Lesson-110810-2

Involve the private sector early in the project so it can help set the agenda and ensure their needs are being met by the project. The early stages of the project focused on conducting the qualitative studies so valuable information would be available to design and execute the forced labor prevalence survey. In Argentina, the project’s main partners participated in meetings to review and provide input to the research methodologies and data collection tools for both the qualitative studies and the prevalence survey. These included the Secretary of Labor, Employment, and Social Security; Executive Committee; the Attorney General’s Office of Human Trafficking and Exploitation; and the National Institute of Industrial Technology. In the later phases, the project discussed the preliminary results of the qualitative studies with the private sector and involved them in the development of the due diligence tools. Involving the private sector earlier in the project to help set the agenda, review and discuss the research studies, and develop the due diligence tools would have helped ensure that their needs were being met and helped create commitment and ownership.