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Promoting Gender Responsive Enterprise and Skills Development Systems (ProGRESS): Feminizing Bangladesh’s Skills and Enterprise Systems and Labour Market - Midterm evaluation

eval_number:

3337

eval_url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/eval/3337

location:

country:

Bangladesh

region:

Asia and the Pacific

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eval_title:

Promoting Gender Responsive Enterprise and Skills Development Systems (ProGRESS): Feminizing Bangladesh’s Skills and Enterprise Systems and Labour Market - Midterm evaluation

recommendations:

date:

2026-05-24 00:00:00.0

themes:

theme:

Organizational issues

category:

Knowledge management

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action_plan:

Apart from adopting the 4 recommendations above, the Project will strengthen project coherence by using a centralized communication and knowledge management system. It will also include structured technical exchange platforms across components and projects. We will establish regular coordination and strategic review forums to promote cross-learning, coordination, and joint problem-solving, including better integration of GESI considerations. The Employment Sub-Cluster and Cluster 1 (Jobs and Social Protection), will allow for leveraging resources from other projects, continue the co-creation and launch of joint activities. These will lead to avoiding overlap, greater impact and better value for money. The cluster will also serve as the platform for immediate knowledge sharing, along with respective DWT, ROAP and HQ relevant colleagues. The approach will use ILO tools and global and regional expertise while encouraging closer collaboration with governments and partners at both national and local levels. This will position ProGRESS as a systems integrator; it will improve synergies, reduce fragmentation, and support scalable, inclusive, and demand-driven skills development outcomes.

management_response:

Completed

progress:

Partially achieved

admin_units:

CO-Dhaka

title:

Strengthen project coherence. The evaluation underscores the urgent need for a centralized communication and knowledge management system, supported by structured technical exchange platforms. The evaluation highlights the pressing need for a more centralized communication and knowledge management system, supported by structured technical exchange platforms. Such mechanisms would not only facilitate better information flow but also enable the ILO to fully leverage its institutional knowledge, partnerships, and technical expertise. At present, communication across project components remains fragmented, with limited collaboration and sharing of lessons learned. This issue has also been flagged in other recent strategic reviews, reinforcing the finding that the lack of coordination hampers the ILO’s ability in Bangladesh to maximize synergies, scale results, and achieve higher-level, transformative impact. A more cohesive system of communication and knowledge sharing would create stronger internal alignment, reduce duplication of efforts, and foster a culture of collaboration across thematic areas. This is particularly important in a context where multiple interventions operate simultaneously, often with overlapping objectives. Without effective mechanisms for exchange, valuable experiences and innovations risk remaining siloed within individual projects rather than contributing to collective outcomes. To address these gaps, the project should prioritize the development of an office-wide thematic and programmatic approach. This approach should aim to deepen thematic expertise, strengthen coherence across interventions, and enhance internal communication, cross-learning, and joint problem-solving among project components. By creating deliberate spaces for dialogue and reflection—such as joint technical working groups, knowledge-sharing events, or digital collaboration platforms—the project can ensure that evidence and experience are systematically captured, analyzed, and applied to improve ongoing programming. Importantly, such a strategy should not be limited to the national office. It should also draw upon and connect to the wealth of global and regional expertise that the ILO has systematically built over decades. By aligning local initiatives with broader organizational learning and best practices, the project can enrich its technical depth, position itself more strategically within Bangladesh’s development landscape, and strengthen its overall value proposition. Over time, this integrated approach would enhance the visibility, credibility, and effectiveness of the ILO’s work, ensuring that interventions are not only impactful in isolation but also collectively contribute to sustainable, systemic change. Some specific recommendations include: - Introduce regular spaces for internal coordination where components present progress, successes and challenges to facilitate collaboration and identify early potential synergies. This should also help ensure a more strategic approach to the gender-transformative element, ensuring it is considered at the design stage of new initiatives. This would go a long way towards breaking silos between components. - Introduce quarterly strategic review meetings for all thematically related projects to review progress, logic and strategy, look at challenges and identify potential synergies or collaboration. This will go a long way towards ensuring that ProGRESS (and other projects) benefit from the ILO’s overall expertise. - Create opportunities for interaction between partners at the district level on specific themes, for example, to investigate partners that could support a more comprehensive approach to the inclusion of persons with disabilities. - Seek active involvement of the Department of Youth Development, Social Welfare and Ministry of women and children affairs to support job placement post-training.

project_symbols:

BGD/20/05/CAN

url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/recommendations/2370904

information_source:

Country Office

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