Earlier work on this topic includes the USAID State of the Field Report: Examining the Evidence in Youth WorkforceDevelopment which found that one of the biggestconstraints to evaluating the efficacy of workforce development (WFD) programs worldwide is that outcomes are measured differently across projects, and therefore it is difficult to compare results, understand outcomes, and identify best practices.

This paper builds on that work, drawing from a review of over 100 existing measurement-related resources, 43 of which are analyzed in detail in a separate literature
review. From this process, we have been able to identify and confirm trends in measuring employment outcomes; most notably that there is no global agreement or widely accepted best practice governing the use of indicators to measure outcomes in international workforce development programming