Evaluation Report: Achieving Decent Work Through Economic Literacy in Africa

Background:
The trade union training programme “Achieving Decent Work through Economic Literacy in Africa” has been in operation since 2010. The overall purpose of the project is to assist trade unions, both national federations and affiliates, in developing their management and policy-building capacities in the four strategic areas of decent work.

Purpose/objective:
The core aim of the Evaluative Research study was to provide an in-depth evidencebased and outcome assessment on the impact of the LO-Norway Project on building capacities amongst Trade Unions to ensure they effectively articulate and influence promotion and implementation of the core goals of the Decent Work Agenda in Africa.

The specific objectives were two-fold; i) to examine and assess project achievements through the variables of relevance, efficiency, progress/results, sustainability, training, external impact, gender and governance, and ii) based on this, examine and assess the current modality of support on the decent work agenda and provide recommendations for future cooperation and partnership in the region.

Methodology:
An outcome based positive assurance methodology has largely been used in the evaluation. A desk review was conducted, and various key informants from the project areas were interviewed. These included union leadership, affiliate leaders, educators/trainers, employers, Government and selected civil society members.

Key findings:
In terms of building capacity at regional level, there is adequate evidence to suggest the full involvement of SATUCC in the drafting processes of the SADC Employment and Labour Sector (ELS) policy instruments such as the Employment and Labour Protocol (ELP) and the regional level Decent Work Program.

There is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that there has been noteworthy progress to assimilate decent work and economic literacy in routine trade union education programmes in the region such as programmes delivered by ZiCTU, COTU and OTM.

Three out of seven programs managed to finalize the simplified versions of workers training manuals on economic literacy based on the Sourcebook on Economic Literacy for Trade Unions in Africa.

All programmes successfully conducted awareness raising/training workshops for union leadership.

On policy development on macroeconomics and political leadership on economic and social policy, progress has stagnated for all project countries with the exception of Zimbabwe and Kenya. Almost all projects with the exception of Swaziland and Malawi have now institutionalized socio-economic activities by setting up a relevant department.

With the exception of Malawi, the rest of the stakeholders in the region agree the union leadership has significantly improved in articulation on socio-economic agendas in the national tripartite negotiations. However, they believe it is a combination of so many factors in addition to the project capacity building such as change of leadership.

Recommendations:
On the basis of the analysis, the evaluator recommends for a continuation of the project. At both regional and country levels, there has been a noteworthy move to integrate decent work and economic literacy in routine trade union education programmes. A recommendation is that this element be one of the priority areas to be maintained in the next project phase.

ZiCTU amongst all other implementers in this project has demonstrated capacity to deliver. Hence a recommendation is that the organisation be treated as a “mentor” for the other projects who are struggling such as Malawi, Swaziland and Mozambique. This should include use of the research arm of the federation, LEDRIZ for information sharing.

There is generally a disjoint of activity plans for national federations and those of the project. It is a recommendation that there should be a proper synchronization of the annual planned activities of the national federations and those of this project to allow for smooth implementation and integration of the joint delivery of the common objectives. This has also been proliferated by late remittances of funds from LO-Norway.

Comments from the organisation, if any:
LO-Norway does not feel the evaluation report adequately reflects the experiences with the programme. LO-Norway has decided to phase out the project from 31 Dec 2014, and will instead provide this support through the capacity-building and training projects with each organisation.