Yes Youth Can! Impact Evaluation Final Report (2014)

Yes Youth Can! (YYC) is a 3-year, $55m program funded by USAID to promote youth empowerment in Kenya. The goal of YYC is to address the underlying social, economic, and political factors that drive youth marginalization in Kenya.

YYC’s approach is to work with young people in communities to organize themselves into groups called “bunges.” These bunges are formed for a variety of purposes according to the activities that the youths themselves wish to pursue, ranging from income-generating activities to community service and arts.
Once established, bunges can solicit funding from YYC to pursue their activities. YYC also provides training and sensitization activities to bunge members that cover topics such as leadership, entrepreneurship, and life skills. In addition, YYC includes the creation of a county and national bunge structure, along with a youth-oriented think tank to engage in policy-related research. During the course of the project, YYC also worked to involve bunges in national campaigns related to expanding access to national identity cards, and preventing post-election violence following the 2013 presidential elections. The target population of YYC is youths between the ages of 18 and 35, and the program was implemented in a range of areas in Kenya that were identified as being at particularly high risk for post-election violence.

METHODOLOGY
There are three components to the methodology. The first of these is a rigorous impact evaluation, which seeks to measure the causal impact of YYC on outcomes for the beneficiaries. The impact evaluation compares outcomes for YYC participants to outcomes for a comparison group of non-beneficiaries intended to represent the counterfactual- i.e. what would have happened to the YYC participants in the absence of the program. The impact evaluation uses the statistical techniques of panel data modeling in conjunction with propensity score matching to obtain rigorous quantitative estimates of impact. 

The evaluation also includes a quantitative analysis of the impact of bunge characteristics.

Finally, the impact evaluation includes an extensive qualitative analysis . This analysis uses data from 48 Focus Groups Discussions (FGDs) and 98 In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) with YYC participants and a range of other stakeholders including implementers, other members of YYC communities, members of civil
society, etc. 

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