection legislation and mandatory social benefits may discourage hiring first-time job seekers who may be higher risk.
• Limited access to credit and lack of assets. Young people usually have low savings, and limited assets for securing loans from formal financial institutions. These constraints exclude youth from financial inclusion and becoming entrepreneurs.  that labour market opportunities are significantly influenced by the reverence of skills for the existing job market. An intervention like self-help or financing groups tends to be dominant among youth with less education and training. Self-help groups are small groups that save a certain amount of money on weekly or monthly basis and issue loans to members out of their collective savings (Flynn, 2013). The category of interventions (transforming financial sector) tend to be mainly associated with welfare outcomes and employment outcomes than economic outcomes.

| Dimensions
The primary dimensions of the map are interventions (in rows) and outcomes (

| Types of study design
Only studies with the following study designs were included in the EGM: Experimental designs, Nonexperimental matching designs, Regression-based approaches and, Systematic reviews. | 9 of 28 resulting from changes that occur postrandomisation of study participants. For instance, withdrawal of subjects from the study and noncompliance with established study protocols or guidelines would lead to missing outcomes (White & Sabarwal, 2014).
Therefore, application of Intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis in RCTs attempts to address this problem by including in the analysis every subject who is randomised according to randomised treatment assignment and ignoring anything that happens after randomisation (Gupta, 2011). So, studies using ITT analysis have been included in the EGM under RCT study design.
(ii) Natural experiments: Despite the lack of universally accepted definition of the term natural experiment, researchers are in agreement that a natural experiment happens where and/or when an intervention is implemented without the control of a researcher (Butler et al., 2018). Therefore, a natural experiment is an experiential study design in which clearly defined sub-populations are (ii) DiD: In DiD approach, impact is estimated by comparing the changes in outcome over time between treatment and comparison groups. The method is also known as controlled before and after studies or 'double difference' method (White & Sabarwal, 2014).
(iii) RDD: This is a popular approach used in econometrics due to situations that make randomisation unfeasible to determine causal effects of interventions by assigning a cut-off or threshold above or below which an intervention is assigned.
The threshold refers to the criterion that participants must met before being included in the intervention. The threshold is usually based on a continuous variable (White & Sabarwal, 2014). For instance, adults above or below a particular age for enroling in a training programme. RDD approach compares observations on either side of the threshold to estimate average treatment effects of an intervention. The major limitation of RDD is that its greatly affected by confounding variables. For instance, average treatment effects of a local sanitation intervention may be affected by a regional related intervention if they were implemented at the same time.
(c) Regression-based approaches All approaches based on regression models not listed above are included here. These include (but are not restricted to):

| Types of intervention/problem
The EGM has three broad intervention categories, each with subcategories. The intervention categories include: Strengthening training and education systems; enhancing labour markets; and transforming financial sector markets.

| Types of population
The only criterion used for selecting the target population is age.
So, the target population is all youth or young women and men 3.9 | Types of outcome The welfare outcomes are flagged to ensure that even welfare outcomes not directly associated with employment are captured.

| Eligibility criteria
A review of 15 agencies by Saran and White (2018), established that the inclusion criteria for EGMs generally follows the PICOS approach of population, intervention, relevant comparison groups, outcomes and study design. Therefore, the study inclusion criteria for this EGM also used a similar approach. Table 3 shows a summary of PICOS.
Additional criterion of study publication period was included. The document should have been published or made available between

PICOS element Description
Population All youth or young women and men aged 15-35 years from all countries.

Intervention
All interventions that fall under: strengthening training and education system; enhancing labour market and; transforming financial sector market.

Comparison
Active or passive (placebo or non-intervention) alternate intervention in the comparison group.

Outcomes
All outcomes categorised under economic, education and skills, entrepreneurship, employment, and welfare.

