Human trafficking generally involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to enslave individuals in situations that are exploitative and often illegal and dangerous. Since 2001, the U.S. government has contributed approximately $447 million worldwide to foreign governments, NGOs, and international organizations—such as UNODC, ILO, and IOM—to combat human trafficking. U.S. agency and international organization projects generally aim to prevent trafficking, protect victims, and prosecute traffickers. Organizations have different requirements for monitoring and evaluating their antitrafficking projects. Although the crime of human trafficking can take different forms in different regions and countries around the world, most human trafficking cases follow a similar pattern—that is, traffickers use acquaintances or false advertisements to recruit men, women, and children in or near their homes, and then transfer them to and exploit them in another city, region, or country.According to the TVPA, victims of severe forms of trafficking include those who are recruited or transported for labor through the use of force, fraud, or coercion and for the purpose of subjecting them to involuntary servitude. The use of fraud, force, or coercion typically distinguishes human trafficking victims from individuals who are smuggled. In some cases, individuals may enter freely into agreement with and pay smugglers to help them cross international borders. After arriving at their destination, however, individuals who do not understand the destination country’s language or culture may be exploited by individuals who take advantage of their vulnerability. Traffickers control their victims’ living and working conditions by physically confining them, taking away their identity documents, and threatening their families. Traffickers also exploit victims’ fears that authorities will prosecute or deport them if they seek help. Victims may be forced to work in legal or illegal and often dangerous areas, including brothels, sweatshops, agricultural businesses, and people’s homes. Documented human trafficking cases have involved victims such as children forced to beg for money in cities, work in carpet shops, and participate in pornography and sex acts with adults; women held in slavery- like conditions as domestic servants, strip club dancers, and prostitutes; and men forced to perform work in the agricultural sector and on fishing vessels. To combat the diverse forms of global human trafficking, 5 U.S. departments, USAID, and at least 15 international organizations have provided assistance to governments and civil society organizations in more than 100 countries. Assistance generally aimed to enhance efforts to 1. prevent human trafficking through public awareness, outreach, education, and advocacy campaigns; 2. protect and assist victims by providing shelters as well as health, psychological, legal, and vocational services; and 3. investigate and prosecute human trafficking crimes by providing training and technical assistance for law enforcement officials, such as police, prosecutors, and judges. These categories of interrelated victim-centered assistance activities— prevention, protection, and prosecution—are commonly referred to as “the three p’s.” Each type of assistance is viewed as critical for reducing the incidence of human trafficking. Since 2001, U.S. government agencies have provided approximately $447 million in foreign assistance to international organizations, NGOs, and foreign governments to combat human trafficking (see table 1). Of the U.S. agencies, State, Labor, and USAID have provided the most funding to combat global human trafficking. As we have previously mentioned, U.S. agencies support antitrafficking projects implemented worldwide by various international organizations, which also receive funding from other donor governments and organizations. As shown in table 2, for UNODC, ILO, and IOM, total resources allocated to combating trafficking since 2000 totaled about $255 million. The U.S. government provided about $122 million to UNODC, ILO, and IOM to combat human trafficking, according to data provided by these organizations and State’s Office to Combat and Monitor Trafficking and Persons (G/TIP). In addition, according to UNICEF’s annual reports, between 2003 and 2005, UNICEF allocated more than $453 million to its worldwide child protection program, which includes projects to combat trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children. Some U.S. agencies and international organizations have provided assistance that, although not specifically related to human trafficking, may help to combat trafficking by reducing individuals’ vulnerability to becoming victims and by strengthening countries’ judicial systems. For example, USAID, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank have implemented projects to root out corruption, build host governments’ legal systems, and improve the economic conditions of vulnerable populations in developing countries. See appendix II for additional information on international organizations’ missions and antitrafficking activities. Monitoring and evaluation are important tools for managing projects and should be considered when designing projects. Performance measurement involves developing a logic framework to explain how an intervention is to achieve its intended outcomes. Monitoring helps agencies determine whether the project is meeting its goals, update and adjust interventions and activities as needed, and ensure that funds are used responsibly. Monitoring includes, among other things, the