Household Enterprises in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States : Results from a Qualitative Toolkit Piloted in Liberia

Many policy makers across Sub-Saharan Africa, including in fragile and conflict-affectedsituations (FCS), consider youth employment a central policy issue. As the recent World Development Report (WDR) on jobs has highlighted, jobs are a key driver of development(World Bank 2012). Jobs matter for living standards, productivity, as well as social cohesion. Particularly in FCS, jobs mean more than earnings; feelings of exclusion stem from a lack ofreliable, quality employment, not simply income (Rebosio and Romanova 2013). Volume 1 of this paper presents results from the application of a novel qualitative toolkit in Liberia, with the objective to improve the knowledge of the constraints to entry and productivity among nonagricultural household enterprises. It outlines lessons learned from the application of this research and makes policy-relevant findings on how to improve productivity in the sector in Liberia. In addition, the report contains methodological lessons that can inform the application of the toolkit in other contexts. Volume 2 of this paper presents a global review of the literature on household enterprises in FCS and the detailed methodology and tools for the research