Studies
The studies were impact evaluations of youth employment interventions or systematic reviews, which included studies on youth employment interventions.
| 11 of 28 January 2000 and December 2019. The inclusion and exclusion criteria is illustrated in (Figure 1).
Unpublished studies were included in the EGM to reduce the effects of publication bias, which refers to the failure to publish a study on the basis of the strength of the study findings.
For studies with interventions that combined youth and non- where a journal article presented partial outcomes, a working paper was included in the EGM.

| Types of settings
The coding tool provided for the following types of settings for interventions: high school, tertiary education institutions, training centres, firms, and the option for others identified when coding studies.

| Search methods and sources
The Protocol which is the basis for the production of the Youth Employment EGM is published in the Campbell Systematic Reviews database (Apunyo et al., 2021

| Additional search methods
To ensure the more comprehensive identification of studies included in the EGM, additional three activities (searching systematic reviews, snowballing and citation tracking), described below were undertaken.
These activities were carried out towards the end of the project, after coding studies identified by the search strategy.
There was a search within reference lists of the 21 systematic

| Screening and study selection
Screening of studies was carried out in EPPI-Reviewer 4, which is a web-

| Data extraction and management
The studies were coded on the basis of the information contained in the coding sheet, provided in Supporting Information Annex 5.
Guidance was provided to reviewers involved in coding the studies, through piloting coding and checklists. For instance, reviewers used the most current World Bank classification of countries by income level to code the World Bank Regions. A dictionary defining interventions and outcomes was also provided for reviewers involved in coding studies.
The coding sheet was piloted before full scale coding of studies.
Five piloting sessions were conducted. In each session, each study was independently coded by a pair of reviewers. After each pilot session, the entire EGM team discussed the results of pilot coding to humanise the application of the coding sheet. Post pretest coding of studies was conducted again by pairs of reviewers who reconciled disagreements through discussion. Where the two coders did not reach consensus, the mater was forwarded to the third reviewer/tie breaker.

| Quality appraisal of studies/risk of bias
Critical appraisal of each study (impact evaluations and systematic reviews) was conducted independently by a pair of reviewers who again followed the same procedure used at screening and coding phases, to reconcile disagreements.
Impact evaluation studies were assessed using the 'Quality assessment of Impact Evaluations' tool developed by Dr. Howard White and Dr. Saran Ashrita. The tool is a checklist of seven items with additional guidance on rating items, expressed as: high confidence, medium confidence or low confidence. However, of the seven items only four (study APUNYO ET AL. | 13 of 28 design (potential confounders taken into account); level of attrition or losses to follow up 2 ; definition of outcomes; and baseline balance 3 reports), were the most critical for making decisions.
A Measurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews (AMSTAR 2) was used to conduct critical appraisal of systematic reviews.
AMSTAR has been developed to facilitate the development of high-quality reviews by guiding the conduct and evaluation of reviews. The AMSTAR 2 checklist 4 contains 16 items, each with concise sentence questions having supplementary guidance on selecting response options (expressed as: 'yes', partial yes and 'no'). Overall, the AMSTAR 2 tool rates confidence in components of a systematic review as; High: no or one no-critical weakness, Moderate: more than one noncritical weakness, Low: one critical flaw with or without noncritical weaknesses and, Critically low: more than one critical flaw with or without noncritical weaknesses (Shea et al., 2017).

| Methods for mapping
EPPI Reviewer 4-a web based software program for managing and analysing data in literature reviews (EPPI Centre, n.d.) was used for screening and coding studies as well conducting analysis. Screening and coding was based on predefined codes extracted from the eligibility criteria and coding sheet provide in Supporting Information Annex 5. The study flow diagram is presented later in Figure 5.

| Filters and presentation
The filters are populations groups such as disadvantaged youth and age groups of youth; regions of the world by income status; countries; study settings and; implementers of interventions. The interactive EGM is presented as follows.
The youth employment EGM is a matrix of interventions (in rows) and outcomes (in columns), populated with studies that provide evidence for each cell's outcome and intervention combination. Each study was placed in each cell for which the study provides evidence. That means that majority of studies appear in the map multiple times because they have multiple outcomes and interventions. Each study has been tied to a weblink which directs the user of the map to an online database where the full text or paper of the study is uploaded. The map has primary and secondary dimensions which provide an appealing user-friendly content visualisation.
The primary dimensions of the map are interventions (in rows) and outcomes (in columns), presented in a matrix. Figure 2 Table 17). USA (n = 13, 61.9%) and India (n = 8, 38.1%) were the countries studied most in the systematic reviews (n = 21) (Supporting Information Annex 8; Table 18).
Geographically, Europe and Central Asian studies were the most predominant (n = 152), with the MENA region having least representation n = 17 and therefore with most glaring evidence gaps in the literature of youth employment. There was a relationship between volumes of evidence and World Bank income regions. High-income country studies were more (59%), with low-income countries accounting for only 11.5% of the evidence base (Supporting Information Annex 8; Table 19).  Percentage is more than 100 as an impact evaluation may be coded more than once for study designs. (n = 307). Among those that did, the services sector was the most studied (n = 74) followed by the nonmanufacturing (n = 58) and agriculture (n = 33) came fourth after the manufacturing sector, n = 43 (Table 7).  (Table 8).

