The purpose for the award is to support regional, national, and local action to address child labor in west african AGRICULTURE using a systems-based approach

The Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs awarded $8 million to the International Labor Organization under the International Labor Programs (CFDA 17.401) cooperative agreement to support regional, national, and local action addressing child labor in West African agriculture from December 2022 through December 2026. The project will build capacity and strengthen systems across five key areas in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region to reduce child labor, with a focus on the agricultural sector in Nigeria.

Specifically, the International Labor Organization will work to increase ECOWAS' capacity to implement its Regional Action Plan on child labor elimination through advocacy, member state support, and monitoring. It will also mobilize ECOWAS members to strengthen national legislation and enforcement, develop community action plans, and increase access to social protections for at-risk populations in target communities. Intended beneficiaries include vulnerable children engaged in or at risk of child labor across West Africa, as well as poor households and cocoa communities in Ondo State, Nigeria. No sub-awards are included in the project.

Activities performed the project activities will cover three levels - regional, national, and local - across five key areas where systems are weak relative to what is needed to address the CHALLENGE2F3, and where there is evidence to support a link with child labor reduction: resource mobilization, sector-specific interventions (AGRICULTURE), social protection systems, occupational safety and health (OSH), and monitoring and evaluation. Project activities will build or strengthen existing systems in these identified areas. Deliverables the project-level objective is to improve action by the ecowas commission and ecowas member states to combat child labor, with a focus on AGRICULTURE. The project will have two outcomes and several sub-outcomes and outputs as follows: • outcome 1: increased capacity of ecowas to implement the ecowas regional action plan to eliminate child labor. The outputs under this outcome are capacity increases for ecowas in the areas of: resource mobilization and advocacy to promote RAP implementation; support for member states to implement the RAP in the agricultural sector; and coordination, monitoring and evaluation of RAP implementation. • outcome 2: increased mobilization of ecowas member states to implement national action plans to eliminate child labor. This outcome is divided into three sub-outcomes focused on improving the legislative, policy and enforcement environment for action on child labor; increasing action by communities to develop and implement caps; and increasing access to social protection. Outputs include the implementation of an advocacy strategy; the development and enactment of the hazardous work list; capacity increases for labor inspection, agricultural, OSH, social protection institutions; the establishment and training of cap committees and the development and implementation of caps; the strengthening of local child labor monitoring systems; and the implementation of appropriate mechanisms to increase access to social protection institutions for at-risk populations. Intended beneficiary the beneficiaries of the project are primarily vulnerable children in nigeria and across west africa (who are engaged in or at risk of child labor), and poor households and cocoa communities in ondo state who will benefit from the community-level interventions as well as the strategies adopted to implement the RAP and the NAP. Subrecipient activities no sub-awards are proposed for this project.