Tracer Study on Longer Term Impacts of ILO/IPEC Intervention Programs in Fishing Sector

12/1/2009 12:00:00 AM

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In October 2003, ILO/IPEC initiated the development of a tracer methodology to measure Longer Term Impacts of its Action Programs on child beneficiaries and their families. The main objective was to determine the changes in the lives of the program beneficiaries on the whole. It should be kept in mind that the tracer study was not intended to assess the ILO/IPEC’s Action Programs, but it was geared to capture the changes of the program beneficiaries that had been part of the programs in terms of several impact areas. The impacts might not necessarily come from the programs they had participated in, as there had been many external factors that played roles in the lives of the program beneficiaries after the program period. The developed methodology was tested in five alternative IPEC project contexts, one of which was Indonesia. The pilot study in Indonesia focused on the ILO/IPEC’s Jermal Fishing Programs that had been initiated and implemented in December 1999 in the five regencies in North Sumatera i.e. Langkat, Deli Serdang, Simalungun, Asahan, and Labuhan Batu.

The tracer methodology was developed by a team comprising the Center for Poverty Analysis (CEPA) in Sri Lanka acting as the Technical Consultant, the Technical Support Officer for the project based at ILO/IPEC Geneva, and a Technical Advisor. The Center for Societal Development Studies of Atma Jaya Catholic University was selected as the national tracer study partner in Indonesia. The center was responsible in implementing and applying the pilot stage of the methodology in these five regencies. This piloting study aimed at the following objectives: (1) to measure longer term impacts on children and their families of ILO/IPEC’s interventions, and (2) to test the developed tracer methodology in the five selected pilot sites. The following is the general tasks performed by CSDS as the national tracer study partner:

• Customize the four survey instruments and the FGD protocols developed by CEPA, and translated into the local language.

• Develop sampling frame on a basis of sampling guidelines made by CEPA.

• Contact the implementing agencies of the programs as well as the ILO/IPEC Provincial Office to obtain the databases of the selected programs from which the sampling frame was developed.

• Recruit and train the field enumerators on how to trace the program beneficiaries and to use the survey instruments in the pilot site.

• Supervise the tracing and enumeration in the pilot site.

• Analyze the data collected from the survey as well as from the FGD, and document the findings using the report guidelines developed by CEPA.

• Document lessons learnt from the implementation of the piloting methodology, and provide any improvements and/or changes to the piloting methodology as well as its instruments.

The tracer study was implemented from the third week of January to the second week of February 2004 after a three-day orientation training for the field enumerators in Medan.