Global Evaluation and Monitoring (GEM) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Project Title: Global Evaluation and Monitoring (GEM) Project Name of Applicant: International Labor Organisation (ILO) In November 2010, the ILO's Governing Body adopted a Global Action Plan which incorporates the Roadmap for Achieving the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor by 2016. The Roadmap calls for systematic impact assessments and evaluations of child labor interventions to improve documentation and knowledge sharing. In keeping with the Global Action Plan and the Roadmap, this Project is aimed at accelerating progress against child labor by increasing the knowledge base on effective interventions that can be replicated and up-scaled within and across countries, and supporting the use of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to identify the most effective implementation modalities. The Project will be implemented by the ILO through its International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC), the world’s largest child labor program with over 20 years of experience. Activities will be managed within IPEC’s Design, Evaluation and Documentation Section (DED) as part of its overall work on developing tools and systems for M&E. The Project will profit from the ongoing experience in designing and implementing impact evaluations (IE) in three USDOL funded projects, including work by the Understanding Children’s Work (UCW), a joint ILO-UNICEF-World Bank initiative engaged primarily in child labor research. The Project will build on experience and progress made in several completed or ongoing USDOL-funded IPEC projects on IE, tracer studies, beneficiary monitoring and tracking, project monitoring systems, baselines and other M&E related areas. IPEC has produced an Impact Assessment Toolkit which includes the only existing manual on Tracer Studies for child labor interventions, used in over 10 studies, and the first version of the Manual on Comprehensive Monitoring and Evaluation, currently the basis for M&E in three complex country ILO projects funded by USDOL. In the first component of the Project, IPEC will design and implement two impact evaluations (IE), one for a project in the Philippines and one in a still to be defined project in a South American (SA) country. The IEs will provide information on whether changes in specific outcomes (e.g. child labor) can be attributed to the services (or package of services) provided to the beneficiaries by the intervention. IPEC will use a six step approach from initial front-end planning with analysis of context, design of the methodology, data collection through baselines, analysis of baseline data, monitoring of implementation and follow-up to baselines with analysis and dissemination of findings. The Project Management will consider recognized main factors important for ensuring validation of data and the integrity of the IE process. In the second component, IPEC will develop comprehensive monitoring evaluation plans and build customized capacity to implement these in four USDOL FY2011 projects as the basis for effective implementation. The CMEPs will be developed through a training and capacity building approach that prepares the plan and builds the capacity to implement it at the same time. The CMEP will consist of five elements on the project theory of change, impact measurement framework, baseline studies and other data collection, project implementation monitoring system, and the evaluation process. In the third component, IPEC will design, implement and disseminate findings from two Tracer Studies, one for the USDOL funded project in Ecuador, and one for a second USDOL funded project, proposed to be an IPEC implemented project in Uganda with a focus on child domestic labor. These components and outcomes are within the longer term strategies of IPEC in M&E and will complement existing work, thus ensuring sustainability of use. The Knowledge Centre on impact evaluation that IPEC is currently developing, will be a key tool for this. The pr