Lesson-71230-4

Evaluation findings show that although the project offered education and livelihood services to households, many participants in key informant interviews and focus group discussions indicated that these services were not sufficient to make a sustainable change in households’ capacity to pay for their children’s schooling after the end of project subsidies. One implementer remarked that project assistance was diluted because it focused heavily on offering individual and household services. With so many vulnerable households to be reached with limited resources, this pushed implementers to spread resources thinly in order to reach the maximum number of children and households.

Other stakeholders likewise said that project’s support was given over too short a period of time. There was broad consensus among implementers, stakeholders, and beneficiaries that more time and additional services would be useful to consolidate project gains, especially with regards to livelihood improvement strategies. Evaluation findings likewise show that individual services are not sufficient to affect the root causes of child labor, and need to be complemented by broader sets of interventions that address systemic deficiencies in public and other services available in target communities. Educational quality interventions (teacher training, school councils, school improvements), savings and loan groups, and community livelihood improvements (peanut grinder, irrigation) were well received by stakeholders. These interventions were viewed as addressing root causes of child labor and as relatively sustainable by the groups, institutions and communities.