Evaluation Learnings Search

Learning Description

Networking and leveraging capacities. Solidarity Center has been able to network and leverage the capabilities of experienced and recognized/prestigious institutions such as the University of California Los Angeles, International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network, and Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems to provide a wide range of specialized support services, and at the same time establish horizontal linkages with workers/unions/universities.

Learning Description

Capitalizing on emerging opportunities. The project opted to team up with organizations/workers with whom Solidarity Center had a previous working relationship (Federation of Independent Unions of Auto, Auto parts, Aerospace, and Tire Industries) and used opportunities that arose from conflict situations in the project’s context to establish relationships with emerging workers’ organizations. For instance, this included Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de Goodyear Mexico (Independent Workers Union of Goodyear Mexico) in San Luis Potosí, along with Generando Movimiento and Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras de la Industria Automotriz (National Union of Workers in the Automotive Industry) in Silao (Guanajuato). On other occasions, the project was also able to capitalize on specific situations that arose, for example, when the Orden Mexicana de Profesionales Marítimos y Portuarios (Mexican Order of Port and Maritime Professionals) was fighting for representation in negotiating the collective bargaining agreement in several Mexican ports. However, this being considered a good practice, it should be noted that flexibility/re-emerging opportunities should still be discussed with U.S. Department of Labor before implementation, and approvals should be sought as required (because, for example, the sector may be outside the scope of the project, and to consider the flexibility the project grants).

Learning Description

Hiring a staff that is roughly 50% female to implement Adwuma Pa, which focuses on girls and women, makes sense and should be emulated by future projects with a gender component.

Learning Description

Adwuma Pa’s proactive response to COVID-19 and subsequent flexibility from U.S. Department of Labor in reallocating funds for the COVID-19 interventions produced significant results. The innovative use of jingles to educate and sensitize, as well as reaching out to a total of 63,196 persons, could innovatively be used more intensively to accelerate some of the awareness creation activities of the project.

Learning Description

The Adwuma Pa project’s early involvement of key decentralized institutional actors from the four districts in community entry and awareness-raising is useful for implementation and sustainability.

Learning Description

Projects should pay more attention to the details of lessons that have emerged from previous related projects such as MOCA (Mobilizing Community Action and Promoting Opportunities for Youth in Ghana’s Cocoa-Growing Communities), especially when the socioeconomic, political and geographical locations are similar. For example, the free senior high school policy shift introduced in September 2017 affected the MOCA project in terms of the number of beneficiary girls (15-17 years old) available for selection. Unfortunately, the same situation seems likely to affect the projected number of girls targeted by the Adwuma Pa project.

Learning Description

While the COVID-19 pandemic could not have been anticipated, a proper risk analysis and mitigation measures at the project design stage would increase a project’s ability to respond to potential external factors that may affect project effectiveness. Donors should look at assumptions and risk mitigation measures more seriously when appraising potential projects.

Learning Description

Limiting the project’s partnership or collaboration with the private sector to Olam alone, as the only cocoa license buying company, minimizes available opportunities in implementation and the realization of the benefit thereof. Jointly working with various private sector actors, not Olam alone, would more sustainably embed the benefits of addressing child labor, forced labor, and other labor rights violations within the cocoa supply chain.

Learning Description

Though useful, the development of the comprehensive monitoring and evaluation plan appears to be a very lengthy process and causes delays in projects’ implementation. Past interim evaluation reports from Ghana's MOCA (Mobilizing Community Action and Promoting Opportunities for Youth in Ghana’s Cocoa-Growing Communities) project and Madagascar's SAVABE (Supporting Sustainable and Child Labor Free Vanilla-Growing Communities in Sava) project reflected similar delay concerns about the comprehensive monitoring and evaluation plan that has been experienced by the Adwuma Pa project. It must however be echoed that the two earlier interim reports were the only ones reviewed and happen to contain complaints on delays occasioned by the development of the CMEP. In general, though the issue of the comprehensive monitoring and evaluation plan causing some delays is flagged in this evaluation, a further assessment may be required with a larger number of sampled cases before taking a final decision on the same.

Learning Description

When MOCA (Mobilizing Community Action and Promoting Opportunities for Youth in Ghana’s Cocoa-Growing Communities), another U.S. Department of Labor-funded project in Ghana, was concluding its project activities, and Adwuma Pa was beginning, U.S. Depatment of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs and Winrock International (MOCA's grantee)conveyed a meeting to share their experiences, which proved useful. Mainstreaming, improving and maximizing such interactive learning and application of best practices would be a great addition to the transition between the exit of one project and the beginning of another, as the new project is developing its implementation strategies.