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This study surveys active labor market programs (ALMPs) in selected countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, identifies key challenges to their effective and efficient delivery, and proposes a policy framework for reforming public service provision. This study draws on data collected through surveys administered to public social, employment, and education agencies in selected MENA countries to identify key constraints and options for reforming publicly provided employment programs. Recent political transitions arising from the Arab Spring have contributed to the deterioration of labor market outcomes in the MENA region. In this context, ALMPs could become an important policy lever to address some of the challenges facing labor markets. These include: joblessness, skills mismatches, lack of labor market mobility, large and expanding informal sector, and lack of formal employment networks. The study also provides specific details on the beneficiaries, targeting, and expenditures of ALMPs during this same period.

Background Food safety training serves as a link between research evidence informing safe food handling practices and implementation by food handlers. Healthcare is a setting where foodborne outbreaks can cause considerable morbidity and mortality. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the effect of an on-the-job training program about food safety standards on food handlers’ knowledge and practices in a hospital kitchen. Methods A quasi-experimental one-group pretest- posttest design was conducted at the Egypt Health Care Authority Hospitals located within Port Said Governorate. The study sample comprised 70 hospital kitchen food handlers both male and female, and the study lasted for six months. Data collection was performed utilizing two tools: a structured interviewing questionnaire to assess food handlers’ level of knowledge on food safety standards and an observational checklist to evaluate their practices. Analysis of data was done using the chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test, logistic regression and Pearson’s correlation at a significance level of p  < 0.05. Results Posttest, 60% of food handlers had a good total knowledge level compared to 25.7% before; the program significantly improved food handler knowledge and observed practices related to food safety standards ( p  < 0.001). Adequate practices rose from 60% to 84.3% with a statistically significant difference ( p  < 0.001). Data were analyzed by chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test followed by advanced regression analysis. A significant correlation existed between knowledge and practices regarding food safety standards immediately after the program. Conclusion Based on the results, the current study findings proved that the application of an on-the-job training program about food safety standards improved food handlers’ knowledge and practices about food safety standards. Therefore, implementing an on-the-job training program for food handlers in hospitals significantly enhances their understanding of food safety standards and practices application, consequently, reducing the risk of foodborne diseases and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

The causal effect of a randomized job training program, the JOBS II study, on trainees' depression is evaluated. Principal stratification is used to deal with noncompliance to the assigned treatment. Due to the latent nature of the principal strata, strong structural assumptions are often invoked to identify principal causal effects. Alternatively, distributional assumptions may be invoked using a model-based approach. These often lead to weakly identified models with substantial regions of flatness in the posterior distribution of the causal effects. Information on multiple outcomes is routinely collected in practice, but is rarely used to improve inference. This article develops a Bayesian approach to exploit multivariate outcomes to sharpen inferences in weakly identified principal stratification models. We show that inference for the causal effect on depression is significantly improved by using the reemployment status as a secondary outcome in the JOBS II study. Simulation studies are also performed to illustrate the potential gains in the estimation of principal causal effects from jointly modeling more than one outcome. This approach can also be used to assess plausibility of structural assumptions and sensitivity to deviations from these structural assumptions. Two model checking procedures via posterior predictive checks are also discussed.

This paper examines the effects of a private-sector prison work program called the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) on formal unemployment duration, duration of formal employment, and earnings of men and women released from various state prisons between 1996 and 2001. It also investigates the labor market dynamics of formerly incarcerated men and women. The program is found to increase reported earnings and formal employment on the extensive margin, with a stronger impact on the formal employment of women. There is little evidence that it increases formal employment along the intensive margin (i.e., duration of formal employment). Contrary to segmented labor market theories, superior employment (i.e., higher-paying jobs) does not lead to increased job stability. Roughly 92 % of individuals who obtained formal employment in the sample experienced job loss; however, reincarceration rates are too low to explain this fact. An evaluation of labor market dynamics reveals that traditional human capital variables, criminogenic factors, and a few demographic characteristics determine job loss. In addition, black women, single women, and women with more extensive criminal histories face greater barriers in the labor market than their male counterparts.

This study assesses the potential for job creation through infrastructure investment in the Middle East and North Africa. The region has experience in making the most of infrastructure investments, but maintaining and spreading the momentum in infrastructure will be important to support future growth and job creation. To do so, policymakers will have to recognize that there are large differences in initial conditions across the region in terms of starting stock, needs, fiscal commitments, private sector participation and job creation potential. Overall, the region’s infrastructure needs through 2020 are quite large and estimated at about 106 billion dollars per year or 6.9 percent of the annual regional GDP. The differences in infrastructure and maintenance needs across sub-regions are also impressive, with developing oil exporters expected to require almost 11 percent of their GDP annually, while the oil importing countries and the GCC oil exporters expected to need approximately 6 and 5 percent of their GDP, respectively. Investment and rehabilitation needs are likely to be especially high in the electricity and transport sectors, particularly roads. Rehabilitation needs are expected to account for slightly more than half of total infrastructure needs. While oil exporters will be able to meet their national infrastructure needs if they maintain investment spending at rates prevailing in the 2000s, oil importers will fall short. The infrastructure sector has the potential to contribute to employment creation in MENA. The region could generate 2.0 million direct jobs and 2.5 million direct, indirect and induced infrastructure-related jobs just by meeting estimated, annual investment needs. However, the potential varies greatly across countries, and infrastructure alone will not resolve MENA’s unemployment problem. Going forward, decisions on what types of public spending to expand and what to downsize in order to achieve balanced budgets will have important implications for jobs. In designing country specific solutions, governments will have to tackle predictable challenges: the governance of job creation, the proper targeting and fiscal costs assessment of subsidies needed to create jobs, the design and fiscal costs of the (re)training programs needed and the expectations on the job creation effects of infrastructure.

