Youth Livelihood Developmental Index (YLDI): Measuring Youth Assets and Competencies

For my first blog, I thought I would review several tools that I have been involved with the Egypt Country Office in measuring outcomes for their youth livelihoods projects, and has been used in Yemen, as well as in the Africa and Asia regions.

The YLDI is a set of three tools: 1) the Developmental Assets Profile referred to as the DAP, 2) the Livelihoods Competencies Profile referred to as the LCP , and 3) the Tangible Assets Profile referred to as the TAP. Each of these tools is a standardized index to measure the level of assets, competencies and resources that youth have at a given point in time.

The DAP was developed by the Search Institute and contains 58 questions that can be completed either by the youth themselves or in groups. The scores are totaled and the levels of the 40 developmental assets are categorized as low, fair, good, or excellent. Profiled results portray the type and degree of developmental assets among the youth. The DAP produces quantitative scores for two domains (External and Internal Assets) and on eight asset categories (Support, Empowerment, Boundaries & Expectations, Constructive Use of Time, Commitment to Learning, Positive Values, Social Competencies, and Positive Identity) as well as four Context Area domains (Personal, Family, School, Community, Social).

The LCP was developed by Global Youth Livelihoods and contains 69 questions that can be completed individually by the youth or in a group. The LCP is designed to measure a youth’s self-assessment of the level to which s/he possess one or more of 17 basic competencies needed to generate or maintain an income and livelihood. These competencies are grouped into four domains: Human Capital, Social Capital, Financial Capital, and Physical Capital. The scores are totaled and the levels the youth possess of the four types of capital are categorized as low, fair, good, or excellent. Profiled results portray the type and degree of livelihood competencies among the youth.

The TAP, again developed by Global Youth Livelihoods, contains 32 questions that can be completed individually by the youth or in a group. The TAP is designed to measure a youth’s self-assessment of the level to which s/he possess or has access to 8 tangible assets that can generate or maintain an income and livelihood. The 8 tangible assets are grouped into two domains: Financial Capital and Physical Capital.

The YLDI is accompanied by a database template that allows for easy data entry and some basic data analysis and reports.

Due to the total number of questions for all three tools they are administered at separate times. These three tools that comprise the YLDI can be used for three general objectives:

• To assess the status (prevalence) of developmental and livelihood assets of youth in a given area to assist with new program/project design;
• To evaluate a program or project via a baseline and end-line survey to measure developmental asset and livelihood competency outcomes and or results;
• To establish youth profiles based on various characteristics so as to better tailor program/project activities and interventions.

To date, the YLDI has been used in Upper Egypt for a project evaluation (with Mona Moneer) and in Yemen (with Lucienne Mass) for a general assessment to develop youth livelihood programming.

I have attached the English versions of the DAP, LCP and TAP (in the Documents list to the right). HOWEVER, please do not translate or use because they are copyrighted materials. If you would like to use them in a project contact either me or Sita Conklin (MEE Livelihoods Advisor).

If you have a livelihoods project or are considering a livelihoods component in a future project, and are interested in learning more about the results of the use of the YLDI in Upper Egypt or Yemen, feel free to contact me.

In my next post I will discuss how to reconstruct a baseline for a training program at the end of a project!