The impact of public investment in graduate training on development outcomes in Ghana

Over the years, successive governments in Ghana have prepared and implemented various development plans, all aimed at providing opportunities for job creation. The recent government’s coordinated programme of economic and social development policies - launched in April 2018 - puts job creation and the promotion of higher incomes at the core of policy objectives. To achieve this goal, the government has rolled out a number of programmes including "The Nation Builders' Corps" (NABCO), which is expected to provide a three-year employment/training programme to young tertiary education graduates. The aim is to offer employable skills to young graduates to promote their transition into permanent jobs.

This study will examine, ex ante, the impact of public investment in a graduate training programme through the NABCO programme on economic growth, employment, and poverty reduction in Ghana. Specifically:

• The impact of public spending on graduate training on labour market outcomes (i.e. employment and factor incomes).
• The impact of public spending on graduate training on sector-specific performances and on overall growth performance.
• The impact of public spending on graduate training on poverty reduction.

To achieve these research goals, an economy wide Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (DCGE) model combined with a micro-simulation module will be built to capture the developmental effects of public investment shocks.

This programme is in line with previous employment-centered projects and programmes such as the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), the Graduate Entrepreneurial & Business Support Scheme (GEBSS) and the Young Entrepreneurs Programme (YEP). Given the substantial resource needs of this intervention, an ex ante analysis of its potential developmental outcomes (in terms of reductions in unemployment and poverty and the promotion of economic expansion) is important in order to provide a guideline to the implementation strategy of the programme and to inform the design of similar programmes in the future.