World Bank's Umbrella Trust Fund on Jobs, phase 2 (2020-2024)

The World Bank is one of the leading global actors in the area of employment. The Jobs Group's work contribute to both normative global knowledge production as well as strenghtening the institutional capacity at country level to develop and implement strategies, policies and programmes for more and better jobs for people living in poverty. The second phase of the MDTF Jobs is coming to an end. During this phase the Fund has on an overall level contributed to the change that is now taking place with the World Bank Groups Evolution Roadmap. The Jobs Agenda, supported by the MDTF Jobs, remains at the core of the WBGs strategic priorities and has been strenghtened further by a new corporate scorecard indicator to measure results on jobs, building on the Funds investments in jobs estimation. Also, one of the Bank's key documents at country level, the Country Economic Memorandum's, will be replaced with a Growth and Jobs Country Report going forward, placing job rich growth at the heart of the Bank's analytical work and guiding documents for priorities at country level. The Fund has contributed to the development of the analytical framework and databases for these reports as part of their work with the Jobs Flagship Report. While these are internal developments in the Bank, they have potential to impact the work done in relation to jobs at both global and country level for the World Bank and others. Examples of global knowledge production The Jobs Flagship Report is an extensive piece of work that has re-evaluated the Jobs Agenda post-COVID and proposes policy, regulatory, and investment priorities for different levels of development or challenges. As part of this work a country growth episodes database, as well as a global macroeconomic database standardizing data from 1991 to 2019 across sources from for example ILO, Penn World Tables, and the UNU WIDER/GCGD Economic Transformation Database, was developed. The Jobs Flagship Report and its findings and lessons is laying the foundation to a position paper on Growth and Jobs which in turn is influencing the work mentioned above with developing Growth and Jobs Country Reports. [GLOB/NORM] [M1] Source: Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund Annual Report 2023, p. 18 Knowledge Program for Jobs: From Jobs Analytics to Support for Jobs Operations. This initiative identified solutions and produced global goods from recently completed analytical work, applied research, and diagnostics to build capacity for jobs-oriented operations by the WBG and other development actors. The team developed and published the following policy notes in 2023: (i) Adapting Skills Training to Address Constraints to Womens Participation (ii) Adapting Jobs Policies and Programs in the Face of Accelerated Technological Change (iii) Agriculture, Jobs, and Value Chains in Africa (iv) Supporting Jobs in Fragility, Conflict, and Violence Situations (v) Addressing Employment Obstacles for Young Syrian Refugee Women (vi) Jobs Interventions for Refugees and Internally Displaced Person (vii) Jobs Interventions for Young Women in Digital Economy [GLOB/NORM] [M1] [M2] Source: Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund Annual Report 2023, p. 18 Measuring indirect jobs impacts. This initiative focused on refining the method for estimating indirect jobs impacts. The grant produced 21 pilot exercises of indirect job estimation under the JET IDA19. The pilots allowed to test a range of different methods to measure indirect jobs effects and map the most appropriate measurement texhnique to different project types. These pilots have informed a review paper split into two sections - one which focused on summarizing the exercise and lessons learned and one that provided more details regarding the methodologies - providing guidance on the cost, credibility, reliability, and relative value of various types of estimations for different sector and country contexts. The paper also clarifies why this work is cruicial, stating that: often, the more sizeable jobs impacts are those that are indirect rather than those occurring within the entities implementing or directly benefitting from an intervention. Employment impacts of economic reforms, investments in infrastructure, financial systems, the environment, governance and regulatory systems, and other public goods are almost by definition indirect. Yet these economic benefits, so core to development and poverty reduction, are typically neither factored into decisions on prioritization across a portfolio of potential interventions nor in their design. This is in part because of measurement difficulties. With more experience, guidance, and accumulating evidence on all significant jobs impacts, policymakers can make better informed decisions. The social value of jobs improved could be included in economic analyses of interventions and increase the accuracy of distributional analysis. It could also inform more comprehensive monitoring and evaluation and, in relevant cases, support dialogue around potential policy reforms. All told, a key step in pursuing more effective jobs policies is to measure these