Evaluation Learnings Search

Learning Description

Building on existing ILO experiences and programs and collaborating and coordinating with them have proven essential to successful implementation. This type of collaboration and coordination is key to enhancing impact and making GAP models viable.

Learning Description

GAP 11 is providing an excellent opportunity to explore how child labor and forced labor can be addressed jointly, which, in the current ILO restructuring process, is highly important. However, child labor and forced labor might be a delicate issue to address in some countries, especially when linked to specific goods with trade implications.

Learning Description

The multi-stakeholder coalition created to steer research on child labor in domestic work in Haiti is also a good practice implemented by GAP11. The issue of the restaveks, children in Haiti who are sent by their parents to work for a host household as domestic servants, has garnered significant attention in the media, often being described as a version of modern day slavery. Even so, the practice only became more common in the wake of the 2010 earthquake near Port au Prince. In 2013, the ILO, UNICEF, International Organization for Migration (IOM) and several large, international NGOs came together and agreed to support in-depth research to support updated information about the magnitude and characteristics of the practice. There are several good practices associated with the multi-stakeholder coalition that merit highlighting. The first is the relevance of coordinated action among NGOs, international organizations and government representatives in a country like Haiti which is highly dependent on aid but which does not have a strong central government that is able to adequately coordinate the actions of its partners. In these situations, organizations are often left to coordinate themselves, but this is seldom done effectively. In the case of the multi-stakeholder coalition on domesticité 41 the research project brought together more than 30 organizations to debate and eventually to agree on the main recommendations coming out of the research. Ten of them actually contributed funds to the study, which should have reinforced their ownership for the process and results. Stakeholders in Haiti are very hopeful this will lead to more effective and coordinated work on the issue. Secondly, the findings of the research were interesting because it brought about a more nuanced appreciation of the situation that children engaged in domestic work in Haiti find themselves, which should lead to more relevant interventions that respond to the full gamut of needs and opportunities to improve the welfare of the children involved.

Learning Description

Those working on MAP 16 learned to be innovative and adaptable to respond to the urgent needs of the most vulnerable children during a sanitary crisis such as COVID-19 in Morocco. It was learned that more awareness-raising sessions and top-ups for children equal less school dropout and child labor. The context of the state of emergency due to COVID-19 brought a strict population lockdown from 20 March. Morocco closed all schools and training centers, which will undoubtedly generate an increased school dropout rate, especially between sessions and for girls, and a real risk of seeing more child labor after the COVID-19 crisis and losing the progress made. MAP 16 is implementing different distance support tools to protect children from hazardous domestic labor and from child labor. Among them are awareness-raising sessions with beneficiaries via WhatsApp groups. Topics covered included the importance of children continuing their studies, the causes and risks of school dropout, and the dangers associated with child labor in domestic work. The WhatsApp groups were created in collaboration with schoolteachers. Internet top-ups for three months of Internet connection were provided for the most-at-risk students, to guarantee the commitment of the students and their participation in support courses and awareness-raising sessions.

Learning Description

Sharing national staff with other ILO projects has allowed GAP11 to minimize costs and create various synergies. In particular, in the Philippines the national staff was co-funded with 10% by GAP11, and 90% by the CLEAR project. This staffing arrangement contributed to a coherent approach, avoided disruptions in stakeholder relationships, and facilitated progress towards achieving project outputs in an efficient manner. These benefits of sharing the national staff were also confirmed by an ILO CLEAR project manager. Given that there was consensus among the national stakeholders that work on developing a coherent policy framework on child domestic work was a time-consuming process and still in the early stages, linking the two projects allowed for extending the timeline for interventions on child domestic work, and avoided hastily pushing through any given agenda. Having the same national staff responsible for both projects was a necessary precondition for this process.

Learning Description

The ILO and UCW are uniquely qualified to develop “global” projects because they have substantial experience and technical capacities in the area of child labor and forced labor; possess extensive knowledge of the needs and support required by countries; and maintain excellent relations with ILO constituents (e.g. governments, trade unions, employers’ organizations, and civil society organizations). The support provided by ILO national structures, labor ministries, ILO departments and experts, and ILO regional and sub<regional offices have proved to be an essential element to successful project implementation.

Learning Description

The collective impact approach was successfully adapted to the Colombian context. The project staff realized from the beginning that, because of the Colombian context of the project, the collective impact approach would have to be adapted. This approach for addressing complex social issues is comprised of five conditions: a common agenda, continuous communication, a shared measurement system, mutually reinforcing activities and backbone support. The Pilares project adapted the concept of “backbone support,” because there were no natural leaders among the civil society organizations who participated in the project. Instead of having one single backbone organization, it made sense to have a committee to lead the project. Each solidarity network nominated a group of organizations to be the “ancla” (“anchor”). This structure worked very well; the civil society organizations proved to be very motivated and to have a high level of commitment to work collectively to achieve the project outcomes.

Learning Description

The small grants initiative (sub-awards) gave civil society organizations an opportunity to apply the capacity building skills they had gained. The small grants process gave civil society organizations the opportunity to develop proposals, build budgets, and build their own monitoring and evaluation systems. Once the civil society organizations were able to manage a small grant, they were capable of leveraging resources and negotiating with public officials. Several were successful as described by a representative from one civil society organization, “We showed them that Pilares had a specific strategy, and we discussed how they could add value to our proposal.” Through the small grants process, the civil society organizations promoted community ideas for preventing child labor such as giving children music lessons, creating radio soap operas, and teaching families how to do beekeeping to generate income. These activities served to promote cultural traditions such as vallenato music and generated community pride.

Learning Description

The monitoring and evaluation system created excitement among civil society organizations about measuring progress. The monitoring and evaluation system that the project developed for tracking project outcomes was highly unusual in its scope and in the way it engaged civil society organizations to participate in data collection activities. This free, accessible monitoring system included specific Genially dashboards that allowed the civil society organizations to see the data and to measure the extent of strengthened capacities of their organizations. It took two years to co-create the civil society organizations’ monitoring and evaluation systems and train the civil society organizations and project staff on their use .Their commitment to project activities and outcomes grew, as did their desire to keep using independent systems based on the same Google platform. In the last phases of the project, project staff evolved into the role of coaches, providing follow-up as the solidarity networks developed their own monitoring and evaluation systems.

Learning Description

The training information given to anchor groups and committees should be transferred to their respective civil society organizations in a timely manner. The project’s adaptation of the collective impact approach to capacity building focused on training the solidarity network anchor groups and committees 1, 2, and 3, who were then expected to share or replicate the information with their civil society organization constituents. However, the process of transferring information did not always occur in a timely manner throughout the project implementation period. Because human behavior change is incremental, the release of accumulated information reduces the likelihood of permanent changes that will lead to sustainable outcomes. Instead, an abundance of information was accumulated by each anchor group, leaving a tremendous amount to transfer at the end of the project. It is important to place more focus on the anchor groups from the start of the project, especially on aspects of knowledge transfer, facilitation, and leadership.