Abstract
USAID/Armenia funded the four-year Entrepreneurship and Civic Activism for Young People program, which was launched in April 2011 by Junior Achievement of Armenia (JAA). The project combines a longer-standing effort to improve youth education in economics with the added goals of increasing entrepreneurship and community-based civic activities that address community needs by equipping Armenian youth with the skills and knowledge necessary to compete and succeed in tomorrow's world. JAA operates a number of related programs to educate students on international business practices, ethics, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues. The performance evaluation focused on the following questions: (1) are the project goals ambitious enough, yet attainable and supported by context analysis (including alignment with the country's economic, civic, education and youth development policies and strategies); (2) is the current project design based on sound development hypotheses leading to the achievement of sustainable results; (3) has the replication of the past project been a justified approach for the implementation of the current project; (4) how efficient is the project in achieving its goals (e.g. how are resources/inputs such as funds, expertise, time, etc. converted to produce outputs) [and] what is the balance of administrative vs. program costs; and (5) how broad are the scopes and the ideas of the projects implemented by the students? This evaluation contains performance analyses of each of the five key questions derived using evidence compiled through document reviews, semi structured interviews with stakeholders, focus groups, and observation of JAA-supported activities, taking into account the hypotheses derived from the statement of work (SOW) and evaluations of comparable programs in other countries. (Excerpt, modified)