La Strada Documentation Center

Human Trafficking - Monitoring and Evaluation of International Projects Are Limited, but Experts Suggest Improvements

Document number
1535
Date
2007
Title
Human Trafficking - Monitoring and Evaluation of International Projects Are Limited, but Experts Suggest Improvements
Author/publisher
United States Government Accountability Office (GAO)
Availability
View/save PDF version of this document
Document type(s)
Research/Study/Analysis,
Keywords
Report to Congressional Requesters,
Summary
U.S. government-funded antitrafficking projects often lack some important elements that allow projects to be monitored, and little is known about project impact due to difficulties in conducting evaluations. Project documents GAO reviewed generally include monitoring elements, such as an overarching goal and related activities, but often lack other monitoring elements, such as targets for measuring performance. To oversee projects, State officials supplement their efforts with assistance from U.S. embassy staff, but have not established written guidance for oversight. Officials said that they are working to improve performance measures and develop monitoring guidance. Conducting impact evaluations of antitrafficking projects is difficult due to several factors, including questionable project-level estimates of the number of trafficking victims. These estimates are needed for baselines by which to evaluate how effectively specific interventions are reducing trafficking. Elements in the design of certain projects, such as objectives that are too broad, further impede evaluation. Because of these difficulties, few impact evaluations have been completed, and little is known about the impact of antitrafficking interventions.
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