Evaluation Learnings Search

Learning Description

Alignment of local government plans and resources with community needs and priorities. The project worked closely with local governments to help ensure local government development plans are aligned with community needs and priorities. The process included facilitating meetings and dialogue between local government representatives and community formal and informal leaders. The intention was to help ensure that local government plans and resources are aligned with and linked to communities based on the needs and priorities of those communities. This is considered a good practice that the International Labor Organization (ILO) and other United States Department of Labor (USDOL) implementing organizations should replicate in future projects that aim to strengthen local government structures and make them more responsive to communities they serve.

Learning Description

Using stakeholders to conduct training and develop tools. To the extent possible, the project used stakeholders to conduct training and develop tools rather than hire outside consultants. In Ghana, Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, Ghana (MELR) / Child Labor Unit, Ghana (CLU) provided child labor training for government representatives in Adansi North and Aowin, Minrerals Commission , Ghana (MC) developed the checklist monitoring tool, and National Board for Small-Scale Industries/Business Advisory Centres, Ghana (NBSSI-BAC) conducted entrepreneurship training for miners and households. In the Philippines, Local Government Units (LGU) and Technical Education Skills Development Authority (TESDA) provided vocational training while Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and Community Based Monitoring System (CBMS) Network Office took the leads for developing SHIELD, including the Child Labor Local Registry (CLLR), and the CBMS child labor rider, respectively. The stakeholders believe taking the responsibility for training and tool development in both countries increased capacity and helped create ownership. While not always feasible, the International Labor Organization (ILO) and other United States Department of Labor (USDOL) implementing organizations might examine and identify opportunities to involve government agencies and its social partners to deliver training and develop tools rather than contracting outside consultants.

Learning Description

School clubs and Supporting Children's Rights through Education, the Arts and the Media (SCREAM) methodology. The decision to establish school clubs and introduce the SCREAM methodology in Ghana was found to be effective and sustainable. Teachers, students, and community leaders credit the school clubs for increasing school attendance and enrollment and reducing the number of children who work in mines. Teachers intend to continue the clubs once the project ends and district education officers are interested in replicating the clubs and SCREAM methodology in other schools. In addition, the school clubs could be replicated in other communities as the project rolls out interventions to more mining communities in both countries. Furthermore, the International Labor Organization (ILO) and United States Department of Labor (USDOL) might consider including school clubs and SCREAM or similar methodologies in other CL prevention projects that have a school component.

Learning Description

Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Miners (GNASSM) as a platform to address responsible mining including child labor and working conditions. GNASSM is the most important organization in Ghana dedicated to the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) sector. GNASSM, with 1,200 members, has proven to be an effective mechanism to reach Small-Scale Mining (SSM) with specific actions to address Child Labor (CL) and Working Conditions (WC) as well as to offer processes such as the Code of Risk-mitigation for ASM Engaging in Formal Trade (CRAFT) code to help SSM achieve formalization. The decision to involve an organization that represents the Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) sector was the right decision and should be considered a good practice.

Learning Description

Strategic Helpdesk for Information, Education, Livelihood and other Developmental Interventions (SHIELD) against Child Labor. While the SHIELD concept was developed by DSWD in the Philippines, the project provided valuable technical and financial support to develop the concept into the SHIELD initiative, develop the Child Labor Local Registry (CLLR), provide computers, and pilot SHIELD in four project communities. Based on experience in the pilot communities, SHIELD appears to be effective at identifying, validating, and withdrawing children from child labor situations as well as linking child laborer households with government services. The government intends to use SHIELD as one of its primary strategies to withdraw one million child laborers by 2025. Based on the findings related to SHIELD, the evaluators opine that it is a good practice and could serve as a model that International Labor Organization (ILO) and United States Department of Labor (USDOL) could apply to other Child Labor (CL) prevention projects that have CL monitoring and withdrawal interventions.

Learning Description

Community Based Monitoring System (CBMS) with Child Labor (CL) rider. The project collaborated with CBMS Network Office in the Philippines to pilot CBMS with CL rider in a project site that provided the LGU with profiles and conditions of child laborers and their families, contributing to their deeper understanding of CL issues in Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM). The pilot results prompted Local Government Unit (LGU) decisionmakers and implementers to identify appropriate CL and working conditions (WC) interventions. in their local development plan and allocate resources in their budgets as part of the LGU’s annual investment program. The CBMS with CL rider can and should be implemented in more sites once approved by Philippines Statistical Authority (PSA). In addition, the CBMS and CL rider could serve as a model to incorporate CL questions in data collection systems such as labor force surveys in other countries where the International Labor Organization (ILO) and United States Department of Labor (USDOL) are implementing or funding CL prevention projects.

