This study benchmarked the impact of a youth employment education intervention to cash transfers in the Rwandan context.
It found that both programs increased productive hours, assets, savings, and subjective well-being. Only youth training improved business knowledge, and only cash transfers improved consumption, income, and wealth. When the programs were compared directly at an equivalent cost per beneficiary ($332), “cash proves superior across a number of economic outcomes, while training outperforms cash only in the production of business knowledge”. The study found little evidence that combining cash with training improved cost-effectiveness, compared to delivering cash on its own.