Independent evaluation of the ILO's Decent Work Country Programme for India: 2007-2012 (Vol. 1: Main Report)

This evaluation, consisting of a desk review, independent evaluation mission, key stakeholder consultations and interviews, was conducted from December 2011 to April 2012. The independent evaluation assesses the performance of the ILO’s activities in India, provides accountability to the ILO Governing Body, and highlights the lessons learnt about factors affecting the ILO’s performance and development impact.

This evaluaiton was guided by six core questions, addressing the relevance of the ILO’s programme of support to the development challenges and decent work priorities of the Indian Government; coherence between the definition of a programmatic focus, the integration across ILO instruments in support of programme objectives, and coordination with other development actors; efficiency, measured in terms of administrative costs and timeliness of execution; the effectiveness of interventions and the programme as a whole; the sustainability of programme and project achievements, and the impact of the results. While the Office has contributed to promoting the Decent Work Agenda both in the formal and informal sectors of the economy, it has also served as a ‘demonstrator’ of how to design, implement, supervise, and monitor programmes and policies in a systematic manner. Satisfactory results have been achieved, especially with regard to promoting livelihoods, the elimination of child labour, reducing the vulnerabilities of bonded labourers, and empowering women and informal economy workers by formalizing informal workers’ groups and enabling access to government schemes, as well as developing employment generation agendas at the grassroots and national policy level. There is also evidence of policy impact, for example, in supporting the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MOLE) draft policies such as the skills development policy, the national HIV/AIDS at the work place policy and the national employment policy in a participatory and tripartite manner.