Final Evaluation, Coastal East Africa Global Initiative, (FY11-FY15)

Background

The Coastal East Africa Global Initiative (CEA GI, or Coastal East Africa Initiative - CEAI) is one of the 13 Global Initiatives (GIs) that the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) embarked on since 2007.

GIs were intended to be transformational interventions implemented through concerted WWF Network action to meaningfully impact critical threats, opportunities in support of biodiversity conservation and development targets within priority places or on priority themes.

The CEAI is a place-based GI, with a geographical focus on three countries along the East African coast i.e., Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique, and includes also tuna fisheries related work in Madagascar.

This area incorporates a number of eco-regions (some fully, some partially) and 9 seascapes / landscapes and as such the programme built on and complemented WWF’s previous and ongoing work in these eco-regions and landscapes.

Purpose/objective

The overall long term goal of the CEAI is formulated as: ‘By 2025, the governments and peoples of the CEA region are effectively controlling decisions over their natural resources and exercise their responsibility for ensuring that key ecosystems and habitats are sustainably managed.’

The Initiative had three main objectives related to governance and empowerment (particularly emphasising the role of civil society organisations), responsible trade (timber and fisheries), and securing High Conservation Value Areas.

Methodology

The Final Evaluation was undertaken by one independent evaluator, who had previously been involved in the team undertaking the Mid-term Review.

The Final Evaluation started with an inception phase that included initial briefing conference calls as well as a desk study and culminated in an Inception Report.

This was followed by the main evaluation phase that included visits to Kenya and Tanzania, during which interviews were held with key partners; interviews with key stakeholders in Mozambique and Shareholder Group members were conducted by Skype.

The consultant shared preliminary findings at the Shareholder Group meeting held in Mombasa on the 16th of October 2015, before undertaking final field work and delivering the final report in early 2016.

Key findings

The conclusion of the consultant is that the CEAI produced commendable achievements in almost all of its components despite several major challenges the programme has faced.

• The consultant found that how the CEAI has adapted and evolved during the first phase of five years together with what it has been able to deliver (on average having achieved its KPI targets) has made it into a critical and commendable programme for WWF, and the region. By working together with partners across levels, countries and the region and guided by a regional strategic programme the stage has been set to achieve real transformational change in support of significant outcomes and conservation and socio-economic impacts.
• Out of the list with 12 Big Wins (a significant conservation achievement capable of stimulating attention and leveraging commitment) eight were fully achieved and the other four were partly achieved (as they were over-ambitious, will be achieved soon, of for reasons beyond the CEAIs control), which is again a commendable achievement.
• The overall efficiency of the programme has been very good despite several challenges which have been outside the direct control of the CEAI but which hampered its operations.
• The programme’s effectiveness has been very good as reflected in an average CEAI component score on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) under its Monitoring and Evaluation Plan of 6.1 (on a scale of 7 with 6 meaning “having achieved its target”).
• The governance and empowerment component has been successful in establishing and developing CSO platforms which in turn contributed to the review/drafting of 30 natural resource related policies in the region, supporting responsible trade and investments through the development and approval of Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs), support of the Green Economy (which together with SEAs was requested by neighbouring countries to be scaled up into the region), and engagement with China and its role in Africa through FOCAC.
• The work by the CEAI has already led to the recommendable achievement of the CEA governments now being much more actively engaged regarding the sustainable management of natural resources; particularly in the tuna and timber trade sector and regarding certain governance aspects there is quite a noticeable change in attitude. This has in turn resulted in improved regional governance of, and regional cooperation regarding the management of these shared resources, thereby having set the stage for significant outcomes and impacts.

Recommendations

In total 12 recommendations were made, ranging from thematic based ones, e.g. on climate change resilience and adaptation, to administrative ones such as the arrangements between the Initiative and the WWF Tanzania Country Office.

Two more strategic-level recommendations were made concerning the longer-term sustainability of the approaches and interventions, and ensuring the continuity of the 15-year CEAI strategy.

The recommendations have been discussed by the Shareholder Group, and incorporated strongly into the future work of the programme in the region, which rather than through one Global Initiative, will be separated into three programmes, each led by one of the WWF Country Offices in the region.

These programmes will build upon and further develop the approaches demonstrated clearly to have had impact in the Coastal East Africa Initiative and aim to largely continue with the overall long term goal of the programme.

Comments from the organisation

WWF-Norway believe this is a good evaluation report, professionally undertaken, with sound findings, demonstrating clearly that the Initiative has delivered on credible change on a regional scale.

The evaluation also came at an opportune time, given the changes globally to WWF’s work, which means that the Global Initiatives will not be continuing in their current form, and this evaluation was able to inform the future programme approaches, and has been used by the new programmes in designing their work.