Work: No child's business - Netherlands Almost one in every ten children between the ages of 5 and 17 years is involved in child labour today. By combining our efforts under this Alliance, we strive to increase our impact on the eradication of child labour by bringing together our experiences in supply chain and area-based approaches and related strategies (See chapter 5). Together, the Alliance partners have a strong global presence and existing networks of national and local implementing offices and partners, which allows for engagement with supply chain actors beyond the Dutch context, at EU, national, and community levels. All partners have worked with companies and supply chain actors to promote Responsible Business Conduct (RBC) and to ensure that child rights are included in business policies and activities along the supply chain. All partners have track records in addressing the root causes of child labour. Importantly, each partner of the Alliance brings to the table a unique set of strategies, experiences and networks In the current year of 2022, we have seen a significant increase of partnership development and collaboration between partners andkey stakeholders in the countries, as well as internationally. The programme-wide gender analysis, a cross-country assessment of COVID-19 effects on education, the participation of the WNCB Alliance in the Global Conference on Child Labour (GCCL) and exchange events in which  all countries participated, have contributed to this. In 2023 we will continue these efforts and initiate a process of accelerated learning. Part of this process will be the exploration of thematic priorities within the programme, the facilitation of country exchange events for partnership- building, sharing of experiences, expertise and knowledge, and the sustainable clossure of the programme which is scheduled for 2024. A key moment will be the WNCB Global Meeting in May 2023, with the participation of all partner organisations. As an Alliance we will continue to seek most effective collaboration between country programmes and working groups to build a quality evidence-based programme and develop capacities to ensure alignment with our Theory of Change, appropriate strategic adjustments and increased impact. In this endeavour active follow- up on the MTR will be a priority for 2023. The WNCB working groups will continue to collaborate with country programmes on all four pathways of change through their specific thematic expertise focused on exchangeof information and knowledge, capacity strengthening and research. The gender working group will continue to support countries with their country specific gender action plans that have been developed based on the gender analysis, and to be rolled-out in 2023-2024. The CRBP working group will continue to facilitate workshops on small artisanal mining in Uganda, Mali and Ivory Coast, while in all countries private sector businesses will increasingly be engaged to integrate child protection policies to prevent and mitigate child labour. Specific focus of the Lobby & Advocacy working group, in collaboration with the Communications working group, will be on following up on the Durban Call to Action, as well as collaborating with country partners to support national governments to do the same. In the Netherlands and EU we will engage with relevant actors on due diligence legislation and encourage companies to take effective measures to ban child labour from their supply chains. Since 2023 is the penultimate year of programme implementation we will facilitate an internal discussion between Alliance partners and country partners as to how we see a possible future for continued collaboration as an Alliance. Through additional external engagement of key stakeholders, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we will explore possibilities for programme continuation or scale-up, or work towards a sustainable process of phase-out.  We are confident that the concerted efforts and joint aspirations of the WNCB Alliance and country partners, as described in this 2023 plan, will build on mitigations, measures, and innovative solutions, as well as on our continued commitment to contribute to SDG 8.7. and to eliminate child labour. Several interesting lessons and mitiagtingg actions from the Management Note of the participative  MtR;1: Ensure sufficient capacity for programme (L&A) objectives that need to be achieved in the Netherlands and EU>The WNCB Alliance strongly believes in the benefits of sectoral cooperation and will continue to build on this. Nevertheless, we also recognise that work from the Alliance with the private sector in the Netherlands/EU deserves more attention, and in particular the mapping of supply chains to programme countries. Activities for this have been included in the 2023 annual plan. In the Netherlands the WNCB Alliance has deliberately chosen to shape its work towards the private sector primarily through covenants and sectoral agreements on relevant industries (natural stone, gold, metals, garments and textile, banks, cocoa). In these sector agreements, WNCB partners work with companies, trade associations, government, and other civil society organisations on understanding the international supply chain and making it possible to improve social, working and environmental conditions. Even though the focus within these covenants and sector agreements is on collective actions, individual companies have received both generic and tailored support with their individual due diligence processes. There are big differences between programme countries when it comes to expertise and progress in engaging with the private sector. Although more partnerships could be developed, we want to highlight that the finding that there are no linkages to chambers of commerce is not applicable to all countries. We want to highlight that capacity support in the WNCB programme is demand driven. The CRBP sought to provide support through a needs-based approach and to share experiences of frontrunners in the programme. From 2023 onwards the WG structure has been adapted to cater for a more coordinated support to country teams.2. Planned outcomes that are far from project control need to be contextualized and planned more meticoulously by local partners and stakeholders. Tangeabkle ovjectives (e.g. young people in apprenticeships) are fore from our sphere of control.As WNCB, we have learned that our power to “make the private sector provide apprenticeships” is limited. There are different experiences with this, also depending a lot on the scale and nature of the private sector in the different contexts in which WNCB partners are active. Country teams can pro-actively liaise with the private sector around apprenticeships and learning opportunities for youth, emphasizing the mutual benefits of this for youth and for the company or small business and keeping in mind that apprenticeships should focus on learning and offer decent working conditions. Nonetheless - in a next programme we need to identify a strategy that focuses more on systematic change for apprentiships, rather than offering apprenticeships ourselves. 3. Capacity in outcome harvesting within a large programme is complicated and it is particularly difficult to allign all staff to use OH as a results based management method. In each WNCB country, the engagement with country specific actors and stakeholders remains dependent on local requirements and needs. Partnership development on community level, with local governments and businesses, remains a key ingredient for success. Also, at the national level, we seek to join forces and stand together with like-minded organizations to bring our message across. The WNCB Alliance will continue to increase alignment between the strategic focuses of the programme; specifically, to align ABA and supply chain approach, including CPSS. This will be done through research, workshops in several countries (CRBP WG), learning sessions and/or master classes with key experts within the WNCB Alliance.we acknowledge the need for continued capacity strengthening in OH. We will continue to work on the substantiation of key to harvested outcomes, including by change agents, that support further learning, adaptive management and programme improvement. Specific attention will be given to capacity strengthening of OH to relevant programme staff in the countries, other than MEAL staff. Also, we will further explore the effective use of outcome harvesting to document and visualise progress of pathway 4 concerning lobby, advocacy and private sector engagement in The Netherlands.4. Targetting the informal sector is particularly relevant, but also extremely difficultThe challenges targeting the informal sector have been on the agenda of the CRBP WG for quite some time. There have been specific requests for support from the working group and we are exploring with various countries, how CRBPs can take shape in the informal sector. One output that is coming from this WNCB collaboration is the CRBP institutionalization handbook that is being developed as a guiding framework for implementing responsible business conduct in the (formal and) informal gold mining sector. The L&A/RBC/CRBP WG intends to use it for linking and learning purposes, in relation to mining, and if possible and relevant also in relation to other sectors. During the recent annual planning process several countries have expressed interest in expanding the work into other sectors.