Employees of a business that participated in the National Business Plan Competition (Nigeria) /  Credit: YouWiN and the Federal Ministry of Finance, Nigeria.

One promising approach to improving earnings and job performance has been the integration of soft skills programming—assessment and capacity-building of psychological and interpersonal skills, attitudes, and behaviors. However, key gaps remain in understanding which soft skills matter for whom, how best to implement soft skills programs effectively and at scale, and the causal mechanisms through which these skills affect economic outcomes. With new research funding, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)’s Jobs and Opportunity Initiative (JOI) seek to improve evidence at the intersections of soft skills, effective workforce development and entrepreneurship policies, and economic outcomes in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

The new effort to generate evidence builds on existing initiatives at the two organizations. Soft skills training to boost business profits and sales has been recognized as one of IPA’s Best Bets or emerging opportunities for impact at scale, and we have been working with implementers and researchers to understand how best to implement these programs effectively and at scale. IPA’s work on this topic includes studies funded through our 2019 Path to Scale award for high-potential innovations in SME development, which include the effectiveness of digital soft skills training in Mexico and Guatemala, long-term effects of personal initiative training in Togo, and the impact of online entrepreneurial mindset training for youth in Ecuador. IPA’s work also includes joint work with the World Bank’s Gender Innovation lab on the Effective Socio-emotional Skills to Gain Economic Empowerment (ESTEEM) framework, which aims to clarify which socio-emotional (SES) skills drive economic empowerment for different groups, and shares information on the theory of change, free SES measurement tools, and research projects on SES skills and women’s economic activity.

Through a three-year collaboration, IPA and J-PAL will run consecutive competitive Requests for Proposals (RFP) in 2025 and 2026 that aim to support a portfolio of rigorous evaluation studies. IPA and J-PAL will develop a shared research agenda, encourage best practices for a common framework for measuring soft skills and outcomes, and support the collection of implementer-friendly evidence. J-PAL’s JOI will run the next RFP in early 2025; eligible researchers are encouraged to check the JOI website. IPA will run one open competitive RFP in the fall of 2025 and will also identify, develop, and fund a curated portfolio of research studies. This portfolio will be developed in collaboration with our network of implementers and researchers, focusing on high-impact opportunities in the field. If you're an implementer/ researcher working in this space, we encourage you to fill out this Google form and stay tuned for more details on how to get involved.