ILO published the midterm evaluation of the Asia Regional Child (ARC) Labour Project conducted by ECOPER.
The ARC project focuses on six countries in the Asia-Pacific region: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan, which all have a high prevalence of child labour. ILO ARC aims to eradicate, in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goal 8.7., the worst forms of child labour (WFCL), trafficking, and commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) in the region. In line with ILO’s Integrated Strategy on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (FPRW), the project’s three main objectives include building a knowledge base on the causes and drivers of child labour and ways to address them, aligning legislations and policies with international conventions on child labour and developing and applying a holistic approach to eradicating child labour in its worst forms in all six countries.
The purpose of the evaluation is to both assess the project’s first implementation phase and to
conduct techniques that contribute to long-term institutional learning and provide
recommendations for the second phase. The evaluation covers the inception phase and time in
which field missions were conducted at the regional level, in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan
as a group where efforts where concentrated, and Afghanistan and Myanmar as a second group in
which activities were impeded due to various reasons. The primary clients of this evaluation are the
ARC regional and national project team, ILO Offices, ILO HQ, FUNDAMENTALS, and FCDO. Secondary
clients include other project stakeholders such as key Ministries, NGOs, and embassies.