impacts. [GLOB/NORM] [NAT/INST] [MÅL/ACT] [M1] Source: Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund Annual Report 2023, p. 10, 17-18 Source: Shaping Better Jobs Policies Through Measurement: Findings from a Pilot Program to Estimate Indirect Jobs. World Bank Group, 2023, p. 9 Global Online Gig Jobs. This initiatives informs and supports operational teams and policymakers in enabling vulnerable populations to access new forms of web-based digital work opportunities. As part of this initiative a global report on online gig work called Working Without Borders: The Promise and Peril of Online Gig Work was produced. The report was launched at a high-profile World Bank event as well as the Marrakech World Bank Annual Meetings and G20 Roundtable, with audiences that included policymakers, industry, research, and staff from WBG regions. The report has yielded interest from both country teams and other organisations. The initiatives also produced five country-specific assessments to inform operations on digital gig work in partnership with country teams in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kosovo, Malaysia, and Pakistan, which were integrated into the main global report. In addition, the team produces short notes to explore specific topics from the report. In 2023 the following 4 notes were been published: (i) Online Gig Work: A Potential Opportunity to Address Youth Unemployment? (ii) Is Online Gig Work an Opportunity to Increase Female Labor Force Participation? (iii) The Demand for Online Gig Workers, and (iv) Harnessing public-private partnerships to enhance social protection coverage of online gig workers. [GLOB/NORM] [NAT/INST] [MÅL/ACT] [M1] [M2] Source: Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund Annual Report 2023, p. 23-24 Jobs, Labor Mobility and Sustainability Development Program. Better understanding of jobs and labor mobility challenges, including the drivers and impacts of labor mobility, such as climate change, and the obstacles faced by formal and informal businesses, to grow and create more employment is an important focus of this newly established program. The Jobs Group and the Development Data Group and the Jobs Group have improved the data quality underlying client country development policies and WBG operations related to jobs and migration. Both IFAD and FAO have incorporated methodological improvements into their operations. The Labor Mobility Program has contributed to how data is used to design evidence-based policies: The program has improved understanding of migratory flows by providing a more comprehensive picture of household dynamics and their motivations. The program is still working on understanding how migration aspirations are transformed into actual plans, actions, and moves. The labor and migration measurement work done initially in Ghana and Nigeria has informed analysis in other countries, such as Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Malawi, with potential future use in Morocco and Tunisia. National Statistical Offices and Development Partners can use the projects tools to improve and increase the availability of data on labor mobility and migration and inform long-term labor mobility policies for more and better job creation in the context of the economic and green transformation. It can also be shared with policymakers and investment projects. [GLOB/NORM] [NAT/INST] [M1] Source: Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund Annual Report 2023, p. 20-21 Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE). S4YE has positioned itself as a global curator and convenor of youth employment innovations. In November 2023, S4YE organized a two-day virtual Innovation Exchange and Partner Summit. The Partner Summit brought together over 1,000 S4YE partners from 124 countries. The S4YE team also strengthened its support role to internal WBG teams by working with different Global Practices and the IFC to provide support and technical advice on a wide range of themes such as online gig jobs, jobs for women in unconventional sectors, the water innovation challenge, digital skills, and jobs for youth in the creative sector. [GLOB/NORM] [M1] Source: Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund Annual Report 2023, p. 21-23 Green transition, employment and livelihoods of poor and vulnerable households. This initiative produces policy-relevant evidence on climate changes risks to the poor and vulnerable and how to protect them from welfare losses and benefit from the low-carbon transition. The initiative aims to address the knowledge gap on the impacts of the green transition through innovations in both data and methodologies. During 2023, a review on green skills was completed, covering the definition of green jobs, methods to measure green jobs and general green job trends. This review will serve as a key resource to inform WBG Country Climate and Development Reports, Poverty Assessments, and operations supporting the green transition. [GLOB/NORM] [M1] Source: Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund Annual Report 2023, p. 29-30 Examples of strenghtening institutional capacity at country level As mentioned above, the goal for the second phase was to ramp up the emphasis on country level