Despite the staggering statistic that more than 25 million people are enslaved around the world, the international response to modern slavery has been highly fragmented. To properly address a crime as complex as modern slavery, it is imperative to have a comprehensive understanding of the problem and common “blind spots," supported by hard evidence that speaks to the systemic, individual, and environmental factors that contribute to its prevalence.

For this reason, the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS)—a transformational multi-donor fund forging public-private partnerships and catalyzing a coherent global strategy to end modern slavery—selected Athena Infonomics and Itad to serve collectively as a Data Collection and Analysis Partner in support of evaluation and learning activities tied to eight grants implemented in India and Bangladesh.These eight grants, developed with support from the United Kingdom's Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), allocated USD 9 million towards three themes: ethical recruitment; commercial sexual exploitation; and apparel.

The Athena Infonomics consortium reinforced this work by:

• reviewing grantee learning agendas and theories of change
• conducting deep dives in the measuring of changes related to beneficiary vulnerability
• and administering learning-focused case studies for innovation and systems-level projects to identify impact pathways

For more information or any questions on this programme, please contact Francis Xavier Rathinam.