Towards a Child Labour-Free Philippines: Supporting the ‘Philippine Program Against Child labour’ in Building on Past Gains and Addressing Challenges Executive Summary Rapid population growth, dependency burdens, and attitudes viewing children as economic assets are some factors that keep families poor. Of the Philippine population of 88.6 million in 2007, 29.5% live below the Asian Poverty Line (APL) of US$ 1.35 a day. While not all poor families see child labour as a way to cope with meagre family incomes, many of them do. As such the number of working children of ages 5-17 years, albeit on a decline in recent years, remains significant at 2.3 million or 8 percent of the age group population. As a ratifying country to ILO’s Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) and Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) , the Philippines has integrated child labour concerns into national policy frameworks including the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP), passed important legislations that now define the legal framework addressing child labour in the Philippines and adopted the Philippine Time-Bound Programme (PTBP) on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour under the National Programme Against Child Labour (NPACL) in 2002. The USDOL-funded ILO-IPEC Project of Support to the PTBP (2002-2007) contributed to establishing the current policy and legal frameworks as well as strengthening institutional capacity for dealing with child labour nationwide. Among its major achievements are: • Public acknowledgement of the existence of child labour and the need for it to be stopped. • Private sector (e.g. industry, employers’ associations, corporations) interest and capacity to combat child labour • A new framework for national action - the Philippine Program Against Child Labor (PPACL), with a national-to-local structure of child labour committees in place. This Project will support the new PPACL to work towards the 75% reduction in child labour by 2015 as set by the PTBP. It aims to address the major gaps that hindered the full realisation of the NPACL objectives. At the same time, it will also support the work done by ILO's tripartite constituents and civil society partners in line with the country's Millennium Development Goals (2015), Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (2010), Philippine Decent Work Common Agenda (2010), UN Development Assistance Framework (2011), the Global Action Plan (2016) for the Elimination of All Worst Forms of Child Labour, and Education for All (2015). This Project takes into account the impact of the global economic and financial crisis on the child labour situation in the Philippines. The effects of the current crisis are progressively being felt in the country with economic growth projections constantly being revised downwards. The situation in the worst hit sectors where workers are experiencing job displacements or reduced work days and income could put more pressure on children to leave school and enter the labour market. The Project will adopt four strategic components that address major gaps in the fight against child labour which translate into its four Immediate Objectives: i. Knowledge management component : By the end of the Project, information on child labour will feed into national and local child labour policy and programme design, implementation and evaluation; ii. Effective partnerships component : By the end of the Project, the national and local child labour committees and social partners have clearer mandates and responsibilities and improved capacities for policy development, enforcement and child labour monitoring; iii. Area-based services component: By the end of the Project, models to withdraw working children and prevent children at-risk from working are developed, piloted and documented; iv. Sustainability component: By the end of the Project, the child labour agenda is made an integral part of national development frameworks and local development programming; with local governments supported in coordinating resource allocations for child labour action. This Project wi