Evaluating Rainforest Foundation Norway's Rights-Based Rainforest Management Approach
An evaluation project aims to generate understanding of how RFN’s rights-based rainforest management approach is applied in practice in selected corridors across strategic objective work areas, and what it delivers in terms of results and change over time. The evaluation will provide RFN with an understanding of how observed developments can reasonably be linked to RFN’s long-term support in multi-actor context.
Background
RFN is asking a practical but strategic question: how is the rights-based rainforest management approach actually being applied across four very different political and territorial landscapes, what kinds of changes it is contributing to over time, and where the approach needs sharpening before the next strategy period? The ToR is explicit that this is not a conceptual exercise on rights-based approaches nor an assessment of activities and outputs.
The evaluation spans four contrasting corridors - Tanah Papua, Western DRC, Xingu, and the Brazil–Peru transboundary corridor—each characterized by different governance conditions, political economies, and rights-recognition processes. The evaluation will examine how elements of RFN’s approaches are combined and sequenced across different contexts, how they contribute to change over time, and RFN’s added value in complex multi-actor settings. The assignment is intended as a learning exercise to inform future programme design, prioritization, and strategic direction.
Approach
Our methodology follows four interconnected principles. First, the evaluation is designed as a strategic learning exercise to generate practical lessons across corridors that can inform RFN’s next strategy period and support reflection, discussion, and future decision-making. Second, it applies a modified contribution analysis approach suited to complex multi-actor contexts, assessing RFN’s contribution alongside other influencing factors while examining the sustainability of observed changes through governance arrangements, organisational capacities, and alliances. Third, a comparative corridor analysis will explore how different combinations of rights recognition, governance strengthening, livelihoods, protection measures, and organisational development operate under varying political, institutional, and territorial conditions, generating cross-corridor and portfolio-wide lessons. Finally, the evaluation adopts a partner-centred and politically contextualised approach, combining document review with semi-structured interviews and consultations involving RFN staff, partners, and stakeholders, while integrating gender, age, and social inclusion considerations and validating emerging findings through stakeholder engagement to strengthen contextual interpretation and learning.
In conducting this project, Dala's team also collaborated with our esteemed colleagues:
- Dr. Jazmín Gonzolez Tovar
- Ida Yamaswari
- Felicien Kengoum Djiegni
- Merry Lianita