| By population
Overall, literature was sparse about youth in fragile, conflict and violence-affected contexts; humanitarian settings, ethnic minorities and those with criminal backgrounds.
Looking at age and gender, youth between 15 and 19 years old commanded the evidence base with an even gender distribution.
Where gender was specified it was approximately 80% for both male and female (Supporting Information Annex 8: Table 23). Evidence was substantially less available for 'older youth' groups, specifically 30-35 years compared to those below 25 years.
Evidence gaps were also identified in terms of social factors of all the youth. There is rich literature about youth from disadvantaged backgrounds (n = 139) (low-income families or low education), followed by those disabilities (n = 33) with hardly any literature on youth in fragile, conflict and violence context, n = 8; humanitarian settings (n = 6), criminal background (n = 3), and ethnic minorities (n = 3) (Table 9).
There were variations in the types of evidence by population as well as country income status. Experimental evidence was concentrated around youth in urban locations (n = 73) and those from disadvantaged backgrounds (n = 77) (Supporting Information Annex 8: Table 23). There were no systematic reviews (zero) capturing youth employment interventions in fragile, conflict and violent or humanitarian settings, or among ethnic minorities (Table 9). In terms of re-  (Table 10).

| Intervention categories
The five intervention sub-categories are support to employment; decent work policies; training; information and finance and Note: Numbers in this table do not add to the actual number of respective types of studies/evidence as an impact evaluation or systematic review may be coded more than once for income regions. For instance, cross-country studies such as systematic reviews may be coded for more than one region.

Settings for interventions Studies
High School 37 Tertiary Education 44 Training centre 154 Firm 205

Sectors of interventions Studies
Agriculture 33

| Outcome categories
There are five outcome domains reported in the map: education and skills, entrepreneurship, employment, welfare and economic. Employment is the most reported outcome (n = 345) followed by welfare (n = 121) and, education and skills (n = 97) (Figure 9).
Among the outcome sub-categories for employment outcomes,

| Risk of bias in included reviews
The results from the quality assessment of systematic reviews using the AMSTAR 2 tool and, impact evaluation studies basing on the 'Quality assessment of Impact Evaluations' tool are presented below. These study quality assessment tools are detailed earlier in (Section 3.7). A detailed risk of bias or study quality Overall, most systematic reviews (71.4% of 21) were of medium and high quality while 28.6% were graded as low quality by AMSTAR score (Table 13). Across the intervention sub-categories and outcomes categories, evidence quality was mainly rated as 'medium/ moderate and high quality' (Table 14). The reviews with a low quality rating had at least one critical flaw (Table 15). For instance, all the reviews rated as low quality did not explicitly state if the review methods were established before the conduct of the review and did not also justify any significant deviations from the protocol. The inability of review authors accounting for risk of bias (RoB) in individual studies when interpreting/discussing the results of the review, was the second most dominant critical flaw (Table 15). A detailed report of RoB assessment for systematic reviews is provided in Supporting Information Annex 6. The conduct of systematic therefore calls for improvements in a number areas such as proper design of methods and their publication for transparency, undertaking risk of bias analysis and use of comprehensive literature search strategies.
Looking at impact evaluations, at least 73.4% of these category studies were of low confidence quality rating (Table 13). In terms of Intervention sub-categories and Outcomes categories, the bulk of the evidence was of low quality impact evaluations across the board (Table 14). These studies obtained a low-quality rating on at least one of the following three items: (1) high attrition rate; (2) design (potential confounders not taken into account and; (3) weak baseline balance performance. However, attrition bias and low baseline balance rating were the two main reasons for the low-quality rating of impact evaluations.
Results of attrition assessment presented in Figure 11, show that most (70.4%) impact evaluations scored a low rating because either attrition was not reported or the reported measures fell outside What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Standards acceptable combined levels.
Ex-post factor studies were not rated on this attrition parameter.
Regarding the 'baseline balance parameter', 5 still a big number of studies (43.4%) scored a low rating because they did not have baseline balance data or were reported with significant differences on more than five measures ( Figure 12). It means that most studies with treatment and comparison groups did not have the same average characteristics of participants at baseline. Such imbalances in participants' characteristics such as in the levels of education often affect the impact of the interventions. Asia and North America. This suggested that country income persisted in research productivity, yet it is in Africa that youth unemployment will likely be more impactful in decades to come.
Moreover, these low and middle-income regions have the biggest population of youth NEET. However, the reasons for this situation are beyond the scope of this EGM. It's therefore an evidence gap for research investment. Naturally, this trend persisted among the lead authors with hardly any from Africa having two or more publications.
Majority of the studies were experimental impact evaluations with few systematic reviews and interventions were located in firms or youth training centres.
It was observed that the bulk of evidence on interventions studied was from low quality impact evaluations (71.2%). Fortunately, most systematic reviews (71.4% of 21) were of medium and high quality. There were two key reasons for failings of impact evolutions. First, they had very high levels of attrition by study participants or attrition data were not reported. The second, was the large differences in the baseline characteristics between treatment groups and control groups of participants. In the case of systematic reviews, there were critical flaws characterised by uncertainties about whether such reviews had protocols before their conduct and finally, risk of bias assessment for included studies was not carried in the systematic reviews with low quality rating. These include literature about youth below 25 years from highincome countries and with disadvantaged background, that is, from low-income families or with low education. Training and skilling and, support to employment were well endowed with impact evaluations. identifies key evidence gaps for future prioritisation.

