Systemic Action Research to tackle child labour in Bangladesh and Nepal
Child Labour Action Research and Innovation in South and Southeast Asia (CLARISSA) was an action research and innovation programme funded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) focusing on the drivers of the worst forms of child labour in Nepal and Bangladesh. The total project budget was just over £9 million and it was implemented over 5.5 years from 2019-2024.
It was implemented by a consortium of INGO partners (Consortium for Street Children, ChildHope and Terres Des Hommes, Lausanne) led by the Institute of Development Studies.
The issue of the worst forms of child labour is an example of a complex or ‘intractable’ development challenge, with numerous interlinked causes, which vary from one context to another. An intervention which can reduce worst forms of child labour in one context may not be effective in another. In general, interventions designed to reduce or eliminate the worst forms of child labour globally have proved limited, and the challenge remains hard to tackle effectively and sustainably.
The aim of the programme was to tackle the drivers of the worst forms of child labour and aiming to shift the underlying dynamics of the system that perpetuate exploitation of children. The programme differed in this way from others by focusing on changing the system as a whole, instead of focusing on individually-focused child protection and solutions and eliminating all forms of child labour.
CLARISSA set out to build a much-needed evidence base and test how a participatory, child-centred, learning- and action-oriented, whole systems approach (Systemic Action Research) could generate new and innovative, child- and people-driven solutions to the problem of worst forms of child labour. In line with the principles of Participatory Action Research, the decision to work with informal business owners was one important and novel aspect of the programme, as it reframed these actors as potential change agents, and not just as perpetrators.
What happened
CLARISSA was designed to centre two key system actors: children, and owners of informal businesses who are employing children.
The Systemic Action Research process started with the collection of 400 life stories from children,100 of which were collected by children themselves who were trained in the life story collection approach (find out more about the life story collection process in Nepal and Bangladesh).
Then, a causal analysis of the stories was implemented by 65 children in Nepal (20 who had been involved in the story collection) and 53 in Bangladesh (16 who had been involved in the story collection). Collective analysis workshops created system maps containing the causal factors that contributed to the child ending up in the worst forms of child labour. You can find out more about the casual analysis process in this video:
Children then choose the causal dynamics that they thought were most important to address. These prioritised causal dynamics in turn formed the starting theme of children’s Participatory Action Research (PAR) groups that were organised by CLARISSA. The starting ‘theme’ for each group was based on a causal dynamic in the system, rather than single issues (for example, family drug addiction that forces children into the worst forms of child labour). The participants in the PAR groups were largely different from those who participated in the systemic analysis.
The team also undertook participatory journey mapping with working children, where researchers shadowed children during their day and together they mapped and analysed their journeys from home to work and back. This process highlighted specific neighbourhood dynamics that perpetuate the worst forms of child labour. These surfaced dynamics were then the starting point for additional PAR groups.
Further systemic analysis was completed within the group around their issue by:
- group members collecting and analysing further data within their community/peers;
- revisiting the small or big system maps created by their peers in the causal analysis or undertaking their own systemic analysis on a subset of stories;
- sharing their experiential knowledge related to this systemic analysis within the PAR group; and
- building their own theory of change.
Doing their own evidence gathering allowed them to become aware of power dynamics that perpetuate the specific issues they were tackling and made them aware and empathetic towards others in their neighbourhood who were facing these issues.
In addition to the children’s PAR groups mentioned above, CLARISSA also facilitated PAR groups with business owners who employ children. These groups worked largely in parallel to each other, addressing different parts of the system. Towards the end of the programme there were moments where these groups came together and developed joint actions, which contributed to shifting some system dynamics – including changing relationships between children who work and business owners who employ children.
CLARISSA actively employed an adaptive approach to programming – find out more in the video below:
Findings and new knowledge
The large system maps provided a visual overview of all the factors that play a role in how children end up and stay in the worst forms of child labour. For the children involved in this process, seeing their own situation reflected as part of this bigger system was a powerful experience that helped them to understand the dynamics at play, that they are not alone in their situation and that they are not individually to blame for the situation that they are in.
