External Evaluation 2026 Report Brief

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• Between 2024 and 2025, the Sustainable Enterprises and Economies (SEE) programme delivered a diverse portfolio of training activities operationalising the ILO's sustainable enterprises agenda. As a thematic portfolio within the ITCILO Training Department, the programme supports ILO constituents and other practitioners in translating international policy frameworks and normative principles into practical approaches for promoting sustainable, productive and responsible enterprises.

• The SEE portfolio combines high-volume and largely self-financing activities, normative mandate-driven activities supported by the ILO or development partners, and experimental or market-development activities that test new content and reach new audiences. During the 2024–25 biennium, SEE training activities reached 5,415 participants, excluding self-guided courses, through online, blended and face-to-face learning.

• The programme operationalises this agenda across six thematic streams. Together, these streams cover areas ranging from human rights due diligence, responsible business conduct and sustainable supply chains to cooperatives and the social and solidarity economy, transition from the informal to the formal economy, green business and just transition, and enterprise-level productivity and working conditions. Each stream connects training and capacity development with relevant ILO normative and strategic frameworks:

1. Responsible Business Conduct and Supply Chains: HRDD, ESG integration, just transition in supply chains. Grounded in the MNE Declaration, UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
2. Social and Solidarity Economy: Cooperatives, associations, mutual benefit societies and social enterprises. Grounded in R. 193 on the Promotion of Cooperatives and the 2022 ILC Resolution on SSE.
3. Social Finance: Financial inclusion, impact investment and insurance, financing development, financing decent work. Grounded in the Philadelphia Declaration.
4. Green jobs and Just Transition: Just transition, green jobs, NDCs, green business. Grounded in the Paris Declaration and ILC 111 Resolution on a Just Transition (2023).
5. Enterprises and Productivity: SME development, value chain development, productivity, enterprise formalization. Grounded in R. 189 on Job Creation in SMEs, the 2007 ILC Conclusions on the Promotion of Sustainable Enterprises and R. 204 concerning the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy.
6. Local and rural economic development: LED, rural economic development. Grounded in the Decent Work Agenda, R 122 and R 169.

• The programme’s results logic follows the ITCILO results chain, linking training inputs and outputs to immediate learning, behavioural change and ultimately enterprise-, institutional- or policy-level impact. Its Results-Based Management framework considers technical performance including reach, satisfaction and application of learning, alongside financial performance and governance dimensions such as partnership accountability and operationalisation of the ILO normative mandate.

• Against this background, the external evaluation examined SEE training activities delivered during 2024 and 2025, covering all thematic streams and the programme’s online, blended and face-to-face modalities. Its purpose was both accountability and learning: to provide the ITCILO Board and the ILO with evidence on results achieved, while generating lessons to strengthen future SEE activity design and inform the Centre’s 2026–27 Programme and Budget planning. Non-training activities were outside the scope of the evaluation.

The evaluation applied a mixed-methods approach, integrating quantitative and qualitative evidence structured along the ISO 29993:2017(E) standard for learning services outside formal education and the Plan–Do–Check–Act (PDCA) quality management cycle used by the Centre. It also drew on the principles and good practices of ISO 19011:2018 Guidelines for Auditing Management Systems, providing a globally benchmarked reference system to enhance the reliability and comparability of findings.

• The evidence base comprised a purposive sample of 20 training activities, selected to provide diversity across thematic areas, delivery modalities, regions, languages, activity categories and certification types. Together, these activities accounted for 2,429 participants, representing 44.9% of SEE participants during the biennium, excluding self-guided courses. 

• Each sampled training activity was analysed using the Centre’s standard results chain model, tracing results from inputs and outputs through out-takes (interim outcomes), outcomes and longer-term impact. This enabled the evaluation to examine not only the immediate learning experience, but also emerging and sustained changes resulting from training. 

• The evaluation assessed programme performance against eight assessment criteria: the six OECD-DAC criteria — relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability — complemented by validity of training design and effectiveness of management arrangements. These were operationalised through 16 evaluation questions covering the programme’s design, delivery, results and management. 

• The evaluation assessed the meaningfulness and quality of the learning experience using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework. Particularly suited to a portfolio spanning online, blended and face-to-face learning, the framework examines the interaction between Teaching Presence, Cognitive Presence and Social Presence and was incorporated into the survey and interview instruments. 