operationalisation, as well as the measurement of outcomes, and the work with governments, private sector actors and development partners to reinforce the agenda of private sector-led jobs growth. The last grants supporting effective jobs lending at scale at country level (SEJLS) closed in 2023 as the second phase is coming to an end. These grants has supported activities to improve the technical quality of operations in low-income and fragile settings in several sectors to enhance job targeting and job outcomes. Overall, the SEJLS grants supported standardization of operational approaches to jobs challenges in client countries, the definition and measurement of outcomes of jobs policies and programs, improvements in M&E systems in projects to track jobs-relevant outcomes, and the creation of new knowledge on effective jobs-related interventions and measurement. This work is crucial, as the Bank has a widespread outreach - over the last five years more than 77 million beneficiaries have been reaved in World Bank jobs-focused interventions. As of 2023, the grants has provided guidance, data and country level analysis for 15 lending operations in developing countries. This work has had an effect on the operations supported directly (see examples below), and will continue to affect future operations in similar sectors and contexts. A report has been published with best practices for jobs lending operations design based on the experiences from the SEJLS grants. Source: Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund Annual Report 2023, p. 2 Source: Results Brief, Climbing the Jobs Summit: Scaling Up for Economicc Empowerment, April 4, 2024 In South Sudan the Fund supported the South Sudan Resilient Agricultural Livelihoods Project on upstream and downstream job creation for primary production in food sector value chains. Despite security challenges and capacity constraints, the team completed qualitative and quantitative data collection in four markets during 2023. The data allowed for a detailed analysis of market revival and jobs in food-sector activities outside of primary production, and results indicators to measure farming practices and farming outputs, activity of cooperatives, activity in input markets, and a direct measure of jobs was created with the support of the Fund. The Fund also contributed to outline the specific challenges faced by women in the agricultural sector to inform the ongoing project support. The project is now carefully balancing a shift from third-party to national implementation, as well as re-balancing from humanitarian to development support. [NAT/INST] [MÅL/ACT] [M1] [M2] Source: Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund Annual Report 2023 p. 17 and Presentation at Donor Council Berlin 4-5 december 2023 s. 21-22 (DOX 20/001323-81I) In Cote d'Ivoire (CIV) the Fund supported the Economic Inclusion into Value Chains pilot which explored ways to increase the earnings of the poorest smallholder rice farmers by connecting them to the value chain. The Fund specifically supported the project with evaluating the pilot from a jobs perspective generating insights on intensive value chain development relevant for the target group. These insights were fed into the design on a full IFC-financed intervention to support smallholder rice contract farming arrangements with larger rice millers. Moving forward, these insights are also a critical input into the high-level policy dialogue with the Government of CIV regarding the development of the rice sector to reduce rice import dependence, which has recently been initiated. The Fund will continue to engage with the CMU (Country Management Unit) in CIV, the West Africa regional partners, and IFC (International Finance Corporation) and AGF GP (Global Practices) colleagues to build these insights into better rice support and broader intensive value chain development design. The project also strengthened local capacity in inclusive value chain development, intensive value chain development analysis, and data collection. It provided extension services to 1000 farmers and technical assistance to five mills. In addition, regional and national workshops at the end of each agricultural campaign informed broader regional and national policy dialogues on sustainable smallholder rice production. [NAT/INST] [MÅL/ACT] [M1] Source: Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund Annual Report 2023, p. 15-16 The Fund has during the second phase also worked with a specific grant focused on Jobs After Covid (JAC). It was done through a call for proposals aimed to identify and accelerate pioneering diagnosis of and solutions to jobs challenges in a post pandemic context: In Liberia, the Fund's JAC-grant supported the Recovery of Economic Activity for Liberian Informal Sector Employment (REALISE) project with a focus on increasing access to income-earning opportunities for the vulnerable in the informal sector in response to the COVID-19 crisis in Liberia. The Fund specifically contributed to support the small businesses component giving grant support to vulnerable households to revive or start small businesses that would likely have survived without COVID-19 and that can continue to provide