Tackling the Root Causes of Child Labor: Insights from the Child Labor Free Zone Program in West Nile, Uganda
Between 2014 and 2020 a consortium of organizations, including Rainforest Alliance, implemented a “Child Labor Free Zone” (CLFZ) program in the West Nile province of Uganda. This is a coffee growing region with a high incidence of child work and child labor. CLFZ uses a holistic approach on child labor and child work in addressing some of the root causes of child labor (e.g. poverty, lack of formal education opportunities; etc). It does so by actively engaging with families, communities, local authorities and the school system. The Evaluation & Learnings Brief summarizes the learnings from an external evaluation of the CLFZ-program in West-Nile, which were compared to two less comprehensive approaches to combat child labor. The evaluation assessed the relative merits of each approach, as well as their costs. It concludes with recommendations for producers, local authorities, donors and companies who seek effective solutions to address child labor in their supply chains, communities or jurisdictions. More detailed findings and methodological details can be found in the Evaluation Report.
