Skill Impact Bond is conducted on an outcome-based blended finance model with the National Skill Development Corporation and Michael and Susan Dell Foundation as the risk investors and Children’s Investment Fund, HSBC, Dubai Cares and JSW as the outcome investors. This high-impact project has Dalberg associates as our project management unit and British Asian Trust as the transaction manager.
Enhance Livelihood Programme processes, covering the lifecycle of youth.
Change the impact success metrics from job placement to job retention.
Use data-driven models to enhance the programme efficacy.
Create success modules to infuse innovation in programming on an ongoing basis.
Build a module for activity-based costing.
Skill Impact Bond is a four-year project limited to skill development within the
boundaries of India. It focused on developing employability skills (hard skills
& soft skills) in youth from marginalised and underserved communities, connecting them
with sustainable employment, and helping them stay in employment for a minimum of three months.
The Skill Impact Bond is an initiative of the British Asian Trust in collaboration with a coalition
of partners comprising the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and Michael & Susan Dell
Foundation (MSDF) as risk investors, The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), JSW Foundation,
HSBC India, and Dubai Cares as outcome funders, the British Asian Trust as the transaction manager,
USAID and FCDO (UK Government) as technical partners, Oxford Policy Manager as the independent evaluator,
and NSDC and Dalberg Advisors as performance managers.
Skill Impact Bond (SIB), a first in India in the skilling space, is a programme model which will drive
innovations in programme interventions, performance management systems, identification of capable models
in solving the challenges in the skilling ecosystem, and drive programme quality by bringing a focus on
outcomes and aligning financial outcomes. This project is for four years with eight cohorts. Magic Bus is
currently successfully running the 5th cohort from December 2023.
This is a female-centric project, with each cohort having at least 75% of young women participating and being
retained in meaningful jobs. The youth in each cohort are enrolled to be trained in 21st century life and employability
skills with a key focus on sectoral training for the job roles that they aspire to pursue. This is a job retention-based
outcome model where emphasis is placed on youth sustaining their jobs for 3 months. During this period, their respective
trainers closely monitor and mentor them.
The rigorous programme outcomes and timelines are successfully achieved because
Magic Bus:
Through the Skill Impact Bond, the focus of skilling has shifted from being ‘Job Retention’ driven, instead of ‘placement’ driven, while keeping young women’s participation as the focus.
This shift in mindset ensures that the weightage of retention of young people in jobs is critical and is the focus point of the entire skilling and placement journey.
Magic Bus has been a top performer in Skill Impact Bond
We have consistently improved our youth enrolment, placement, and retention numbers with each new cohort.
This is a female-centric project with an enrolment target of 75% young women.
Programmatic innovations include all-virtual batches, tech-supported self-learning modules, demand-driven batches, referral mapping support and more.
A demand-driven programme that is relevant to the industry youths are placed in - as opposed to a supply-driven programme.
This project has a deliberate focus on young women, with an aim to mainstream successful models within the livelihood ecosystem.
The youth in our programme are empowered to become change agents for sustainable community development. We harness their creativity and energy to drive positive social impact through meaningful engagement and collaboration.
We continually innovate and experiment with working models to ensure young people derive maximum learnings to achieve retention in aspiring and meaningful jobs.
Our emphasis is on outcome accountability. This drives us to focus on efficiency and reflect and act on feedback. We also encourage the sharing of challenges and best practices.
A key objective of this project is to drive quality outcomes that provide trainees with better opportunities and aspirational jobs.
Collaborate with like-minded visionaries to enable the discovery of real costs of innovations that can further be mainstreamed and adopted by the livelihood ecosystem.