PROTOCOL: Interventions to increase youth employment: An evidence and gap map

Abstract The research question guiding the production of the youth employment evidence and gap map (EGM) is 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 of is 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 evidence gap map is also a primary input into the implementation of Mastercard Foundation's strategy titled “Africa Works: Mastercard Foundation Strategy 2018–2030”, which points out sharing of evidence‐based knowledge and innovation with stakeholders as a key strategy to be used (Mastercard Foundation). The time frame for the development of the youth EGM will run from the last quarter of 2019 to December 2020. The five secondary objectives are: (i) To construct a framework for the classification of youth employment effectiveness studies. The objective will be achieved through the development of an intervention and outcome framework using an engaged consultative process involving the review team, Mastercard Foundation and other stakeholders. (ii) To identify available evidence, and clusters of evidence, including its quality rating. This will involve activities such as identification of studies using a standardised study search strategy, screening and coding of studies in EPPI Reviewer 4, which is a web‐based software program for production of reviews. (iii) To create a map of youth employment effectiveness studies equipped with an appealing user‐friendly web‐based search content visualisation using interactive mapping software. To achieve this object, data coded in EPPI Reviewer 4 will be exported to another software (EPPI mapper) which is designed for generating EGMs. (iv) To produce a narrative report of the youth employment EGM. This will be achieved through analysis of data in EPPI Reviewer 4 and report writing. To disseminate the EGM to users to increase awareness to support evidence‐informed decision‐making across countries. We will achieve this objective by organising dissemination workshops, participating in conferences and hosting the evidence and gap on our websites.