Announcing collaboration to launch the Employment Lab in Morocco

NEWS |

Announcing collaboration to launch the Employment Lab in Morocco

 

Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) at the Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University intends to enter into a subagreement with J-PAL, a center at MIT, sponsored by a cooperation agreement from the Millennium Challenge Account - Morocco Agency (MCA-Morocco), to launch the Morocco Employment Lab. 

Image of factory by Eduardo Lopez | Shutterstock.com

Photo by Eduardo Lopez

Hosted at the  Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan Think Tank, the Employment Lab will seek to create a culture of evidence-based policymaking through rigorous impact evaluations and capacity building. This research and training work will strengthen Morocco’s existing labor market programs and improve the effectiveness of future programs and policies—particularly important to support recovery from the economic downturn spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, the Employment Lab will further the mission of the "Education and Training for Employability" project under the 2017-2022 MCA-Morocco Compact II, funded by Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), an independent United States foreign assistance agency. MCA-Morocco is a public institution responsible for implementing the program Compact II, signed between the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco and the Government of the United States of America.

 

Despite robust economic growth, unemployment rates in Morocco remained high before the COVID-19 pandemic, estimated at 9.2 percent in 2019.  Unemployment rates are particularly high among youth at twice the rate of total population and among those holding tertiary degrees of which three quarters are unemployed. Female labor force participation is set at 23.6 percent in 2016; it is among the lowest in the world and has been decreasing over the past years.

 

Under the academic leadership of Harvard Kennedy School Professor Rema Hanna, and Professor Bruno Crépon - Scientific Director of J-PAL Middle East and North Africa and Professor at ENSAE and École Polytechnique - the Employment Lab will work across four complementary components that contribute to building a culture of evidence-based policy and ensuring that labor market programs are informed by evidence:

 

1. Identify Policy Priorities:  The Employment Lab will work with policymakers to diagnose key policy challenges, especially those compounded by COVID-19, identify data, highlight and prioritize knowledge gaps.

2. Capacity Building on Evidence Use:The Employment Lab will host training workshops and events on how to generate and use evidence in policy making. Tailored trainings will be delivered to researchers, civil service trainees, NGOs and government officials at different levels to create a broad understanding of how evidence can be used in policy and program design.

3. Impact EvaluationsTogether with its policy collaborators, the Employment Lab will co-design and implement a portfolio of impact evaluations that address the identified policy priority issues.

4. Sharing Evidence to Inform Policy:  The Employment Lab will disseminate research results to a wide range of stakeholders through a large-scale policy symposium, policy briefs, and online communication channels.

 

The Employment Lab theory of change:

 

Employment Lab Theory of Change

 

 In collaboration with a wide range of public and non-governmental organizations, the Employment Lab aims to help tackle critical labor market challenges in Morocco. Rigorous research will inform evidence-based policy solutions—especially pressing today as unemployment rates soar due to COVID-19. By engaging Moroccan researchers and in collaboration with Moroccan academic institutions such as the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de l’Administration, the Employment Lab will seek to create broad-based local capacity for evidence-based policy making.