Taqeem: Evaluating Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship Initiatives for Impact

The Middle East Youth Initiative recently announced Taqeem, an initiative to promote impact evaluation of youth programs, in partnership with Silatech and the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut.

Taqeem will play a critical role in evaluating what works and what doesn’t in youth employment and entrepreneurship programs. As we embark on the design and implementation of impact evaluations, we are pleased to welcome Raj Desai to our team. Raj is nonresident senior fellow at the Wolfensohn Center at Brookings and associate professor of international development at Georgetown University. Raj’s work with MEYI will draw from his randomized evaluation of the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in India.

To build on Taqeem, MEYI is also pursuing new policy research in the areas of social entrepreneurship and social innovation. We are delighted to have Ehaab Abdou, co-founder of the Egyptian youth-led NGO Nahdet El Mahrousa and Ashoka fellow, join MEYI as an advisor. Ehaab will focus on social entrepreneurship in the Middle East and will work with grass roots organizations, policy makers, and investors to harness the potential of social enterprises in the region. Finally, Dale Murphy joins us as a senior research fellow at the Dubai School of Government focusing on entrepreneurship in the Middle East. Dale will work with MEYI to study the policy environment surrounding enterprise development in the Middle East.

Photo source: Alireiza Teimoury / August 2008. Original URL.