Transforming Rwanda's Workforce: A Skills-Led Approach for Jobs and Growth

From Market Stalls to Media House: Rwanda's Journey to Job Creation

A sunny June day in a Kigali market, a young girl named Joy sets out a small basket of oranges along the road. She had left school due to financial hardship, and now her days are a juggling act—helping her mother with chores, walking her younger male siblings to school, and selling whatever produce is in season to help make ends meet. Despite being smart and filled with ambition, she had become one of the 21% of young girls who are not in education, employment or training, confined to low-paying work and earning below the national poverty line.

Given her circumstances, education felt out of reach, but Joy still dreamed of learning skills so she could tell stories behind cameras and design visual content. With no formal training and few opportunities for young women in technical fields, it really was just a dream.

Today, Joy isn’t at the roadside stand. Within six months of completing a digital skills training, she’s started working at a vibrant media house in Kigali and still does—creating content for “Made in Rwanda” campaigns—and earning 9.6% more money as a result.

What changed? The Impact of the Priority Skills for Growth Program

Joy is one of nearly 24,000 youth who benefited from the World Bank’s Rwanda Priority Skills for Growth Program-for-Results (PSG). This initiative shifted Rwanda’s skills development model from a supply-driven approach to a market-driven model. With $270 million financing, the program expanded job-relevant training for out-of-school youth (focusing especially on young females); established private sector partnerships for on-the-job training; strengthened institutional capacity; and provided access to affordable student loans for long-term training to over 29,000 students.

Aligning Training with Market Needs: Bridging the Skills Gap

Before the PSG Program, a majority of Rwanda's youth and graduates struggled with employability, not finding jobs due to the mismatch of qualifications with labor market needs. The Skills Development Fund, introduced under the PSG Program, bridged the skills gap by fostering industry–training collaboration and equipping out-of-school youth with market relevant skills.  

The development of competency-based modular programs with industry participation ensured that training programs were aligned with labor market needs. Faculty members gained hands-on experience through industry attachments, enhancing the relevance of instruction and improving program delivery.

The results were impressive: 80% of the 1,360 beneficiaries interviewed who had participated in the short-term training under the Rapid Response Training window found permanent jobs after completing their training. Overall, more than 80% of the nearly 24,000 individuals who participated in Skills Development Fund programs successfully graduated, with women making up over one-third of graduates.

Employers confirmed the program's effectiveness, with 83% reporting high satisfaction with how the training improved workplace productivity. The PSG also boosted entrepreneurship, with many graduates starting businesses that created additional jobs. These outcomes demonstrated how well-targeted, employer-linked training could transform workforce development across an entire country.

The PSG Program catalyzed the creation and accreditation of 46 new or upgraded TVET and degree programs on the selected economic sectors aligned with market needs (energy, transport and logistics, and agro-processing). Thus, nearly 6,000 new students enrolled in these future-forward fields. With programs co-developed alongside industry partners, students weren’t just learning—they were preparing for real jobs in real industries.

From Gender Gaps to Growing Equality

For girls like Joy, the challenges were even steeper. Technical training was largely male-dominated—men outnumbered women three to one in technical tertiary institutions. But the PSG Program made gender inclusion a cornerstone of its mission, supporting government gender equality policy, which encouraged greater female participation in the training programs.

Gender-based violence (GBV) awareness has become part of the curriculum with updates of institutions’ codes of conduct. Retooling staff implementing the program with gender-responsive training and gender consideration in students’ enrollment paid off. Women made up 47.8% of short-term training graduates. .

In Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs—where women had been chronically underrepresented—female access to student loans for long-term training has increased from 32% to 38%.

Data-Driven Decision Making: Enhancing Skills Development with Real-Time Insights

One reason Rwanda’s reforms worked is because they were backed by data. At the start of the PSG Program, there was no centralized way to understand where graduates went, what employers needed, or how well training worked.

The PSG Program introduced two transformative systems: a Graduate Tracking System and a modernized Labor Market Information System. These tools gave policymakers and educators real-time insights into school outcomes and graduate success, helping align training programs with labor market needs, skills gaps, and emerging opportunities.

Laying the Foundation for the Future

This program is a powerful example of what’s possible when investment aligns with real labor market needs through a results-based financing approach. By linking financing to results and labor market outcomes, Rwanda implemented a major shift towards market driven skills development, a critical driver of economic transformation. The PSG has laid a solid foundation for improved processes and governance of skills development in Rwanda with a key focus on market relevance to improve employability through development of demand driven new/updated curriculum by the private sector/industry and academia; effective and efficient tracking and recovery of student loans; and support to the SDF to directly respond to market labor market segments and diverse groups of youths in Rwanda.

As Rwanda now enters the next phase, with new support from the World Bank through the Priority Skills for Growth and Youth Employment Project, it carries with it a blueprint for success: match training to real-world demand, build systems for inclusion and accountability, and invest in people as the country’s most valuable asset.

This feature comes from Seimane Diouf, Senior Program Assistant at the World Bank, who gratefully acknowledges and thanks the World Bank’s Ruth Karimi Charo (Senior Education Specialist, Program Task Team Leader), and Sergio Venegas Marin (Economist, Program Task Team Member) for their valuable guidance and contribution.