This paper reviews in a systematic way the evidence on impact evaluations of active labour market programmes (ALMP), with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). It thus serves as a background paper for a more comprehensive project that the ILO’s Research Department is undertaking to assess the usage of and experience with active labour market programmes in the region. The paper starts with a description of the main types and key mechanisms of ALMP. After summarizing the previous evidence on active programmes in general and for LAC, in particular, the empirical part first uses a sample of ALMP evaluations worldwide – compiled in Card, Kluve and Weber (2015) – to provide meta-analytical estimates of programme effectiveness. The second, novel part of the empirical analysis constructs an additional sample of impact evaluations from LAC and presents results from meta-regressions for this regional sample.