A strong civil society, respect for human rights and the rule of law, as well as good governance structures are all key features of stable and successful democratic societies. In many developing countries, however, the role of civil society actors, such as non-governmental bodies, becomes even more important in the context of a weaker private and government sector. The upside of this is that the opportunity for well managed NGOs to make a positive contribution to their society is even greater. New Frontier Services has undertaken numerous consulting engagements in the development and evaluation of various aspects of the social sector and social economy, as well as human rights and the civil society sector.
Examples of our recent work
New Frontier Services, in partnership with EPRD & NTU, conducted the feasibility study on strengthening social dialogue in the EU’s development cooperation. The study involved stocktaking/mapping exercise, a one day workshop, and an analysis of methods to strengthen social dialogue in developing countries.
New Frontier Services provided a 4-person consultant team to undertake a series of detailed monitoring reviews of 16 Development Co-operation Projects in the Education and Schools Sector, using the EC’s ROM-based (results-oriented monitoring) monitoring system. The monitoring work involved fieldwork in 13 countries as well as telephone interviews in Brazil, Czech Republic and Austria. A Team Leader was responsible for overseeing the desk research work, visit programme logistics and fieldwork, and reporting to the client. The team leader also undertook monitoring field work in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. The projects involved activities across a variety of sectors, including education activities in secondary schools, schools’ twinning, NGO and Government capacity building, awareness raising of Development Co-operation issues, Decent work and workers’ rights, Immigration, North-South trade dialogue, Agriculture, Cultural Heritage Protection, Sexual and Reproductive Health.
New Frontier Services provided a 4-person team to undertake a number of services for the EIDHR initiative. One work component was to review existing EIDHR evaluations and design an evaluation approach to achieve some insight into the impact that the project was having and provided a programme-level view of the approach. A second and major component was the development of a compendium of more than 2,500 EIDHR projects financed since 2000 and the third component involved the development of new communication tools.
The work assessing the research work on Social Enterprises contribution and activity in a wide variety of development roles, including providing local social area services to marginalised groups (e.g. minority and ethnic groups) and vulnerable groups (e.g. elderly, disabled), agricultural sector co-operatives, advocacy groups etc. A number of examples of good practice identified showed Social Enterprises as an important vehicle for provision of local services, economic development and reducing social and economic marginalisation of vulnerable groups. This work included looking at experience in SEs in areas such as providing support services to displaced persons, migrant groups, disabled groups and adults and children in other vulnerable sectors such as in the informal economy.
NFS undertook the Final Evaluation of the ILO-IPEC Project on Combating Worst Forms of Child Labour (WFCL) in Francophone Africa. The project involved stakeholder interviews, regional fieldwork in Senegal and Burkina Faso and facilitating a stakeholders' workshop, as well as managing the team of 9 consultants working across the 9 African countries participating in this regional project – Benin, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, and Togo.
NFS undertook the Final Evaluation of the ILO-IPEC Project on Combating Worst Forms of Child Labour (WFCL) in Central and Eastern Europe. The project involved stakeholder interviews, regional fieldwork and facilitating stakeholders' workshops, as well as managing the team of 5 consultants working across the 5 countries participating in this regional project – Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Moldova, and Kosovo.
NFS undertook the Final Evaluation of the ILO-IPEC Project of Support to Turkey Time Bound Policy and Programme Framework on Child Labour. The current (PoS) to Turkey’s Time Bound Policy and Programme Framework (TBPPF) on Child Labour is a direct result of the Turkish Government’s adoption of a National Time-Bound Policy and Programme Framework (TBPPF). The main aim of the TBPPF, which runs from 2004-2015, was to create the opportunity for a convergence of efforts through the generation of a coherent and participatory policy for the elimination of child labour. Turkish government commitments led ILO-IPEC to obtain funding from USDOL and the German Government to facilitate the implementation of the national TBPPF through a Project of Support (PoS), which was developed in accordance with the TBPPF and Turkey’s 8th Five-Year Development Plan. The final evaluation involved stakeholder interviews, regional fieldwork and facilitating stakeholders' workshops as well as focus groups.
This project was a global 11-country project supporting selected sub-Saharan Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries in the African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) region at various stages of national efforts to eliminate child labour through education and related interventions. The overall objective of the project was to contribute towards poverty reduction in the least developed countries by providing equitable access to basic education and skills development to the most disadvantaged section of the society. The project purpose was to strengthen capacity of the national and local ACP authorities in the formulation, implementation and enforcement of policies to fight child labour in coordination with social partners and civil society.
