Management Response Detail

BEAUTIFUL SERBIA ; ACTIVE LABOR MARKET PROGRAM

Commissioning Unit:	Serbia
Evaluation Plan:	2005-2010
Evaluation Type:	Project
Completion Date:	01/2006
Unit Responsible for providing Management Response:	Serbia
Documents Related to overall Management Response:

1. Recommendation: The two-stage design of the Beautiful Serbia program should be reconsidered. Splitting the program into two independent interventions - a vocational training program and a temporary employment program - could achieve a more transparent structure. The training program should focus on unemployed individuals for whom a lack of specific vocational skills is a major obstacle to find employment. The training program should be carefully monitored to ensure that it places enough emphasis on teaching the right skills. The temporary employment stage in the Beautiful Serbia program seems efficient. An especially attractive feature is that it does not interfere with the labor market as participants receive competitive (rather than subsidized) wages. Nevertheless, when relying on this type of intervention, great care should be taken to avoid possible displacement and revolving door effects Clear admission criteria are necessary to ensure that the program reaches the target group of long-term unemployed and otherwise disadvantaged people When planning the design of a labor market program, it should be carefully considered whether it privileges or excludes certain groups in the population Collecting better information on the unemployed could help better controlling of active labor market policies in general

Management Response: [Added: 2009/10/09]

Poor data provided by the employment agencies complicates the evaluation of the Beautiful Serbia program. It appears that the public database currently includes very little information about the unemployed individuals and even less information about employment outcomes. More detailed data on unemployment and employment histories, participation in labor market measures, and individual factors affecting employability would reduce the costs of evaluation: it allows constructing adequate control groups to benchmark program impacts and reduces the need for collecting surveys in the field. Adequate information is even more important, however, before carrying out the evaluation: it allows better identification of suitable program participants, which may improve program outcomes. In the coming period the CO will organize its work so to enable better data collection and analysis.

Key Actions:

Key Action	Responsible	DueDate	Status	Comments	Documents
Work closely with statistical office, national employment service to improve data availability [Added: 2009/10/09]	Serbia	2009/10	Completed

Management Response: [Added: 2009/10/09]

Key Actions:

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