This background paper prepared for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2012 provides an analysis of the provision, governance and financing of policies, strategies and programmes to promote the employability and skills development of youths in 46 low-income countries.

This report examines what type of policies and programmes are advocated in key strategy documents for forty-six developing countries in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, and will survey the scope of skills training provision. 

Four countries – Bangladesh, Jordan, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia – have been selected for an in-depth assessment of their plans. Training systems in these countries are undergoing extensive reforms – both in terms of policies related to youth skills development, as well as relevant programmes – and governments, donors and civil society organisations appear to be placing an increased focus on addressing the skills labour market mismatch for disadvantaged young people. They are also providing a greater emphasis on

skills training in rural areas. Central to these case studies  is an examination of  the  provision  of skills training (including how learning is certified), the financing of skills development programmes, and the governance of these programmes.