2009
Monitoring and Evaluation of USAID Public Private Partnership Program ECHOES I in West Africa
ECL continues its work on the monitoring and evaluation of the ECHOES I program and conducted a final evaluation of the program. USAID has selected to continue the ECHOES program activities in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana under ECHOES II. ECL has been selected to continue its activities of monitoring and evaluation, but adding the components of conducting a baseline study in each country and providing technical assistance and support on the creation of an online database where ECHOES II partners can track individual beneficiaries and upload accomplishments achieved over the life of the program.
ECL designed and oversaw the conduct of a baseline study in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire for the ECHOES II program in 11 targeted communities in Ghana and 5 targeted communities in Cote d’Ivoire. The data gathered from the baseline study is being cleaned, entered and tabulated and narrative written for the production of two country reports to be issued in 2010.
Monitoring and Evaluation of a Community Teachers Program in Ghana
ECL has been selected to provide monitoring and evaluation services for a USAID and International Foundation for Education and Self-Help project improving the availability of trained teachers in targeted MiDA (Millennium Development Account) schools in the Northern, Eastern and Central regions of Ghana. ECL is assisting with the development of the monitoring and evaluation framework used for the project, finalizing the logframe indicators for evaluation purposes. The project is funded for a two year period and proposes to train 260 untrained teachers assisting them to obtain certification and join the workforce of trained teachers under the Ghana Education Service (GES).
Rapid Assessment of the Situation of Child Labor and Education in Rwanda
ECL staff was engaged to assist with the conduct of a rapid assessment in Rwanda for the planning and design of a proposal to combat child labor through education in Rwanda. ECL staff assessed the situation and designed a program strategy and submitted the report and conducted a debriefing for CHF International.
2008
Monitoring and Evaluation of USAID Public Private Partnership Program in West Africa
ECL has been selected to provide monitoring and evaluation services for a USAID and World Cocoa Foundation public/private partnership program working to improve the economic well-being of cocoa growing communities in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. ECL is assisting with the development of the monitoring and evaluation methodology to be used for the program, including the design of the reporting instruments, finalizing the logframe indicators and results to be evaluated, and conducting the mid-term and final evaluations.
2007
IIECL’s Executive Director, Diane Mull, Named to International Cocoa Verification Board (ICVB)
A recently formed international board has been established as an independent body to establish a transparent and credible process to build pubic confidence that labor coditions in cocoa production meet international standards. The ICVB is mandated to create and implement the process by which government surveys of labor in cocoa production are validated. The Board will select, train and hire individual, independent verifers who wil analyze, critique and report on the robustness of the national labor surveys undertaken by the governments of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. This ground-breaking effort to identify and remediate the worst forms of child labor and forced adult labor in the cocoa sector is without parallel in agriculture.
Ms. Mull is one of nine individuals selected from among 250 people in 17 countries from NGOs, trade unions, universites and the United Nations that were consulted. The multi-stakeholder board structure is central to ensuring that a wide array of viewpoints is heard. Members of the ICVB are from government, academia industry and civil society, whose collective expertise covers social science, and statistical research, child-centered research methodologies, labor rights, trafficking, agriculture (with particular focus on cocoa farming), gender studies, collective bargaining, and development economics.
Verite, a US-based nonprofit in social auditing, will serve as the ICVB’s Secretariat.
IIECL – Emily Sandall Memorial Youth Mini-grant Program
IIECL, in collaboration and with financial support from the Emily Sandall Foundation, has launched the new youth mini-grant program in memory of Emily Sandall, a young woman committed to humanitarian service and the recipient of IIECL’s first youth mini-grant award. The program awarded five small seed grants in 2007 to sponsor child labor prevention and/or education projects in Zimbabwe, Pakistan, El Salvador and the US. Projects funded have spanned a wide range of activities ranging in impact from an individual school and community to the world at large.
Planning Child Labor Education Program in Uganda
Working to assist World Vision, Inc. of the United States, IIECL staff member assisted with the design and planning for a needs assessment, as well as traveling to Uganda to complete key informant interviews. While there, work in Uganda involved building partnerships with key international and national NGOs and other partners for the design of a child labor withdrawal and prevention program that uses education as the key catalyst for change in children and youth’s lives. Of particular emphasis, was the design of interventions to address former child soldiers and other children of conflict that included the provision of psychosocial counseling, formation of Back to School leagues, and the provision of teacher training using the innovative Breakthrough to Literacy methdology. The project, if funded, will combine effective child-centered strategies that build upon IIECL’s PAVE methodology for assisting children and youth to gain access to formal, vocational and non-formal education and to other skills training. The project would be targeted for the conflict areas in northern Uganda and the Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda, bordering Sudan and Kenya.
Planning Child Labor Education Program in Angola
Working to assist World Vision, Inc. of the United States, IIECL staff member traveled to Angola where the planning and preparation for a needs assessment, as well as the conduct of key informant interviews was completed. Work in Angola involved building partnerships with key national NGOs and other partners for the design of a child labor withdrawal and prevention program that uses education as the key catalyst for change in children and youth’s lives. The project, if funded, will combine effective child-centered strategies that build upon IIECL’s PAVE methodology for assisting children and youth to gain access to formal, vocational and non-formal education and to other skills training.