• Evidence was collected through desk research, 12 semi-structured key informant interviews, an online alumni survey with 307 valid responses, five focus group discussions involving 24 former participants, and five case studies documenting good practice and tangible change. The Centre’s standard end-of-activity satisfaction data provided an additional evidence source covering 771 participant responses.  

• Evidence underwent a structured triangulation process at three levels: source triangulation, comparing perspectives across different stakeholder groups; method triangulation, comparing findings from desk research, interviews, surveys and focus groups; and framework triangulation, examining evidence through the PDCA cycle, the results chain and the CoI framework. Comparative analysis was also undertaken across SEE thematic streams and the three principal delivery modalities. 

• The evaluation followed a four-phase PDCA process. The Plan phase established the evaluation questions, instruments and quality assurance approach; Do covered evidence collection; Check involved triangulation, results-chain analysis and assessment against the analytical frameworks; and Act translated the evidence into findings, good practices, areas for improvement and recommendations. 

• Limitations were explicitly considered in interpreting the evidence. The activity and survey samples were purposive rather than proportionate, outcomes were largely self-reported and cross-sectional, and some regions and language groups were less represented in the survey and focus groups. As the evaluation was conducted in mid-2026 for activities delivered in 2024–25, the evidence primarily captures early-trajectory outcomes rather than mature long-term impact. Triangulation across sources and methods, systematic data-quality checks and validation against the evaluation matrix were used to mitigate these limitations.

EQ1: How well did the activity operationalise the 2022–25 Strategic Plan and 2024–25 Programme and Budget of the Centre, and the higher-level ILO 2022–25 Strategic Framework?

• The SEE programme demonstrates strong alignment with the ILO’s normative and strategic framework. Its thematic streams are anchored in relevant ILO instruments and commitments, including the 2007 ILC Conclusions on the Promotion of Sustainable Enterprises, the 2022 ILC Resolution concerning Decent Work and the Social and Solidarity Economy, Recommendation No. 204 on the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy, the ILO MNE Declaration and the ILO Guidelines for a Just Transition. The evaluation confirmed that these linkages are reflected at design level in course prospectuses, session plans and learning objectives.

• This normative alignment is reinforced at the institutional level. The ITCILO Strategic Plan 2022–25 identifies sustainable enterprises and decent work among the Centre’s priority thematic areas, while the 2024–25 Programme and Budget provides dedicated budget lines for SEE's thematic streams. The portfolio therefore shows a clear connection between ILO normative priorities, the Centre’s strategic direction and the training activities delivered.

• Relevance is equally strong from the participants’ perspective. The survey item “The course was relevant to my professional needs” received an average rating of 4.56/5, with responses tightly concentrated at the positive end of the scale. This indicates not only a high average score, but strong agreement among respondents that the training addressed needs relevant to their professional roles.

• Evidence from institutional client interviews and participants’ open-text responses reinforces this finding. Participants consistently described the training as helping them translate international frameworks and principles into approaches they could use in their own professional contexts. Several reported encountering concepts they already knew in principle but seeing them presented in an operational and practically applicable way for the first time.

• The evaluation therefore found that SEE training succeeded in making ILO normative frameworks usable in practice. A more specific opportunity concerns the visibility of the normative source itself: explicit signposting of the relevant ILO instruments is not equally consistent across activities. Participants may consequently understand and apply the substance of an instrument without necessarily being able to identify it by name. The evaluation considers this principally an issue of normative visibility rather than learning quality.

EQ2: To what extent does the activity serve the ILO mandate and the needs of the ILO core constituents?

• The SEE programme’s thematic streams each address a dimension of the ILO mandate in the context of sustainable enterprises. The tripartite constituency is served across all streams.

• Linkage between SEE training activities and ILO field operations is most fully documented where technical cooperation projects create a formal co-design and co-funding relationship.

• Open activities are anchored to the same normative instruments through their curricula and are directly responsive to constituent demand. Their linkage to the ILO’s operational agenda runs through content and constituency rather than through project documentation.

• Cross-cutting themes such as gender equality, International Labour Standards, and Social Dialogue and Tripartism are integrated across the portfolio, although their visibility varies by activity. The evaluation also notes that administrative marker values do not always fully reflect the cross-cutting content delivered in training.

• The programme reaches a broad and diverse constituency, with particularly strong participation from government and public administration and substantial engagement with enterprises. Representative employers’ and workers’ organisations are also part of the participant base, with opportunities to further strengthen their engagement through existing ILO constituent channels.

