Evaluation Learnings Search

Learning Description

Transition to remote learning. The transition to remote communications negatively affected project trainings because of the pre-existing digital divide. New strategies are needed to facilitate remote access among the hardest-to-reach for the remaining training activities.

Learning Description

Set reasonable expectations. Future project implementers conducting research studies should start with a preliminary joint discussion among interested parties to define methodological approaches and to clarify the breadth of the proposed research. Expectations should correspond to what the studies can deliver. Timetables should be established, and approval and dissemination procedures clarified.

Learning Description

Collaboration with other U.S. Department of Labor projects. Identifying opportunities for collaboration with other U.S. Department of Labor-funded project strengthens efficiency and effectiveness and promotes exchange of good practices and lessons learned.

Learning Description

Collaboration with public and private sector. Establishing a project technical steering committee with both public- and private-sector stakeholders helped create a horizontal, open, and continuous working relationship that increased stakeholder buy-in and ownership, which increases the likelihood that outcomes will be sustained.

Learning Description

Participation of local academic institutions. Involving a university from the targeted region to develop and execute capacity-building activities increased the credibility of information provided in workshops and helped position the topics of child labor and acceptable conditions of work on the university’s agenda.

Learning Description

Finding common ground. Identifying specific areas of interest or concern that resonate among a wide range of public- and private-sector stakeholders may increase commitment to the prevention of child labor and promotion of acceptable conditions of work. For example, coffee business associations may find relevance as part of their social responsibility program; for coffee cooperatives, the connection may be the verification they require for coffee certification; for youth, the common-ground concern may be advocating for children’s rights or preserving the coffee culture of Colombia; and for coffee growers, the focus may be to better understand what is and what is not considered child labor in coffee production.

Learning Description

Gendered advocacy approach. SAFE Seas developed a variety of strategies for engaging women in community advocacy, based initially on research on women’s needs in fishing communities. In Indonesia, SAFE Seas conducted community-based training for women members of targeted fishing communities to support the early detection and reporting of cases of labor abuse. For example, women villagers in Central Java were provided training on legal rights of fishers, and in North Sulawesi, women were prominent among the trained advocacy volunteers. In the Philippines, project partner Oblates of Notre Dame Hesed Foundation worked closely with women in the target communities, raising their confidence to report labor abuses.

Learning Description

Mobilizing local advocates for fishers’ rights. In the Philippines, SAFE Seas partnered with community representatives in activity implementation and mobilized champions for fishers’ rights among barangay councilors, fisheries and aquatic resources management councils, and fishers themselves, building community support for local government legislation where necessary to support plans and budget resources.

Learning Description

Building grassroots networks at the village level adapted to the Indonesia context. In Tegal in Central Java and Bitung district in North Sulawesi, SAFE Seas mobilized village leaders and networks of cadres to raise fishing communities’ knowledge of fishing recruitment regulations and case reporting channels.

Learning Description

Piloting procedures for multidisciplinary fishing vessel labor inspection. A good practice developed by SAFE Seas in both countries was to bring the relevant agencies together to develop processes for harmonized or multi-agency approaches to inspections, building an emerging model that can be shared with other areas and expanded to the national level policy. Part of the learning regarding multidisciplinary inspection is that different approaches are possible and preferred by the authorities in different port locations; it does not have to be a physically joint inspection where the main agencies board vessels together, but various sea-based authorities can include labor issues within their inspection routines.