Learning Description

Transformation of Malaya. The evaluation team considers the transformation of Malaya to be not only a good practice but a case study for how poorly managed ASGM operations can be transformed. In 2015, Human Rights Watch (HRW) produced a documentary based on interviews with children in Malaya.37 HRW found that children worked in unstable 25-meter-deep pits, mined gold underwater, along the shore, or in rivers, with oxygen tubes in their mouths (compressor mining). They also processed gold with mercury risking irreversible health damage from mercury poisoning. HRW also documented local rivers and streams colored milky white from mercury contamination. The project provided technical assistance to the Malaya mining association to adopt mercury-free ore processing and education on why child labor is detrimental to children and families. The project also organized a visit to another mining community to learn about agriculture.

Learning Description

Project designers and Protecting the Rights of Migrant Workers through Empowerment and Advocacy in Malaysia (MWEA) project management needed to differentiate organizational development capacity building strategies to better account for the needs and aspirations of its partner organizations. The MWEA capacity building strategy partially accounted for differences in the needs and capacities of its implementing partners, but there was ample room to go further. MWEA might have tailored its support more effectively by being more flexible in the types of activities it would fund and diversifying its training and coaching activities to meet the specific needs of its implementing partners. For example, given its experience, Tenaganita could have led case management training, instead it was invited to participate in the same project-led training as other implementing partners. Tenaganita is the only Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) to manage shelters and is struggling to maintain funding for this activity, a specific need MWEA might have helped them address in ways other than through short-term funding. North South Initiative (NSI) appeared to be more focused on empowering migrant worker organizations than were the other implementing partners and might have been supported further to develop this specific dimension of the project strategy by piloting and testing innovative strategies.

Learning Description

Project designers and Protecting the Rights of Migrant Workers through Empowerment and Advocacy in Malaysia (MWEA) project management needed to distinguish project capacity building strategies more specifically to account for differences in trade union and NGO mandates. According to the project Project Monitoring Plan (PMP), an intended MWEA result was an increase in migrant worker membership in trade union and/or informal migrant worker organizations. However, design stage analysis did not discuss the different roles of various types of organizations defending migrant workers’ rights or the challenges to achieving organizing objectives, nor did it suggest key gaps to be filled by intervention strategies. The Civil Society Organization (CSO) mapping, while assessing the organizational landscape, focused narrowly on service-provision. Evaluation findings outline specific opportunities and challenges facing trade unions in their role to protect migrant workers’ rights and more generally all workers’ rights in Malaysia. The design of this project treated Malaysian Trade Union Congress (MTUC) largely the same as other service-provision CSOs and did not fully account for specific trade union–specific comparative advantages, such as MTUC’s mandate to organize workers in formal sector industries. This approach may have contributed to the perception of competition between the different partners on the part of the trade union. Moreover, given the particular challenges that hinder organizing migrant workers into trade unions, MWEA might have been more effective with a more tailored organizational capacity building strategy for MTUC to use in addressing these challenges.

Learning Description

Protecting the Rights of Migrant Workers through Empowerment and Advocacy in Malaysia (MWEA) management or, more generally, the International Labor Organization (ILO) project office needed to intensify collaboration between MWEA implementing partners and other types of organizations/services––embassies and consulates, origin-country Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), other social service NGOs, origin-country unions, and the private sector. MWEA chose its implementing partners well and made modest efforts to include other Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in its activities. However, project reporting and MWEA accounts also suggest that MWEA efforts to promote coordination and dialogue between its CSO partners and other entities involved in addressing the needs of migrant workers were limited. According to one ILO program manager, this need was recognized and incorporated in another project - IMG – through the organization of quarterly migration network meetings. Discussion during the stakeholder workshop between NGOs and the employers’ federation, and the ongoing cooling of relations between the Malaysian Trade Union Congress (MTUC) and MWEA NGO partners, suggest that the ILO can play a useful role promoting more productive dialogue between its tripartite constituents and labor rights NGOs.