Kosovo
Women in Online Work · Kosovo
The pilot that became
The pilot that became
national policy.
In 2015, Kosovo's Ministry of Economic Development asked the World Bank a question: could online work reach the young women its labour market had locked out? Learnio was brought in to answer it. Two phases, five municipalities and 150+ women later, the answer was clear enough that the government took the model national.
Trained
150+ women
Earners
78 graduates
In partnership with
Funded by the Korea Green Growth Trust Fund
Funded by the Korea Green Growth Trust Fund
1,100+
Applications to Phase I alone, against 100 training places
150+
Young women trained across two phases and five municipalities
2×
The hourly rate WoW graduates earned, against Kosovo's average wage
78
Graduates earning real income from online contracts
In Kosovo, only one woman in eight was formally employed. For men, the figure was two in five. In rural municipalities the gap widened further: thin infrastructure, almost no childcare or eldercare, and a culture that quietly discouraged women from working at all. A university degree changed remarkably little.
The World Bank's own 2012 gender diagnostic had named the problem. What it hadn't found was a mechanism. Background research narrowed the obstacles to three: women didn't know online work existed, didn't have the technical and soft skills to compete for it, and often couldn't reach the technology in the first place.
But Kosovo also had the ingredients of a test case: a young population with workable English, rising broadband access, functioning online payments, no prohibitive regulation, and a family-centred culture that made flexible, home-based work genuinely attractive. So the Ministry of Economic Development asked the World Bank to build a pilot. The World Bank's ICT and Jobs team designed Women in Online Work (WoW), the Korea Green Growth Trust Fund paid for it, and Learnio, then operating as CodersTrust, was appointed implementing partner to deliver the training.
It began as an experiment. It ended, in the World Bank's own words, having “proved that online work has the potential to offer huge opportunities” for Kosovo. World Bank Group · Kosovo WoW Brief · February 13, 2017
Voices from the cohort
Behind every number,
Behind every number,
a life that changed.
The evaluations counted contracts and earnings. The graduates measured it differently: in the first client, the first invoice, and the moment the work stopped feeling impossible.
Kosovo
“Everyone was surprised to learn this exists.”
A 22-year-old finance-maths student, Erlisa landed a full-time online contract with a US car-brokerage startup, testing proprietary software and handling customer relations. She was soon earning above Kosovo's average wage.
Erlisa Zherka
WoW graduate · Front-end track
“I’ve learned from every contract I gained, from every client.”
A psychology graduate, Dafina pushed herself to bid for jobs within the first month of training. She works part-time as a virtual assistant for a Dutch firm, supplementing that hourly income with writing and research contracts for clients in Greece, India, Malta and the United States.
Dafina Kajtazi
WoW graduate · Front-end track
“I am now economically independent and have superb, long-term clients.”
A 24-year-old computer-science student, Dafina joined WoW because she couldn't find work in her own field without practical experience. Six months earlier, she says, she had been desperately job-hunting. She graduated on the graphic design track.
Dafina Haziri
WoW graduate · Graphic design track
A look back
We didn't just run a pilot.
We didn't just run a pilot.
We wrote the national playbook.
150+ women · 5 municipalities · Handed to government and donors for scale-up
Project · Women in Online Work (WoW)
How it worked
Train for the market.
Then bid on it, while still in class.
Technical skills alone don't produce income. WoW paired a hard digital track with a serious soft-skills component (client communication, personal branding, confidence, stress management) and a dedicated freelancing curriculum on profiles, portfolios, cover letters and bidding. Mentors taught in the classroom, then sat with trainees while they bid on real jobs. The first contract was signed three weeks into training, long before anyone expected it.
Oct 2015
Design
The pilot concept is presented, shaped by the Ministry's Women in ICT Advisory Group. A Memorandum of Understanding brings the Swiss-funded EYE project in as strategic partner.
$140K
Phase I funding committed
Winter 2015–16
Recruitment
Facebook-led outreach from Learnio, amplified by a ministry-run TV, radio and press campaign, plus university information sessions. Three online screening tests and an English phone interview.
1,105
Applications received
Feb–Aug 2016
Phase I
Rural Gjakova and Lipjan. Front-end web development: HTML, CSS3, responsive design, JavaScript, jQuery and optimisation, taught alongside soft skills, freelancing skills and live mentorship.
100
Women graduated
Sep–Dec 2016
Phase II
The Prishtina metropolitan area, including Obiliq and Fushë Kosovë. Three learning tracks this time (coding, graphic design and digital marketing), testing the model on an urban cohort.
62
Women graduated
Feb 2017
Handover
At the graduation ceremony the World Bank passes the model on. USAID's EMPOWER and Advancing Kosovo Together projects and the Swiss-funded EYE project all commit to scaling it into new municipalities.
3
Donors committed to scale-up
Outcomes
Rapid employability,
Rapid employability,
then durable income.
WoW was a feasibility test, not a scale programme, so the interesting result was never the headcount. It was how fast the training converted into real, paid contracts on the open market.
Headline metric
2×
The hourly rate WoW graduates commanded, against Kosovo's average wage.
Kosovo average
≈ €400/mo
WoW online workers
$5+/hr
Time for the first student to get a job
3 weeks
1,105
Applications to Phase I
From two rural municipalities, against 100 training places.
100+62
Women graduated
100 from Phase I in Gjakova and Lipjan; 62 from Phase II in the Prishtina area.
78
Graduates earning online
Collectively earning close to $25,000 from jobs won on open freelancing platforms. Some went on to found their own IT ventures.
What the evaluation found.
The World Bank's impact evaluation of Phase I drew a sharp line between two groups. On one side, the active graduates: the women who worked through the self-paced material, engaged in class and kept bidding. On the other, everyone else. Engagement, not entry-level ability, predicted almost every outcome that mattered.
66%
Of active graduates passed the basic earning threshold during the monitoring period.
9.6×
More online jobs generated by active graduates than by inactive ones.
15×
Higher average earnings for active graduates than for inactive graduates.
3×
Sensitivity analysis found the model still returns a positive ROI at three times the cost per beneficiary.
Verified & documented
Read the public record.
WoW was designed, monitored, evaluated and reported publicly, both by the World Bank Group and by Kosovo's own Ministry of Economic Development. The links below take you to the primary sources: the country brief, the closing press release, the case study carrying the impact evaluation, and the Ministry's own accounts of both graduation ceremonies. The feature story Kosovo's Women Go WOW follows two graduates through Phase I.
Brief · Feb 13, 2017
Kosovo Women in Online Work: WOW Pilot
Read on worldbank.org →
Press Release · Feb 13, 2017
150 women trained in World Bank online work pilot in Kosovo, new phase with local partners planned
Read on worldbank.org →
Case Study · Impact Evaluation
Women in Online Work (WoW) Pilot: S4YE Digital Jobs case study
Read the evaluation →
Government of Kosovo · Nov 1, 2016
WoW: a successful platform for the employment of women in ICT
Read on me.rks-gov.net →
Government of Kosovo · Feb 27, 2017
Second WoW generation graduates, third stage of the project launched
Read on me.rks-gov.net →
Note: Learnio operated as CodersTrust at the time the WoW pilot was commissioned, and the
World Bank’s documentation references the organisation under that name. The company, mission and core team are
continuous.