EQ3: Does the result of training imply that the design of activities was logical and realistic?

EQ4: Did the end-of-activity (and follow-up) evaluation effectively measure results and progress?

• Instructional design quality was assessed primarily through the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, applied across all three dimensions: Teaching Presence, Cognitive Presence and Social Presence. All dimensions were rated positively, with only small differences between them, confirming that the design of SEE activities generates strong facilitated learning and strong critical engagement.

• The participant findings were reinforced by a systematic review of the design and materials of the 20 sampled activities, covering learning objectives, assessment, learner support, feedback, collaborative learning and opportunities for exchange.  

• The evaluation identified opportunities to further strengthen design through more systematic learning-needs assessment at the design stage and more consistent integration and briefing of high-profile guest speakers within the wider learning sequence. 

• Credential design is well structured, with the Centre’s Three-Tier Training Certification Framework providing differentiated pathways according to the type and purpose of training.

• End-of-activity evaluation is systematically implemented and provides consistent evidence on participant experience and early learning results. The evaluation identifies an opportunity to complement this with a lightweight follow-up mechanism to capture application and longer-term results after training.

• Cognitive presence is strong, confirming that participants actively engage with course content and construct meaning from their learning experience. 

• Course design performs particularly well in providing clear learning objectives and schedules, aligning workload with learning objectives, and supporting participants to monitor their learning progress. Assessment methods are also generally well aligned with learning objectives. 

• An opportunity remains to make additional resources and further learning opportunities more consistently available across activities, as current practice varies considerably between courses. 

• Knowledge assessment provides strong evidence of learning where both pre- and post-tests are available, while coverage is more systematic for open courses than tailor-made activities, reflecting the different institutional requirements for the two course types. 

• Teaching presence emerged as the strongest Community of Inquiry dimension. Facilitators are consistently highly rated for guiding instruction, structuring sessions and maintaining participant engagement. 

• The course review confirms strong synchronous interaction and learner support, with live seminars, webinars or face-to-face sessions widely incorporated into course design and good support provided for accessing learning resources. 

• Structured tutor feedback is well embedded, particularly in certification and Training of Trainers programmes, where feedback on participants’ practice forms an integral part of the methodology. 

• Blended integration offers an area for further design attention, particularly in ensuring a seamless connection between online and face-to-face components.

• Social presence is positive overall, with collaborative learning incorporated into most activities through group exercises, case studies, group assignments, micro-teaching and facilitated discussions.  

• Compared with cognitive and teaching presence, peer interaction offers the greatest opportunity for further enhancement, particularly by creating more structured opportunities for informal exchange and interaction in online courses. 

• Informal exchange is particularly effective through face-to-face networking and communities of practice, while the evaluation points to scope for making online peer-exchange channels more active and purposeful.

EQ5: What results have been achieved by learners? Which gaps remain?

EQ6: To what extent have the activities strengthened the capacity of ILO constituents?

EQ7: What evidence exists of tangible and non-tangible changes resulting from the activities?

EQ8: Are there differential results across groups (gender, region, constituent type, modality)?

• Results are strong at the individual level across all thematic streams. Participants report high professional relevance, effective translation of theory into practice and particularly strong motivation to further develop and apply their competencies. 

• Competency gains translate into changes in professional practice: almost all respondents reported some improvement in their competencies, while 88% said the training had influenced their practice or policy work, with more than half describing that influence as significant.  

• Application is strongest in participants’ own daily work and becomes progressively more difficult at organisational, enterprise and policy levels, where results depend increasingly on mandate, resources, timing and other conditions beyond the training itself.

Strengthening constituent capacity

• Evidence from both the survey and qualitative research shows that training has strengthened participants’ capacity to apply ILO frameworks, tools and methodologies in their professional contexts, including policy development, regulatory guidance, enterprise counselling and training delivery.

• Training-of-Trainers approaches demonstrate a particularly strong multiplier effect, with certified trainers independently delivering SEE methodologies to new beneficiaries without further ITCILO involvement or funding. The evaluation notes that this onward reach is not routinely captured and that the programme’s actual footprint may therefore be larger than its reported reach.

Tangible and non-tangible changes

• The evaluation documents concrete changes in policy and practice, including the integration of responsible business conduct into ministerial policy work, contributions to national action plans and climate-policy processes, the incorporation of ILO principles into supply-chain procurement and supplier agreements, and independent onward delivery of enterprise-development methodologies.

