Youth Empowerment through Agriculture - Using Adaptive Learning to Train a Post-Conflict Generation

This post is the first in a series exploring how one organization incorporated feedback loops into their project’s design. Learning Lab will be periodically checking in with The MasterCard Foundation and the National Cooperative Business Association CLUSA International (NCBA CLUSA) in the coming months to monitor their progress and see how they are adapting the project according to feedback they have received.

A Difficult Employment Situation for Uganda's Youth

Major warfare between the Ugandan Army and the Lord’s Resistance Army plagued northern Uganda from 1987 to 2006 and created nearly 2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs). Although most IDPs have returned to their villages in the northern districts of the country, the youth—those between the ages of 18 and 30 who came of age in IDP camps with little education and life skills training—have limited employment opportunities. With the second youngest population in the world, youth employability in Uganda presents a great challenge to both national and international development partners.  

To help address this challenge of youth employability, The MasterCard Foundation and the National Cooperative Business Association CLUSA International (NCBA CLUSA) have created the Youth Empowerment through Agriculture (YETA) initiative, an $11.3 million endeavor that leverages a network of Producer Organizations (POs) and Youth Associations (YAs) as a vehicle to train, mentor, and provide employment opportunities rather than promoting the traditional, individual-owned business model. As part of the NCBA CLUSA Approach, these organizational connections also provide a network of support for the 26,250 at-risk and unemployed/underemployed youth in four districts of northern Uganda: Dokolo, Kiryandongo, Kole, and Masindi. 

Institutionalized Feedback Loops

YETA participants will be trained in five cohorts over the course of the project. Each cohort will receive six months of foundational training in basic literacy, numeracy, life skills, and reproductive health. Then, through existing POs and YAs, participants will receive job-skills training that emphasizes farm and non-farm entrepreneurship as well as rural youth organization, mentor support, and network building, leading to tangible socio-economic benefits. In support of The MasterCard Foundation’s primary goals to maximize effectiveness and learning, YETA will integrate an adaptive learning and evaluation component to the program. This iterative approach will allow the team to modify the program as needed. 

The YETA consortium includes a learning partner organization that specializes in educational data analysis. The learning partner will design a survey to measure training curriculum effectiveness based on the program’s tailored learning objectives. Mixed methods will then be used to collect baseline data on program participants in each cohort, including variables such as gender, age, and involvement in conflict.  

As each cohort completes the six-month training process, YETA program staff members will spend one month collecting data on educational effectiveness indicators by analyzing program attendance and attrition rates, conducting youth focus group interviews, and administering trainer surveys. Another month will be spent analyzing these indicators against cohort characteristic variables. By comparing this new data on educational effectiveness to the baseline data, the learning partner will be able to answer learning objective questions.

For example, a learning objective question would be:

Do YETA participants directly affected by the conflict show differing economic outcomes from those youth who were not directly affected by it?

Based upon the findings, the learning partner will  make recommendations on how to improve the curriculum before the next cohort begins the training process. These recommendations could impact how large-scale youth development efforts are designed in the future. This collect-analyze-adapt process will allow the project to continually learn and improve without being disruptive or too costly.

Budgeting on Success

This adaptive learning approach is not a novel concept for development programs. In fact, it is integral to The MasterCard Foundation’s Youth Livelihoods strategy. The overarching strategy to “test the effectiveness of the proposed strategy” and collaborate “in the execution of the project goals” creates a flexible program that adapts to beneficiary needs; however, this approach requires time and money to implement.

In recognition of the value derived from an adaptive learning approach, the YETA program is investing an additional 10 months (two months after each cohort) to progressively learn from its successes and gaps and adapt to the program’s objectives. This method of using concurrent research to inform an on-going initiative is an innovative solution that The MasterCard Foundation has developed. NCBA CLUSA and The MasterCard Foundation trust that this this approach will benefit the youth of Uganda by leading to new youth unemployment-reduction methods. By discovering ways to differentiate instruction for youth subgroups, some of which have been traumatized by extreme violence, future development interventions could be improved and applied beyond Uganda. 

For a relatively marginal cost, YETA will help pave the way for greater insight into programs aimed at helping the most vulnerable youth and communities devastated by conflict.