Although most evaluators are not sociologists, Sociology is represented in the evaluation profession. To what extent does the presence of sociologists affect the content and emphases of evaluation projects? Reflecting on four projects on which I have served as an evaluator, I conclude that a background in Sociology has been important in the sense that it has led to an emphasis on structural arrangements that may provide a basis for a program's lasting impact. However, it is apparent that an evaluator's disciplinary background is only one of several influences on the content of an evaluation project. Stakeholder mandates and standard evaluation practices also have important influences on how an evaluation is conducted. The impact of disciplinebased content on the thinking and decisions of program administrators will vary according to the willingness of evaluation researchers to maintain regular communications, to insure that the rationale for discipline-based content is understood, and to present results in terms that can be understood by people outside one's discipline.

This article examines the determinants affecting individuals’ previous participation in training workshops in rural Vietnam. This is the firststudy to examine training program participation ratesin a rural Asian context. According to a survey conducted in Ha Tinh Province, Vietnam in 2008, more than 90 per cent of individuals expressed an interest in participating in a job-training program, yet only 41 per cent participated the previous year. This disconnect presents a serious challenge to increasing job training participation rates. We find that gender, age, location, and also behavioral constraints such as an individual’s risk attitude and willingness to compete are significant predictors of previous participation. Our results also indicate that those who could benefit most from job-training programs participate at lower rates. Governments and NGOs need to rethink development models taking these behavioural constraints into account. By designing interventions aimed at mitigating these constraints, participation rates for rural individuals will likely improve, offering a chance to improve livelihoods.

'The Road to Results: Designing and Conducting Effective Development Evaluations' presents concepts and procedures for evaluation in a development context. It provides procedures and examples on how to set up a monitoring and evaluation system, how to conduct participatory evaluations and do social mapping, and how to construct a \"rigorous\" quasi-experimental design to answer an impact question. The text begins with the context of development evaluation and how it arrived where it is today. It then discusses current issues driving development evaluation, such as the Millennium Development Goals and the move from simple project evaluations to the broader understandings of complex evaluations. The topics of implementing 'Results-based Measurement and Evaluation' and constructing a 'Theory of Change' are emphasized throughout the text. Next, the authors take the reader down 'the road to results,' presenting procedures for evaluating projects, programs, and policies by using a 'Design Matrix' to help map the process. This road includes: determining the overall approach, formulating questions, selecting designs, developing data collection instruments, choosing a sampling strategy, and planning data analysis for qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method evaluations. The book also includes discussions on conducting complex evaluations, how to manage evaluations, how to present results, and ethical behavior--including principles, standards, and guidelines. The final chapter discusses the future of development evaluation. This comprehensive text is an essential tool for those involved in development evaluation.

This paper gauges the potential effects on employment of rebalancing China's exportoriented growth model toward domestic demand, particularly private consumption. Shifting to a private consumption-led growth likely means more demand for existing and new services as well as reorienting the production of tradable goods toward domestic markets. In China's case, this would also imply moving a large number of less skilled labor from the tradable sector to the nontradable sector. The paper shows that while rebalancing China's growth toward a domestic-demand-led economy would likely raise aggregate employment and employment opportunities in the longer term, there could be employment losses in the short run as the economy moves away from the tradable sector toward the nontradable sector. Mitigating these costs will require active labor market policies to cushion the employment impact in the transition, particularly in meeting the skills gap of associated with this transition.

The need for program evaluation is critical to ensure that learning outcomes are identified and met, but also that business outcomes are considered within the evaluation process. The Event Manager Training Program at WDS has not been formally evaluated to ensure alignment of the program curriculum with more recently developed Audit Standards Guidelines, which are used to measure compliance to the job tasks associated with best practices in five separate areas of performance. This lack of evaluation of the Event Manager Training Program exposes the need to ensure alignment with the Audit Standards Guidelines and to ensure that the Event Manager Training Program supports Event Managers in understanding performance expectations in each audit content area. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the Event Manager Training Program curriculum, specifically related to the alignment of the content to the Audit Standards Guidelines. This study was a descriptive retrospective program evaluation within the context evaluation phase of the CIPP Evaluation Model using quantitative data collected by the evaluator from existing data sources. This study includes a systematic analysis of the curriculum provided in the Event Manager Training Program measured against the Audit Standards Guidelines, which provides a framework for operational measures and performance requirements for the intended population. The results indicate that there is a significant gap within the Event Manager Training Program curriculum as it relates to alignment with the Audit Standards Guidelines. These finding will provide the stakeholders in this evaluation with critical information to better align the curriculum to support compliance with the Audit Standards guidelines and to create a baseline of data to complete the additional phases of the program evaluation, with input, process, and product evaluations following the framework of the CIPP Evaluation Model.