development of indicators that are linked as closely as possible to the variables identified in the logic framework. These indicators are to be used throughout implementation to assess whether the project is likely to achieve the desired results. Monitoring also involves the choice of baseline and target values for each indicator and includes plans for periodic performance reports and data quality reviews. Evaluation is needed to assess a project’s impact or effectiveness. Project evaluation involves the development of a methodology that will be used to assess the project’s impact and describes plans for collecting baseline, interim, and final data on project results. The TVPA requires the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons to measure and evaluate the progress of the U.S. government’s efforts to combat trafficking. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003 (TVPRA 2003) includes a congressional finding that additional research is needed to fully understand the phenomenon of trafficking in persons and to determine the most effective strategies for combating trafficking. The TVPRA 2003 also requires an annual report from the U.S. Attorney General to Congress to provide information on U.S. government activities to combat trafficking in persons. In addition to these reports, Justice began preparing annual assessments of U.S. government activities to combat trafficking in persons in 2003. All six U.S. organizations’ guidelines also require implementers to monitor and report on project performance. In addition, Labor also requires independent midterm and final evaluations for all international antitrafficking projects. Global, regional, and country-level organizations recognize the importance of collaborating to effectively combat human trafficking. Although organizations involved in combating trafficking—governments, multilateral organizations, and donors—have implemented some practices to strengthen collaboration, to succeed they will need to overcome challenges that can impede collaboration, including varying levels of government commitment and capacity. At the global level, several UN organizations have acknowledged the importance of collaborating to effectively combat human trafficking. The UN Chief Executives Boardrecognized the challenges in countering human trafficking and proposed establishing an interagency mechanism to strengthen coordination in 2005. In July 2006, a UN Economic and Social Committee resolution requested that UNODC organize a meeting to coordinate the technical assistance that UN and other intergovernmental organizations provide. In December 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution recognizing that broad international cooperation between member states and intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations is essential for effectively countering the threat of human trafficking, and underlined the importance of bilateral, subregional, and regional partnerships, initiatives, and actions. This resolution further encouraged member states to initiate and develop working-level contacts among countries of origin, transit, and destination, especially among police, prosecutors, and social authorities. Organizations at the regional level have also recognized the importance of collaboration. For example, in a September 2006 report, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) antitrafficking unit noted that, since trafficking is a transnational crime, collaboration is crucial to enable transnational mechanisms of communication and cooperation among governments, law enforcement, judiciary, and NGOs. In addition, six countries in the Mekong subregion of Southeast Asia have called for strengthened cooperation to combat human trafficking under a process called the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking (COMMIT). At the country level, donor governments and UN organizations have also recognized the need to establish coordination mechanisms to, among other things, share information and leverage the comparative advantages of each organization. The Paris Declaration of Aid Effectiveness establishes the importance of donor coordination, stating that excessive fragmentation of aid at the global, country, or sector level impairs its effectiveness. It further states that a pragmatic approach to the division of labor and burden sharing increases complementarity and can reduce costs. Through the declaration, donors committed to make use of their respective comparative advantage at a sector or country level by delegating authority to lead donors for the execution of projects, activities, and tasks. To draw on the collective strengths of the UN agencies and programs operating in a country, UN country teams and the host government develop a national analysis, called a common country assessment. They subsequently produce a national development assistance framework, which describes the collective UN response and the expected results to achieve national priorities. For U.S. government agencies, a 2002 presidential directive stated that strong coordination among agencies working on domestic and foreign policy is crucial. The directive called for departments and agencies to coordinate U.S. foreign assistance programs, including those that provide funding to governmental or nongovernmental organizations to combat trafficking in persons. State officials told us that this is done through the Senior Policy Operating Group (SPOG), which, among other activities, facilitates a review by SPOG programming agencies of each other’s grant proposals for antitrafficking projects.