| Limitations
Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, reviewers were unable to conduct face-to-face stakeholder engagements in Kampala, Uganda as F I G U R E 12 Baseline balance tests of impact evaluations stated in the study protocol. Keeping in touch with Mastercard Foundation policy leads and the literature were informative in arriving at reasonable priority list of the interventions and outcomes for this EGM.
Another key weakness in this map is that the bulk of the impact evaluations were of low quality. Attrition bias and low baseline balance measures were the two main reasons for the low quality rating of impact evaluations which generally account for a huge bulk (378 of 399) of studies that are included in the EGM.
Nonetheless, as EGMs do not intend to communicate evidence of effects of interventions, this finding serves to alert researchers, practitioners and policy makers that more rigorous work is needed to inform youth employment interventions. Researchers need to improve conduct and reporting of impact evaluations. Improvements may start within postgraduate programs funded by Mastercard Foundation by linking postgraduate students to impact evaluations of youth employment interventions.
Finally, this information is time bound not earlier than 2000 for which we could have missed important information. However, the purpose of this EGM was to build on existing syntheses that captured the earlier work of youth employment interventions globally.

| Conclusions
This report provides a summary of findings of the Youth Employment The map identifies trends in evidence notably the following: • Most evidence is from North America and Europe and as such, high-income countries have the largest share of evidence.
• The most common study designs are experimental.
• Most of the evidence is of low quality. This finding serves to alert researchers, practitioners and policy makers that more rigorous work is needed to inform youth employment interventions.
• Blending of interventions is practiced. While this could be an indication blended intervention could be offering better outcomes, this remains an area with a research gap.
Inspecting the number of studies in each cell of the map shows clusters of evidence and gaps, as follows: • Well-evidenced areas, with more than 75 studies, are the employment, welfare, as well as education and skills outcomes of training interventions. This level also is employment outcomes of support to employment interventions.
• Moderately evidenced areas, with between 25 and 75 studies, are largely identified for support to employment interventions across a broader range of outcomes, except employment. Training interventions also have moderate level of evidence for economic and entrepreneurship outcomes. Similarly, entrepreneurship promotion and financing interventions had moderate level of evidence for employment and welfare outcomes.
• The evidence base is weak (fewer than 25 studies), for information and decent work policies.
The map reveals areas with well-populated evidence as well as those with gaps. Hence to a great extent the map enhances discoverability of evidence by stakeholders engaged in the promotion of youth employment interventions.
implementation, in addition to providing content and methods expertise for the project.
Project Manager was Mr. Robert Apunyo. He has vast experience in managing research projects involving multidisciplinary teams.
He is a Research Fellow at Africa Centre MCHS.
Methods expert was Dr. Ashrita Saran. She has vast experience in systematic review methodology and theory-based synthesis. She was instrumental in the development of the EGM framework and training of screeners and coders of studies.