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ILO-DFID Partnership Programme on Fair Recruitment and Decent Work for Women Migrant Workers in South Asia and the Middle East -Phase II - Midterm evaluation

eval_number:

2868

eval_url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/eval/2868

lessons_learned:

themes:

theme:

Data collection & analysis

category:

Organizational issues

---

comments:

ILO teams working on migrant worker and decent work initiatives.

challenges:

N/A

success:

N/A

context:

Challenging bad laws and practices, persuading governments to back migrant worker and labour rights reforms, requires cumulation of evidence to back reform initiatives. Governments are not always open to evidence, but there are always some within government ministries etc, who can be persuaded through evidence to back reforms, or indeed to scrap ant-rights legislative initiatives.

description:

The value of good research. An outstanding feature of WIF has been the quality of the research conducted. In particular, what has been of value is the specific studies conducted in order to throw a light on thorny problems identified. This find-a-problem-and-seek-to-understand-it-in-order-to-find-a-way-of-addressing-it approach has resulted in high quality, original research being conducted, especially as WIF has commissioned those who are either highly familiar with the topic, or committed themselves to addressing it, to undertake the research. What is outside this oeuvre is the work of IFPRI, the official research partner. It is surprising to this evaluation team that they do not appear to have engaged a great deal with the excellent research undertaken by WIF itself. Work in Freedom is an exemplar, applied research programme. On this research we note the comments of the WIF Advisory Board, which we would endorse. One major contribution of many of these studies has been to challenge conventional wisdom— especially around issues of trafficking and recruitment, as well as women’s inter-sectoral work mobility. In this context, the compilation of the glossary reflecting the complexity of free/ unfree labour has been a major contribution. These kinds of research interventions open up space for major policy intervention, such as the WIF’s intervention with the Indian government’s trafficking legislation (2018, 2021). To take these further, however, two further steps may be useful. First, there could be some more publications, which draw on the micro-studies to reflect on the key findings across the origin and destination studies. Secondly, there remains a need to find ways to disseminate these studies more widely and for them to be part of policy discussions.

administrative_issues:

N/A

url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/lessons/229479

---

location:

country:

Asia and the Pacific - regional

region:

Asia and the Pacific

---

eval_title:

ILO-DFID Partnership Programme on Fair Recruitment and Decent Work for Women Migrant Workers in South Asia and the Middle East -Phase II - Midterm evaluation