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Economic empowerment and HIV vulnerability reduction along transport corridors in Southern Africa - Final Evaluation

eval_number:

1566

eval_url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/eval/1566

lessons_learned:

themes:

theme:

Programme implementation

category:

Organizational issues

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comments:

Young women and men workers in the target countries infected and affected by the impact of the HIV and AIDS epidemic including mobile workers, women and men workers in the formal and informal economic activities in corridor areas; formal and informal business support structure (BSS) stakeholder organizations.

challenges:

General weak organizational, management and financial skills capacity of BSSs; and misconception as ILO funding under CEEIF as grants due to inadequate sensitization – resulting in low repayment in some countries.

success:

Success and causal factors included: (i) relevance of project interventions to the socio-economic development aspirations intermediate and ultimate beneficiaries; (ii) solid foundation – with the project having been a “build-on” initiative to the previous “ ILO/SIDA HIV/AIDS Prevention and Impact Mitigation in the Transport Sector” project which provided the project with fairly solid base of knowledge and lessons learned; (iii) Having country-level PACs which provided guidance on project activities and which also promoted “ownership” and support towards sustainability; (iv) Having the same CTA and three (3) of the NPCs who were also involved in the aforementioned predecessor project which gave smooth and faster uptake of project implementation;(v) Having Adequate technical capacity of Project Management Team, high team work spirit and strong commitment to project objective and activities; (vi) smooth and timely financial disbursement –partly due to the presence of ILO offices in the participating countries with the exception of Malawi; (vii) use of an ”open-door policy” on the part of the project management team; (viii) effective and timely administrative and technical backstopping support by relevant ILO units; (ix) Additional funding by Sida - which enabled expansion of project sites and target beneficiaries’ outreach plan; (x) willingness of prospective CEEIF beneficiaries to contribute funds even before receiving project matching grants in some countries.

context:

Vulnerability to HIV infection is strongly underpinned by poverty, gender inequality and lack of knowledge. Therefore, the premise upon which the project was designed, intervention mix selected and implemented through participatory approaches was not only sound, but was a major determinant to the apparent good success of the project.

description:

Relevance of interventions and implementation approaches play a vital role in stakeholder “buy-in” and support of project activities. This was underpinned by linkage of project activities to the socio-economic development aspirations of target beneficiaries as confirmed by a majority of respondents and as reflected in the respective national development plans, DWCPs, UNDAF; as well as stakeholder consultations during project design and throughout implementation.

administrative_issues:

Key administrative issues included the failure on the part of the project to: (i) prepare project communication strategy for effective communication of project strategy as well as an exit plan at the earliest time possible to guide the process of project handover to local stakeholders; (ii) include baseline data (whenever possible) and timeline for target achievements; (iii) have in place more effective and efficient monitoring and evaluation systems (web-based systems) for ease of data collection, collation, analysis and dissemination.

url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/lessons/168909

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location:

country:

Africa - regional

region:

Africa

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eval_title:

Economic empowerment and HIV vulnerability reduction along transport corridors in Southern Africa - Final Evaluation