Civil society as catalyst for rights-based, sustainable rainforest protection mid-term review
A case-based evaluation of RFN's work in Brazil, DRC, Indonesia and Peru. Seven cases were analysed to respond to the four evaluation questions concerning added value, programming effectiveness, synergies within and among projects and adaptive capacity and learning.
Background
Rainforest Foundation Norway’s (RFN) programme “Civil society as a catalyst for rights-based, sustainable rainforest protection” was a five-year programme funded primarily by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). The programme had the following outcomes:
Indigenous peoples and forest-dependent communities were able to define and fulfil their development needs within the framework of rights-based sustainable rainforest management.
Policy and legal frameworks prevented the destruction of the rainforest and safeguarded indigenous and forest peoples’ human rights.
Rainforest destruction and human rights violations resulting from commercial activities of public or private businesses were significantly reduced.
RFN called for a mid-term review including global programming and Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Indonesia, and Peru to assess:
- The added value of RFN for strengthening civil society to become a catalyst for change.
- The effectiveness of the programme in achieving results.
- The synergies within and across sub-programmes (theory of change and programme design).
- The adaptive capacity and learning from changing realities/contexts.
The Mid-Term Review (MTR) was therefore multi-country and oriented towards learning and improvement for the remainder of the implementation and future programming.
The evaluation team members were:
- Guy Patrice Dkamela (DRC Lead)
- Laura Kowler (Peru Lead)
- Cecilia Luttrell (Global Lead)
- Rodd Myers (Team Leader)
- Connie Sintanggang (Analyst)
- Thaissa Sobriero Maximanio da Silva (Brazil Lead)
- Ida Ayu Cintya Yamaswari (Indonesia Lead)
Approach
The MTR used a case-based approach to evaluation. Case-based evaluations are useful to understand specific complex instances bound by a chain of activities, efforts, or results that culminate in a definable result or process. The objective of a case-based evaluation is to understand at a deep level what has happened and why. In the MTR, the case studies were considered to be explanatory, and focussing on programme results. Using the progressive focussing method, evaluators adjusted lines of questioning based on previous responses with the intent of narrowing the specific core of each case through clarification and/or transformation of concepts.
While each case provided rich findings about how and why results had or had not been achieved, and recommendations could be drawn from each case, the cases were not generalisable to the whole programme, and could only indicate phenomena that occurred. Wherever possible the MTR team compared and contrasted findings from the different cases, which served to strengthen the probability that the findings and recommendations would apply to the broader programme.
Seven cases were selected to reflect each evaluation question and programme result, which were evaluated based on secondary and primary data.