ILAB facilitates opportunities for learning and reflection by publishing learnings documented in project evaluation reports. Lessons learned and promising practices found in these reports are presented here in a searchable database so that these valuable learnings may be considered in the development of new programming. To view the evaluation reports and other research from which these learnings are collected, please see our performance, monitoring and accountability page.
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Evaluation Learnings Search Results
Showing 991 - 1000 of 1122Project Title | Evaluation Type | Learning Type |
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Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description An additional good practice was found in providing meals for children in the EpCs, a responsibility assumed by the Ministry of Education and an important incentive for students who often came from communities and families with high rates of unsatisfied basic needs. However, when EpCs where outside of the schools (due to lack of space, many EpCs are housed in community centers or churches), the meals did not arrive for the children—the Ministry of Education would not deliver to nonschool classrooms. While this reflects the structural problems of an educational system that is chronically short on classrooms, better mechanisms for providing meals must be found. Click here to access the report |
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Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description Working with different kinds of institutions, this project has made a significant impact on local and national scales. One of the lessons learned from this experience concerns the uneven results that such initiatives can have. It is not surprising that different zones reported different levels of success, which are understood in terms of NNAs withdrawn/prevented, awareness raising, educational performance, and other goals. It is important that these differences be discussed not only by M&E specialists but also by the various consortium partners. This discussion will allow us to understand if these differences in outcome have to do with preexisting social conditions (like the social networks that exist, type of labor, and rates of poverty) or with the differential capacity of local NGOs to provide direct services and oversight. Click here to access the report |
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Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description Another lesson learned is the importance of incorporating parents in project activities. Several local coordinators noted that while NNA beneficiaries certainly could serve as important “leaders of tomorrow” (as the program explicitly encouraged them to be), much more could be done in reaching out directly to families in the communities. One example provided by several coordinators was the possibility of offering vocational training not only to adolescents, but also to the parents of beneficiaries. Offering “EpE-style” opportunities, even on a more limited scale than the actual EpEs, could help provide parents with important work skills that may enhance their income-generating potential and further spread awareness. Click here to access the report |
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Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description An additional lesson learned is the importance of psychological services to NNA beneficiaries. While some subcontractors were able to offer these services, they were not contemplated as part of the project activities. Project facilitators, as volunteer teachers, do not have the training for this kind of intervention, but many noted the need for additional resources to provide to NNAs who have often experienced various kinds of physical and mental trauma. Click here to access the report |
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Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description A good practice that deserves particular mention and is worthy of replication is the presence of regular workshops for local coordinators and facilitators to share experiences and suggest solutions to common problems. The collective experiences were mentioned by several project participants as among the more valuable experiences offered by the program. Not only are these spaces important for learning, they also encourage the creation of broad networks of action that can serve as foundations for additional policy interventions. The inclusion of more members from the state—from local teachers to ministry officials—in these kinds of spaces may also serve to overcome the distance between state and civil society that some interviewees lamented. Click here to access the report |
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Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description Another good practice is the creation of “summer camps,” which generated considerable excitement among NNA beneficiaries. These interventions also reveal the need to design supplementary activities for months when schools are not in session. Though that can require additional resources, these spaces may provide increased opportunities to incorporate families and community members in activities. Click here to access the report |
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Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description A lesson learned is that sustainability must be a multiscalar concern (from national to local levels, from project management to subcontractors to communities) and that it requires sustained attention from the very beginning of the project. While state adoption of project activities is often the best-case scenario, other contingency plans are needed to address the all-too-likely possibility that the state does not take over project responsibilities. A good practice built into the project is an alliance with private sector firms; these alliances have already ensured that several EpCs will continue to function into 2011, past the final project date. Additionally, the efforts of some communities to secure additional funding for their centers are encouraging. Click here to access the report |
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Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description The design of the EpC consortium as a long-term consultative and lobbying group is a good practice, as the development of such spaces constitutes both an intrinsic good (serves as a space of mutual support and enrichment) and an instrumental good that can lead to further gains in securing support from state and civil society. Click here to access the report |
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Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description Nevertheless, work must be conducted to make sure that the EpC consortium continues to function. Some consortium members were openly skeptical. “To tell the truth,” one NGO director commented, “the consortium does not really exist.” While some meetings of consortium members had generated some lasting relationships between individual members, meetings of the directors of the consortium organizations are too rare to generate a consolidated sense of collective unity. As the project ends, there were no plans for future consortium meetings. Click here to access the report |
