LAC labor strategy development -- AIFLD evaluation : final report

AIFLD is and will remain the principal U.S. instrument for strengthening Labor in Latin America and the Caribbean. AIFLD"s education and training programs, conducted both in-country and at the George Meany Center in the Washington area, have been highly successful. AIFLD has done a good job of refocusing its curricula on the new problems facing labor today, problems that arise both from the need for economic restructuring and from the advent and rapid spread of the global marketplace. These education and training activities, which comprise the great bulk of AIFLD"s A.I.D.-financed activities should continue and should be extended, as possible, to many democratically oriented groups that do not now profit from them. AIFLD"s activities, however, can profit from some tightening up. Two ancillary programs -- agrarian union development and social projects -- are of relatively lower pay-off than its core education and training programs and should be phased out; the union-to-union program also needs reviewing. Programming should be tightened by requiring clearer and more precise statements of objectives and indicators. Outside professional guidance should be sought to improve the management of its training programs and to bring the field and Meany Center programs into closer concordance. Also, AIFLD continues to lag in its efforts to convince Latin American and Caribbean labor leaders of the value of bringing more women into high-level positions in their federations and confederations. (AIFLD should examine its own hiring and promotional practices in this regard.) A.I.D."s management of the AIFLD program has been deficient. While the A.I.D./W personnel in charge of managing this program admit to having no real country-by-country knowledge, A.I.D. field personnel never see either the program submissions of the AIFLD Country Program Directors or the final program document as approved. Monitoring responsibility is unclear. Washington looks to the field to monitor AIFLD programs but the Missions deny they have that responsibility. (The program has been in existence for 30 years.) Specific steps are recommended in this report to get A.I.D. management back on track. A.I.D. personnel in the field who would be in charge of carrying out the expanded labor program recommended in this study have little knowledge of labor as either a productive force in the economy or a societal force of potentially great value as an ally in programs to strengthen democracy and encourage economic growth. A training program is recommended. (Author abstract, modified)