Final Evaluation report; LO-Norway’s Programme of Cooperation with OATUU

Background:
The project "Building strong, financially viable, effective, democratic and influential trade union movement(s) in Africa”  is on Occupational Safety, Health and Environment (OSHE).

The beneficiary organisations/countries for 2010-2014 period are:
- Ghana Congress of Trade Unions (G TUC) – Ghana
- Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) – Nigeria
- Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Unions (CETU) – Ethiopia
- Confederation of Trade Unions (Kenya) (COTU –K) – Kenya

Purpose/objective:
The objectives of the evaluation were to:
(1) Assess the results of the support provided to OATUU and the affiliated unions by LO;
(2) Assess the modality of cooperation with OATUU and provide recommendations on areas for improvement, in particular related to monitoring and reporting on performance by OATUU;

Methodology:
This evaluation is based on an analysis of the narrative and financial reports of the occupational health and safety project 2006-2010, various workshop report, training manuals and research reports as well as a survey of all affiliates participating in the two stages of the project, based on a questionnaire, and a field mission to Kenya, Tanzania and Ghana carried out between November 9th – November 23rd 2011.

Key findings:

Recommendations:
1. The project is relevant to the needs of the OATUU affiliates and should be continued until 2014, on the understanding that there could be some changes to the current project management system.

2. The project goals are ambitious given the relatively modest scale of the project.  They could be usefully narrowed down to a few tangible outcomes at national level focusing either on establishing workplace committees in key industries, taking test cases on employer responsibility to ensure safe workplaces or national campaigns for ratification. These goals should be followed through on a consistent basis for the duration of the project.

3. The project management system should be reviewed in order to build greater national ownership over the implementation of the activities, allow for more flexible planning and to reduce the risks of non-completion of the scheduled activities. Project funds could be transferred to each national centre on the basis of an agreed plan of activities and budget, taking the form of a signed agreement. Expenditure could be audited in the project country and the audit report forwarded to OATUU, which would then compile a consolidated report to LO-Norway. Most national centres indicated that they are already operating similar systems to the satisfaction of other SSO’s. OATUU’s auditors would need to agree reporting and auditing guidelines with the auditors of the project partners’ national centres.

4.  COTU should be asked to appoint one person as the coordinator of the LO-Norway project. The current system of shared responsibility can result in a lack of continuity and follow-up. 

5. Shop steward training programmes would benefit from a built-in system of follow-up visits and reporting. Courses could potentially be carried out in two phases, to include an initial 2-day training and a subsequent one-day  or half-day meeting as a report back session,  where progress and obstacles are reviewed and further interventions discussed.  

6. Although OATUU expressed concerns about the potentially negative impact on the quality of the activities, the timely submission of reports and the monitoring and follow-up of the post activity exercises, in the opinion of the evaluator, the use of external resource persons in the training programmes could be reduced. 

7. The Tanzanian system of performance indicators and the methods of work of the OHSE national coordinating committee could be usefully shared with the current project partners and unions asked to consider ways of developing similar monitoring systems.

8. The GAWU/GTUC campaign for the ratification of C. 184 on safety and health in agriculture is a case study which could be written up and shared with the current project partners as well.

10. There is a sufficient stock of general OHSE manuals available for use although there may be a need to reprint existing manuals.

11. Consideration should be given to developing a project wide ratification campaign for ILO Convention 155 which could potentially be extended to other African countries. 

12. While women’s participation rates in the training programmes have met the project goals, the project could benefit from closer coordination with the departments responsible for gender within OATUU and at national level. 

13. Consideration should be given to setting up a coordination mechanism on OHSE involving SSOs, global unions and national centres, at least in East Africa, similar to that which exists for HIV and AIDS work.  Another option might be to broaden the agenda of the existing mechanism.

Comments from the organisation, if any: