From April 2019 – June 2022, La Strada International joined the three-year programme “Strengthening Support and Protection Systems for Victims of Human Trafficking in Europe.” This programme, managed and funded by Porticus, focused on improving access to the rights of trafficked people.
La Strada International’s monitoring and advocacy work was funded by Porticus, but LSI was also contracted to support the exchange and cooperation among the supported anti trafficking NGOs in Europe, including several LSI’s members.
Recently, an evaluation report has been published on the programme, which found evidence of 28 cases of systems change at local, national and European level. In all of these cases, at least one actor had changed, such as a ministry, service provider or law maker. In addition, in each case at least one of the dimensions of the larger system had changed, such as capacities, legislation, relations between different actors, or resources. Avance Impact, the organisation which conducted the evaluation, has been impressed to see how programme partners contributed to systems change by combining service delivery and advocacy: “Much of the advocacy work in this programme could only be done by working on specific cases.” In addition, Avance Impact concluded that “partners cooperating with others has functioned as an essential mechanism through which they contributed to systemic change.”