$1M in funding for toolkit to monitor international child labor projects
announced by the US Labor Department

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs today announced a $1 million competitive solicitation of applications for a cooperative agreement to develop a beneficiary monitoring toolkit for its international child labor elimination projects. ILAB currently runs 34 projects around the world to reduce incidences of child labor. The toolkit will support the design and implementation of systems to help these projects monitor the provision of services and the education and work status of children receiving services. These monitoring systems are already a requirement for all department-funded projects offering direct services to children and families as a strategy for reducing child labor in target countries.

"This toolkit will help streamline the monitoring efforts for grantees to ensure the effectiveness of the department's child labor projects around the world," said Carol Pier, Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs. "Our projects provide educational and livelihood services to reduce the incidence of child labor, and this toolkit will help inform the department and our grantees about whether these projects are achieving their intended results."

Applicants must outline how they would develop the following two major project components:

1. Written guidelines and resources to be used by child labor elimination projects in their development and implementation of a beneficiary monitoring system, and
2. A prototype beneficiary monitoring software/database tool.

Any commercial, international, educational or nonprofit organization, including any faith-based, community-based or public international organization, capable of successfully developing the toolkit is eligible to apply. The department encourages applicants to establish partnerships that capitalize on different competencies and advance the goals of the award.

Applications must be submitted in English by 4 p.m. EDT, October 31, 2014, electronically via http://www.grants.gov or in hard copy to the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, 200 Constitution Ave. NW, Room N-4716, Washington, DC 20210, Attention: Donna Kelly.

All awards will be made by Dec. 31. The solicitation for grant applications (SCA 14-23) is available online at http://www.grants.gov.