• Participants also report important non-tangible changes, including greater confidence in advocating for workers’ rights, a clearer understanding of how international frameworks connect to their daily work, and new professional relationships and peer networks that continued beyond the training.

Results across participant groups and modalities

• The evaluation found no statistically significant differences in outcomes between women and men across the measures examined, and no systematic differences in reported outcomes by constituent type. Gender equality was also positively perceived as visible in course content.

• Delivery modality mainly affects the interaction experience rather than overall quality: face-to-face learning offers stronger peer connection and social presence, while blended delivery emerges as a preferred future modality. For participants in some regions, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, connectivity remains an access constraint for online participation rather than an issue with the quality of ITCILO provision.

EQ9: Were the roles and responsibilities of Centre officials clearly defined and understood?

EQ10: Were the implementation arrangements effective?

EQ11: Were activities coordinated across technical programmes?

• Roles and responsibilities within SEE teams are clearly defined and generally well understood. The division of labour between Programme Management, Activity Managers and Activity Assistants supports efficient day-to-day delivery and contributes to the strong operational quality reported by participants.

• The SEE programme combines thematic and cross-cutting responsibilities, enabling Activity Managers to contribute both to their thematic portfolio and to Centre-wide functions. The evaluation considers this arrangement appropriate, while noting the need to manage competing demands during intensive delivery periods.

• Implementation systems and infrastructure are well established. The formal PDCA quality cycle provides the overall framework, while eCampus, MAP and internal dashboards support enrolment, participant tracking, learning delivery, assessment and monitoring. The evaluation noted that these systems function as intended.

• Participant feedback and evaluation data are consistently collected and readily available to course teams. The main opportunity is to make the link between this evidence and subsequent course-design decisions more explicit and traceable, rather than to create new data or systems.

• Coordination within the SEE programme is intentionally light-touch, giving individual thematic streams sufficient autonomy to respond to their specific constituencies and normative priorities while operating under a common brand, governance framework and RBM system.

• There is scope to further strengthen cross-programme collaboration and synergies across ITCILO thematic areas, while coordination with ILO field operations is particularly strong where technical cooperation arrangements create formal co-design, co-funding and shared accountability for results.

EQ12: Have the resources invested into the delivery of the activities been used in the most efficient manner?

EQ13: What time and cost efficiency measures could have been introduced without impeding results?

• Overall, the evaluation found that the SEE programme’s delivery model is efficient in its use of both reach and development effort. Across the sampled activities, the portfolio generated a strong contribution to fixed costs, while maintaining a deliberate mix of self-financing, mandate-driven and market-development activities. 

• Online delivery creates significant scale and reach efficiencies, allowing the programme to reach participants across a very wide geographic footprint at a marginal cost that equivalent face-to-face delivery could not match. Standard-fee open activities also help generate income that supports more normative, mandate-driven work. 

• A distinctive efficiency strength is the reuse and adaptation of course content across modalities and contexts. Tailor-made courses are repurposed into open online offers, existing online courses provide the backbone for new tailored activities, and materials are adapted for comparable contexts elsewhere. This enables intensive design and expert-content effort to be spread across several deliveries rather than repeated from scratch. 

• The evaluation notes that this content-reuse practice is currently driven largely by individual initiative rather than a systematic mechanism for capturing and cataloguing reusable materials, suggesting an opportunity to protect and extend an already successful practice. 

• The main qualitative efficiency constraint identified is connectivity rather than cost discipline. Connectivity and technical difficulties affected a minority of participants and were concentrated among particular cohorts, reflecting underlying infrastructure conditions rather than a programme-wide problem with ITCILO’s platform or support arrangements.  

• The implication is therefore not to reduce online delivery, which is what enables much of the programme’s reach, but to design online learning with unreliable connectivity in mind and to further strengthen blended delivery so that it combines the efficiencies of online learning with the interaction participants value in face-to-face settings. 

• The evaluation identified opportunities for further efficiency through reallocation rather than significant new expenditure, notably a lightweight six-month post-training follow-up and a more systematic pre-design needs assessment. It recommended making existing content-reuse practices more visible and systematic.

EQ14: What are the participants’ perceived benefits from the activities, differentiated by groups?

EQ15: What actions might be required for achieving long-term impact?

• The evaluation found strong and demonstrable evidence that SEE training contributes to change beyond the learning activity, while recognising that verified, attributable change sustained over time would require longitudinal tracking. Evidence of change extends across individual practice, enterprises and organisations, policy and systemic processes, and cascade/multiplier effects. 

