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Local Empowerment through Economic Development (LEED) - Final Evaluation

eval_number:

2210

eval_url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/eval/2210

lessons_learned:

themes:

theme:

Programme implementation

category:

Organizational issues

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comments:

ILO CO and other ILO offices in sub-region, region, and headquarters; Ministry of Labour and Trade Union Relations, local government units at the division and provincial levels.

challenges:

Low capacity in implementing agencies, longer time needed for social preparation leading to one year delay, delay in the recruitment and mobilization of CTA, and a longer time taken by provincial local agencies to fully come on board.

success:

Patience, persistent and convincing approach, a better understanding of on the ground situation and project refocus, strengthening of cooperative societies, and support from the Ministry of Labour and Trade Union Relations.

context:

After the end of civil conflict in the Northern Province, most of the development partners got involved in humanitarian initiatives. Where some support was available, these tended to be just a shot in the arm and did not reflect sustainable approach. The response from the international community was not well coordinated.

description:

It pays to conduct a careful review and revision of project document at the start of the project prior to implementation so that implementation plan is more realistic and suitable for local context prior to the commencement of project related activities. This is particularly important when there is a long gap between project design and actual implementation because the context may change. The revised document should be complete with all relevant annexes so that there are no confusions even when project management changes.
After the Chief Technical Advisor joined the project with considerable delay, he traveled to the Northern Province and he assessed the relevance of project design, under a rapidly changing context and need to respond to local challenges. The outcome was a value-chain based and market-led partnership approach for LEED project. However, the project did not adopt a formal process of revising the project document. Instead, ILO allowed proceeding based on an implementation framework. Moreover, ILO should have followed due process to avoid any potential downstream confusion. The donor for this project, DFAT, was extremely flexible and agreed to adopt the revised approach. As a good practice, revision of project document also helps to meet bureaucratic and legal requirements.
ILO designed the LEED project in the first quarter of 2010 but its validity rapidly dissipated after a year due to rapid transformation upon mobilization of CTA. While the project focus shifted from planned CB-TREE led to the market-led value-chain development approach. However, the project document did not go through the revision until after mid-term evaluation and at the commencement of Phase II in July 2013. For 2011 – 2012, the project only had annual work plan along with a description of renewed strategy.

administrative_issues:

Delay in mobilizing the CTA revised project document not available at the start of the project.

url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/lessons/210341

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location:

country:

Sri Lanka

region:

Asia and the Pacific

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eval_title:

Local Empowerment through Economic Development (LEED) - Final Evaluation