Sara Johansson de Silva

Expanding job opportunities in Ghana

Ghana was, until very recently, a success story in Africa, achieving high and sustained growth and impressive poverty reduction. However, Ghana is now facing major challenges in diversifying its economy, sustaining growth, and making it more inclusive. Most of the new jobs that have been created in the past decade have been in low-earning, low-productivity trade services. Macroeconomic instability, limited diversification and growing inequities in Ghana’s labor markets make it harder for the economy to create more jobs, and particularly, better jobs. Employment needs to expand in both urban areas, which will continue to grow rapidly, and rural areas, where poverty is still concentrated. The current fiscal and economic crisis is heightening the need for urgent reforms but limiting the room for maneuver and increasing pressure for a careful prioritization of policy actions. Going forward, Ghana will need to consider an integrated jobs strategy that addresses barriers to the business climate, deficiencies in skills, lack of competitiveness of job-creating sectors, problems with labor mobility, and the need for comprehensive labor market regulation. Ghana needs to diversify its economy through gains in productivity in sectors like agribusiness, transport, construction, energy, and information and communications technology (ICT) services. Productivity needs to be increased also in agriculture, in order to increase the earnings potential for the many poor who still work there. In particular, Ghana’s youth and women need help in connecting to these jobs, through relevant skills development and services that target gaps in information about job opportunities. Even with significant effort, most of Ghana’s population will continue to work in jobs characterized by low and fluctuating earnings for the foreseeable future, however, and they will need social safety nets that help them manage vulnerability to income shortfalls. More productive and inclusive jobs will help Ghana move to a second phase of structural transformation and develop into a modern middle-income economy.

Job dynamics in Albania : a note profiling Albania's labor market

This note provides a brief, updated analysis of jobs dynamics in Albania, providing insights into where constraints to improving jobs outcomes remain and opportunities for addressing such challenges. Results-based policy making requires timely information to identify problems, design potential solutions, and evaluate policy initiatives. Using the most recent data available on Albanian labor markets from the perspectives of labor demand (firms) and labor supply (individuals), this note provides some key insights into the current situation and important dynamics over time and across firms and workers with different characteristics. The note is complemented by two other reports that look at (i) skills development challenges from the demand (employer) side, and (ii) the role and effectiveness of the National Employment Service (NES) in reducing unemployment. This note and the aforementioned reports will serve as inputs to a jobs framework and action plan for the Republic of Albania. This note is divided into three additional sections. Following the introduction, the second section provides a profile of labor demand in Albania, looking primarily at job creation and job productivity. The third section presents a profile of labor supply, specifically who is working, what types of jobs they are employed in, and who is not working. The final section concludes with an overall brief summary of the analysis and questions to further guide the development of a jobs action plan.

A checklist to avoid pilot failures: lessons from a set of women’s economic empowerment initiatives

Pilot programmes have gained significance in donor-supported development interventions because of the growing emphasis on measuring impact. The Results-based initiatives (RBI) were conceived as pioneering pilots expected to acquire rigorous evidence on effective interventions to foster women’s economic empowerment. However, they fell short of providing clear or generalizable conclusions on women’s economic empowerment due to design and implementation problems. The RBI nevertheless offer important lessons on common traps in pilot design and implementation. This article synthesises 10 lessons from the RBI as a checklist to avoid pilot failure, intended for practitioners in any area of development.