Impact Assessment Framework: Further development and follow-up to Tracer and Tracking Methodologies

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Over the last years ILO/IPEC’s role has been gradually changing from that of direct implementation to one of facilitator and provider of policy/technical advisory services to countries in formulating concrete policies and programmes in pursuit of the objectives of the two ILO Conventions dealing with child labour. Accordingly, support to countries has been increasingly focusing on the formulation, promotion, enforcement and monitoring of relevant national legal frameworks, the collection and analysis of data on the worst forms of child labour and the development of credible and comprehensive frameworks for child labour monitoring and reporting as well as on the development and implementation of a comprehensive time bound policy and programme framework to address child labour issues. While the scope of IPEC interventions has broadened, a new strategic framework has been developed to enhance the multiplier effects and synergies in order to increase the impact of the supported activities. In this context, efforts are being made to refine an existing impact assessment methodology for measuring higher-level, but less direct, impact on beneficiaries, considering issues such as the policy and legislation reform and the capacity-building aspects of IPEC programmes. As the impact of IPEC is increasingly at an upstream level, for example through the support provided to member states on interventions associated with the TBP approach, there is an increased focus on indirect impact and, consequently, a need to provide tools with which to measure such impact. In addition, the global action plan formulated in the Global Report on Child Labour 2006 calls for the development and support to the application of methodologies to measure the child labour impact of interventions and policies with a view to identifying those with more effective and more rapid results. It is now also clear that the achievements of IPEC should be measured and assessed according to the changes generated in the lives of the children and families both as a result of the enabling environment and as a result of targeted interventions. The USDOL-funded FY 02 project “Measuring Longer Term Impact on Children and Families through Tracer/Tracking Methodology” (INT/02/78/USA, completed on 31 December 2005) focused on impact assessment of direct impact from targeted intervention. It developed a tracer methodology to document changes that have occurred in the lives of former beneficiaries and their families. It also developed guidelines for tracking systems for ongoing projects - again for the purposes of documenting and identifying changes that are occurring in the lives of project beneficiaries and their families. As the measurement of the full impact of IPEC’s actions and interventions would also need to measure the impact of work on the enabling environment (indirect action), the challenge now is to develop appropriate methodologies that will complement and enhance the previously developed tracer and tracking methodologies to effectively and efficiently analyse the impact of IPEC’s interventions on the enabling environment The purpose of impact assessment in IPEC, therefore, is to examine to what extent the ultimate objective ¿the progressive elimination of CL, with emphasis on the urgent elimination of the WFCL¿ has been achieved in the areas of impact as a result of specific interventions. At the same time, the impact assessment methodology should be able to identify and measure both short and long terms effects on children. This is important because IPEC’s interventions are designed to provide sustainable benefits to them (the main ones being the removal from work or the prevention from entering work and the provision of adequate services, especially education), particularly as a basis for demonstrating effective models. The methodologies should also be able to help managers identify what has worked, what has not worked and what in the different in

Project symbol

GLO/06/51/USA

Admin unit

IPEC

Start date

30/09/2006

End date

31/08/2011

Total allocation

2075477

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

2075477

Development Partners

USA, United States Department of Labor, Bureau for International Labor Affairs, Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor and Human Trafficking

Country/Countries

Global

Outcomes

Child Labour