post-pandemic livelihoods. This component was implemented in fifteen communities within the Greater Monrovia area of Liberias capital. [NAT/INST] [MÅL/ACT] [M1] Source: Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund Annual Report 2023, p. 25 In Indonesia, the Fund's JAC-grant financed the initiative building back better by way of green jobs and investing in green skills, a grant for developing a methodology for developing countries to identify skills for green jobs. The first step was reviewing existing definitions and methods to identify green jobs and skills. This analysis led to a new methodology suitable for the specific question on skill needs relevant to Indonesia. The toolkit includes a dictionary of green terms to identify green tasks within job descriptions and a detailed step-by-step guide to replicate the methodology. It is publicly available and can be adjusted for different data sources. The applications of this new approach are far-reaching. It has informed the definition of green jobs that the Ministry of National Development Planning of Indonesia will use in their regulations and the Roadmap for Green Jobs, launched in November 2023. It is also expected to be utilized by the National Bureau of Statistics to monitor green job targets in the National Medium Term Development Plan for 2025-2029. The Skills for Energy Transition Survey, a pilot instrument in Indonesia designed with JAC's support, is set to capture the current and future state of occupations in the energy sector. This survey will provide valuable data to guide upskilling and reskilling initiatives, ensuring the workforce is prepared for the green transition. Moreover, World Bank teams in other countries and international organizations such as the ILO and GIZ have adopted the methodology. [NAT/INST] [M1] Source: Jobs Umbrella Multidonor Trust Fund Annual Report 2023, p. 30

The World Bank Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) for Jobs was established in 2014 as one of the first Umbrella Trust Funds within the World Bank Group, and the second phase runs from 2020-2024. The second phase of the MDFT Jobs maintains the original objectives of the Fund: a) To support the design and implementation of comprehensive, integrated and high-impact jobs strategies for WBG client countries b) To advance global knowledge on the most effective policies and activities for sustainable jobs, especially for the most vulnerable groups This is achieved through the following 3 windows: Window 1 - Supporting Jobs Lending at Scale: This window provides technical expertise resources to task teams in other GPs and IFC to help scale up the WBGs jobs lending portfolio across sectors and regions, in order to improve technical quality of operations for improved targeting jobs outcomes and scale up operational approaches especially in low-income and fragile settings. Window 2 - Measurement Agenda: This window advances the technical capacity for measurement of jobs outcome, and upgrades country level data and diagnostics on jobs outcomes, to enable evidence-based jobs initiativs and provide policymakers with improved information on expected impact of interventions. Window 3 - Influence through External Partnerships and Innovation: Under this window, the Jobs Group support a strong engagement and dissemination and outreach between the World Bank Jobs Group and other key stakeholders, to identify and accelerate cutting edge solutions to emerging jobs challenges. The goal for the second phase is to ramp up the emphasis specifically on country level operationalization, as well as the measurement of outcomes, and the work with governments, private sector actors and development partners to reinforce the agenda of private sector-led jobs growth. The overall theory of change is that the MDTF provides direct technical support to country level operations with job-centric designs to enhance jobs outcomes in programmes, provide measurement methodologies, and engage with private and public partners for effective solutions, to increase capacity for implementation of effective programmes and policies in countries and across sectors supported by evidence and data, to ultimately contribute to the accelerated creation of better jobs through scaled up public sector reforms and private sector investments. In relation to the theory of change for the Strategy for Sweden's global development cooperation in sustainable economic development 2022-2026, this contribution mainly delivers on strategy objective 1 (improved conditions for productive and employment and decent work) and to some degree to strategy objective 2 (strengthening of women's economic empowerment). The contribution is contributing to the following changes under the respective strategy objective: 1. Improved conditions for productive and employment and decent work (85 %) - more and better jobs available for the target group - increased employability and strengthened conditions for the target group to access decent and productive jobs in a changing world of work - more functional labour markets where supply and demand meet in an efficient way 2. Strengthening of womens economic empowerment (15 %) - women have access to productive employment and decent work