Good practices and lessons learned

As the major international, global programme on child labour, IPEC identifies, documents and disseminates knowledge on what is shown to be effective in action on child labour and what could possibly be replicated as good practices.

Good Practices are organised by subject, theme or other categorisation. Much of the information can therefore be found under these headings on the IPEC web site.

All IPEC projects include elements of identifying good practices and many of the project web sites therefore contain information on good practices.

What are good practices?

  • Patterns of positive experiences from a variety of similar interventions and programmes on action against specific types of child labour
  • Identified and documented through a consistent but practical methodology as appropriate for variety of situations in which good practices emerge
  • Relative and not necessarily comparable or the “best”, since socio-cultural factors, the stage of programme development, resource availability and other specific elements will determine the degree of relevance of a good practice to a particular situation
  • Constantly changing with socio-economic changes at the local and international level and need continual updating as new lessons are learned and new data become available
  • Used for analysis and design of policy and programme interventions in specific situations, and for developing programme models or models of intervention that can be adapted to such situations
  • Disseminated through compendiums of good practices in thematic areas, and through databases accessible on the web

What are lessons learned?

  • Identified lessons learned are a key outcome of evaluations as well as other initiatives with an evaluative or reflective perspective.
  • Lessons learned are a key input to knowledge building based on what does and doesn not work. Technical experts in IPEC and outside will use lessons learned for strategic development and models of interventions
  • Lessons learned are a key input to Good Practices which is often a concise way to present specific information in the knowledge base
  • IPEC maintains a database of lessons learned organised by type of child labour, subject, type of intervention and by step in the project cycle
  • On a regular basis IPEC produces a compendium of lessons learned within specific