Public-Private Alliance against Child Labor

With the objective of training the officers from the Ministry of Labor and Social Provision and representatives from Costa Rica’s private sector, three experts from Ecuador’s Ministry of Labor  (MLR) Relations travelled to San Jose and organized a workshop to transfer their Public-Private Alliance for the Eradication of Child Labor in Ecuador’s methodology. The Ecuadorian model had been recognized world wide as good practice.
 
During the workshop they organized presentations and group work sessions led by representatives from the MLR, UNICEF, and Holcim in Ecuador. Among the primary lessons learned they hihglighted: the awareness, learning, and review of concepts in child and teen employment, the consolidation of a network of companies with an excellent strategy to involve the private sector in the topic, the need to elaborate an effective strategy, the importance of training all actors that are part of the network, having incentives for private businesses and government support.
 
As a result form this visit, Costa Rica developed outreach sessions with representatives from businesses and formed work commissions to form action proposals, which allowed for the creation of the “Network of Businesses against Child Labor” in Costa Rica in December, 2015.