For the children involved, it was powerful to hear stories from their peers and understand their experience of oppression as shared with others. For the NGO staff involved, it changed their mindset on the ability of children to be able to undertake nuanced causal analysis to stimulate action. Participating in the PAR groups allowed the children and business owners to build relationships and a collective identity, which meant they felt like a cohesive group that is working together towards a common goal. This was an essential change for them to develop actions to improve their situation
The evidence generated by CLARISSA contributed to a new understanding of what drives children into the worst form of child labour in Kathmandu and Dhaka, and how it could be tackled. The evidence was also used to influence policy at local and national government levels. More generally, it also adds to the existing evidence base and learning around the value of a Systemic Action Research approach in diverse contexts.
You can explore stories from children that were collected during the CLARISSA programme on the Hard Labour website.
Importantly, CLARISSA showed that, even when working at scale, using Systemic Action Research can support deep participation, help build a strong sense of collective ownership and agency among participants, and identify different and new understandings and ways of addressing a longstanding problem such as worst forms of child labour.
Furthermore, not only did CLARISSA demonstrate that the approach brought very real benefits to children, their families and communities, but also how it is possible to shift power to participants, where they take the lead in finding their own solutions to the challenges which affect them.
CLARISSA was also able to rigorously test a number of programme approaches which can support Systemic Action Research at scale, including using ‘Participatory Adaptive Management’ whereby programme planning is adjusted based on evidence and learning in real time; and how to work effectively with diverse partners as a consortium. From these learnings, CLARISSA has produced a practitioner learning guide on facilitating deep participation for systemic change.
Lessons
The lessons from Systemic Action Research in CLARISSA are numerous (and documented in section 3 of the practitioner learning guide) but include following:
- CLARISSA was developed with the mindset that children and other adults are capable individuals with important expertise based on their lived experience, who can generate and analyse robust and rich evidence with the right support from facilitators. At the outset, there were team members within partner organisations who had reservations and doubts regarding the feasibility of this approach, especially given the scale that CLARISSA proposed to work at, with hundreds of life stories being collected in each country.
- Children and adults can develop their own Theories of Change based on participatory systems mapping and other evidence. The systemic ‘big picture’ view helped children identify which causal factors they wanted to focus on, or change, and what actions they could try in order to achieve this.
- The children’s research brought a new level of understanding to children of some issues which had been normalised. This new understanding was considered meaningful by the children.
- Systemic Action Research brought benefits at different levels. A core aspect of CLARISSA was the intentional creation of space: most of the working children and business owners had extremely busy lives with limited time and space for them to meet with other children, for instance to chat with their friends about their problems or connect with each other in other ways.
- Facilitators had to strike a balance between supporting the children when needed, but also allowing the process to be led by the children. For instance, the children from the ‘family relations’ Action Research group decided to organise workshops with their family members to initiate a dialogue between themselves and various key family members. However, the children also realised that they needed the help of the facilitators as they felt that their parents “did not take us seriously” so enlisted the facilitators to help. Likewise, the informal business owners enlisted the support of CLARISSA facilitators to help them link with bigger formal factories.
Ethical considerations were paramount, given the sensitive nature and high levels of exploitation experienced by many participants. Often in child protection programming, and in contradiction to what is considered best practice, safeguarding can become a force that restricts facilitators in how they work with participatory processes. The punitive culture around safeguarding procedures within the sector (the result of serious transgressions by aid staff) can pose a barrier to any form of risk taking. Yet risk is understood to be an inherent part of any Action Research process that engages with marginalised people who are experiencing injustice. In response to this challenge the programme built a collective approach to ensuring wellbeing where support was required, and embedding risk assessments and mitigation strategies in the participatory processes themselves. In both countries, safeguarding leads were employed who worked closely with the PAR group facilitators to plan how to embed risk assessment and mitigation strategies. For each PAR group, facilitators, safeguarding leads and participants together discussed the types of risks associated with the process, identifying where harm might occur in ways that were unacceptable and where acceptable levels of risk could be mitigated. This is an example of how ethics and safeguarding need to work together in such participatory programming.
Perhaps the biggest challenges face were the Covid-19 pandemic, funding cuts by the funder, and a coup in Myanmar. The programme’s approach to adaptive management helped to adapt and navigate these tensions, but, inevitably the programme processes didn’t run for as long as we had originally envisaged. This meant that some PAR groups were left with a sense of unrealised potential. There is an important lesson here for the development sector as a whole, as participatory processes take time to go into depth and mature. So even with a programme as large as CLARISSA, unusually large in a sector driven by an impact agenda that favours quick, superficial wins over deeper, slower trajectories of change, more time might have allowed even greater depth, breadth and longevity of results.