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Education Initiative: Combating Exploitive Child Labor through Education (ONJOI) Learning Description Child labor definitions and categories are still under construction, and the ONJOI project, despite its limited scope of action, started a process of including child protection concerns in the policy concerns of different types of stakeholders—government and state level structures; province, municipal, and local level structures; beneficiaries and larger communities; and other civil society structures and organizations. Click here to access the report |
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Project Title | Evaluation Type | Learning Type |
---|---|---|
Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description An additional good practice was found in providing meals for children in the EpCs, a responsibility assumed by the Ministry of Education and an important incentive for students who often came from communities and families with high rates of unsatisfied basic needs. However, when EpCs where outside of the schools (due to lack of space, many EpCs are housed in community centers or churches), the meals did not arrive for the children—the Ministry of Education would not deliver to nonschool classrooms. While this reflects the structural problems of an educational system that is chronically short on classrooms, better mechanisms for providing meals must be found. Click here to access the report |
|
|
Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description Working with different kinds of institutions, this project has made a significant impact on local and national scales. One of the lessons learned from this experience concerns the uneven results that such initiatives can have. It is not surprising that different zones reported different levels of success, which are understood in terms of NNAs withdrawn/prevented, awareness raising, educational performance, and other goals. It is important that these differences be discussed not only by M&E specialists but also by the various consortium partners. This discussion will allow us to understand if these differences in outcome have to do with preexisting social conditions (like the social networks that exist, type of labor, and rates of poverty) or with the differential capacity of local NGOs to provide direct services and oversight. Click here to access the report |
|
|
Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description Another lesson learned is the importance of incorporating parents in project activities. Several local coordinators noted that while NNA beneficiaries certainly could serve as important “leaders of tomorrow” (as the program explicitly encouraged them to be), much more could be done in reaching out directly to families in the communities. One example provided by several coordinators was the possibility of offering vocational training not only to adolescents, but also to the parents of beneficiaries. Offering “EpE-style” opportunities, even on a more limited scale than the actual EpEs, could help provide parents with important work skills that may enhance their income-generating potential and further spread awareness. Click here to access the report |
|
|
Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description An additional lesson learned is the importance of psychological services to NNA beneficiaries. While some subcontractors were able to offer these services, they were not contemplated as part of the project activities. Project facilitators, as volunteer teachers, do not have the training for this kind of intervention, but many noted the need for additional resources to provide to NNAs who have often experienced various kinds of physical and mental trauma. Click here to access the report |
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|
Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description A good practice that deserves particular mention and is worthy of replication is the presence of regular workshops for local coordinators and facilitators to share experiences and suggest solutions to common problems. The collective experiences were mentioned by several project participants as among the more valuable experiences offered by the program. Not only are these spaces important for learning, they also encourage the creation of broad networks of action that can serve as foundations for additional policy interventions. The inclusion of more members from the state—from local teachers to ministry officials—in these kinds of spaces may also serve to overcome the distance between state and civil society that some interviewees lamented. Click here to access the report |
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|
Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description Another good practice is the creation of “summer camps,” which generated considerable excitement among NNA beneficiaries. These interventions also reveal the need to design supplementary activities for months when schools are not in session. Though that can require additional resources, these spaces may provide increased opportunities to incorporate families and community members in activities. Click here to access the report |
|
|
Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description A lesson learned is that sustainability must be a multiscalar concern (from national to local levels, from project management to subcontractors to communities) and that it requires sustained attention from the very beginning of the project. While state adoption of project activities is often the best-case scenario, other contingency plans are needed to address the all-too-likely possibility that the state does not take over project responsibilities. A good practice built into the project is an alliance with private sector firms; these alliances have already ensured that several EpCs will continue to function into 2011, past the final project date. Additionally, the efforts of some communities to secure additional funding for their centers are encouraging. Click here to access the report |
|
|
Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description The design of the EpC consortium as a long-term consultative and lobbying group is a good practice, as the development of such spaces constitutes both an intrinsic good (serves as a space of mutual support and enrichment) and an instrumental good that can lead to further gains in securing support from state and civil society. Click here to access the report |
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|
Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education in the Dominican Republic (Education/Youth Employment/Public Private Partnerships) Learning Description Nevertheless, work must be conducted to make sure that the EpC consortium continues to function. Some consortium members were openly skeptical. “To tell the truth,” one NGO director commented, “the consortium does not really exist.” While some meetings of consortium members had generated some lasting relationships between individual members, meetings of the directors of the consortium organizations are too rare to generate a consolidated sense of collective unity. As the project ends, there were no plans for future consortium meetings. Click here to access the report |
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|
Education Initiative: Combating Exploitive Child Labor through Education (ONJOI) Learning Description Child labor definitions and categories are still under construction, and the ONJOI project, despite its limited scope of action, started a process of including child protection concerns in the policy concerns of different types of stakeholders—government and state level structures; province, municipal, and local level structures; beneficiaries and larger communities; and other civil society structures and organizations. Click here to access the report |
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