• Participants’ positive assessment of the training holds up over time: alumni continue to report high satisfaction, willingness to recommend ITCILO and strong intentions to return for further learning one to two years after participation. 

• Evidence is strongest and most widespread at the individual and professional-practice level, where participants report applying acquired knowledge and skills in their work. At enterprise and policy levels, the evaluation documents specific examples of change rather than programme-wide effects. 

• Documented examples include human rights due diligence incorporated into private-sector procurement and supplier contracts, responsible business conduct feeding into ministerial policy papers and national action-plan development, and learning contributing to national climate and just-transition processes. 

• The Training of Trainers cascade emerges as the programme’s strongest impact signal. Certified trainers are independently transferring SEE methodologies to new enterprises and beneficiaries, extending the programme’s effective footprint well beyond those trained directly by ITCILO. 

• Because this onward delivery is not yet systematically captured in programme monitoring, the evaluation concludes that the programme’s actual reach and impact are likely understated in its own reporting. More systematic documentation of cascade results would make this multiplier effect more visible and measurable.

• The principal opportunity is therefore to capture impact more routinely, building on the Centre’s existing evaluation, quality assurance and alumni infrastructure through a lightweight activity-level follow-up mechanism that reconnects with participants after training.

EQ16: How likely is it that the results of the activities will be maintained or up scaled by participants?

• The evaluation found credible evidence that SEE results are being sustained and extended beyond the original training activities, through the integration of learning into organisational practice, replication by participants and adaptation of approaches to new contexts. Evidence of institutional embeddedness is particularly strong where activities are linked to ILO technical cooperation projects. 

• Training of Trainers and certification pathways are the programme’s strongest sustainability mechanism. Certified trainers are independently delivering SEE methodologies to new beneficiaries and, in some cases, doing so without further ITCILO resources, creating a genuine multiplier effect beyond the Centre’s direct delivery. 

• The portfolio also demonstrates scalability and localisation, with methodologies adapted to national and regional contexts and some approaches progressing towards independent or locally sustained delivery. 

• Several additional factors support sustainability, including strong participant loyalty and willingness to re-engage with ITCILO, multi-phase learning and certification pathways, and peer networks that continue beyond the course. These participant-led networks complement the Centre’s institutional alumni network and help sustain professional exchange after training. 

• The principal opportunity is to provide more systematic post-training follow-up and support, enabling the programme both to reinforce application of learning and to capture results that are already occurring after participants leave the course. 

• The evaluation also identified scope for greater contextualisation and language accessibility, including more regionally relevant examples, facilitators familiar with participants’ contexts and expanded multilingual delivery, while noting that the Centre is already moving towards greater localisation and field focus.

• The evaluation concluded with a strong overall assessment of the SEE programme: its training is relevant to participants and ILO strategic priorities, well designed and delivered, and generates learning that participants demonstrably carry into their professional contexts. The areas identified for improvement are therefore framed as opportunities to strengthen the architecture around an already well-functioning delivery core, rather than deficiencies in the core itself. 

• Relevance is the most firmly established conclusion, with strong alignment to ILO normative instruments and ITCILO strategic priorities complemented by consistently high perceived relevance to participants’ professional needs. The programme’s coherence is also confirmed, with its thematic streams operating appropriately as a portfolio under a common governance and results framework.

• Training design and effectiveness are clear strengths. Participants report strong facilitated learning, practical applicability and motivation to develop their competencies further, while evidence shows that learning is being translated into workplace practice. The principal design opportunities concern more systematic needs assessment, stronger peer interaction and further refinement of blended learning. 

• The programme generates credible results beyond the individual learner, with documented change at individual, enterprise/organisational and policy levels. Particularly significant is the cascade multiplier, through which certified trainers independently extend SEE methodologies to additional beneficiaries, substantially expanding the programme’s effective reach. 

• The programme’s distinctive value is rooted in three mutually reinforcing assets: ILO normative grounding, institutional credibility, and the cascade multiplier. These distinguish the SEE offer from comparable commercial training and provide a strong basis for continued replication and scaling. 

• The central opportunity going forward is to better capture and sustain results that are already occurring. With the RBM framework, eCampus, survey infrastructure and institutional alumni platform already in place, the evaluation sees this primarily as a matter of reallocation rather than new investment — adding lightweight cohort-level follow-up would allow demonstrated learning quality to translate into more systematically tracked and reported impact.