Akazi Kanoze (AK) Activity was a USAID-funded five-year (2009-2014) project designed to help young Rwandans aged 14-35, who had left school prematurely without a diploma gain the skills and training they need to find or create meaningful employment for sustainable livelihoods. The project which was implemented by the Education Development Centre, served more than 21,000 Rwandan youth across 19 districts, 45 percent of whom were from rural areas.

Through the course of the project implementation, baseline assessment, impact evaluation, and the first tracer study had been conducted to generate evidence that helped guide the program management. The activity plan required for a fourth data point, which is a second tracer study exploring the impacts of the project on employment and income a decade after its implementation.

MERQ is working with Making Cents International under the USAID YouthPower2: Learning and Evaluation (YP2LE) activity to conduct a tracer study of Akazi Kanoze (AK1) Activity in Rwanda. This study aimed at looking at the long-term outcomes (employment status and income) of the intervention, assessing the contribution of health status and circumstances to these outcomes, and exploring the AK interventions that last over time.

In this tracer study, MERQ will follow an experimental study design with a randomly selected control group and treatment group and employ a mixed methods and participatory approach using both quantitative and qualitative tools. MERQ will work with stakeholders to design the study, train and deploy enumerators to collect data from the participants of the tracer study in rural districts of Huye and Nyamasheke in Rwanda.

We at MERQ are firm believers in the great potential of youth in Rwanda and the African continent broadly. Through its engagement in this project, MERQ re-affirms it commitment to enhancing the continent’s population potential through evidence generation and capacity building.