Evaluations

Evaluation of the Phase II Extractive Industry (EI) and Gender Project Funded by the Hewlett Foundation

In both Zambia and the Dominican Republic (DR), bringing together women’s rights organizations (WROs) and extractive industry transparency and accountability (EITA) organizations has led to transformational outcomes, above all in collaboration and participation, resulting in incorporation of gender in stakeholders not traditionally focused on gender. Project participants claimed to have gained confidence and developed communication skills critical in their advocacy activities. There has been awareness raising on women’s rights and a community of women informed and gaining command of the field related to the extractives industry, plus understanding and use of the technical extractive industry (EI) lexicon. The project design was considered to be well conceived, and the implementation well carried out, even in the adverse conditions created by COVID-19 on communication and physical gathering and deployment of participants. This final evaluation of Phase II of the project, helps the staff and partners to build out further learning in our coming work on Gender and EI accountability and at the individual level, there has been impact that will last into the years to come despite the closure of the Oxfam in Dominican Republic office. This impact is in confidence, communication skills, awareness on women’s rights, and advocacy for EI transparency.

Potential Corporate Tax Avoidance in Zambia’s Mining Sector?

Estimating Tax Revenue Gains from Addressing Profit Shifting or Revising Profit Allocation Rules: A Case Study of Glencore and Mopani Copper Mines.

Oxfam Together Against Poverty Multi-Country Agriculture and Climate Change Adaptation Advocacy Program Evaluation

This is an evaluation of The Oxfam Together Against Poverty (TAP) multi-country agriculture and climate change adaptation advocacy program. This project has been operating in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Italy, The Netherlands, Brussels (focused on the EU), and Addis Ababa/Nairobi (focused on the African Union) since 2015 and in France since 2018. This evaluation covers the work undertaken between 2018 and 2021.

The evaluation found that the program contributed to important outcomes in quantity and quality of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in Europe, and in small scale farmer and female farmer friendly policies in Africa. As with all advocacy programs, no outcome can be attributed to a single source, since policy change is subject to so many complex forces. Instead, this review looks at what the contribution of the program was to the outcomes that actually occurred. While some outcomes are intermediary – such as verbal commitments by policy makers, or new platforms for civil society representation – they are nonetheless potential stepping stones to future ultimate outcomes.

Based on the outcomes from this evaluation, several recommendations are made: 1) improve local to global linkages, and build joint activities explicitly into work plans; 2) African country programs need to integrate CAADP work into their dialogue with governments, or abandon engagement with the AU around it; 3) continue to support efforts for farmers to have greater input into budgets, especially through the use of gender responsive budgeting including expanding the use of the method shows promise, especially in training key government officials across countries on how to do it; 4) The review found that work on climate change adaptation is already built into the program in its promotion of women in agriculture and in promoting agroecology. If staff and partners want to expand their work on adaptation, the program could promote a wider set of resilience building activities for rural residents, beyond agriculture; 5) share media resources across countries, and developing the capacity to assess the results of media engagement; 6) build the capacity of farmer groups, rather than just individuals, and facilitating them to form strong coalitions can have long term benefits. Oxfam can play a facilitating role with strengthened groups and coalitions.

Uganda Baseline Report for the Norad Project

Baseline evaluation to determine community perceptions of their influence over fiscal governance and extractive industries.

The Kenya Community Baseline Survey to Inform Inform Oxfam's Norad Grant

This baseline establishes community perceptions of voice, representation, negotiation, access to information, and influence over revenue management within county governments.

Protecting the Amazon: Outcome Harvesting Evaluation

In recent years, industrial-scale production of commodities like palm oil and cocoa has been introduced in Peru and Colombia. The rapid expansion of these crops puts at risk the health and biodiversity of large swaths of the Amazon and threatens the rights, lives, and livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities in these areas. In response to these dangers, in early 2017 Oxfam launched the project Protecting the Amazon: A Strategic Approach to Combat Commodity-Driven Deforestation by Empowering Citizens in Peru and Colombia, with the goals of curbing the indiscriminate expansion of agribusinesses and protecting the rights of local communities. The project has been implemented in the departments of Loreto, San Martín, and Ucayali in Peru, and in the departments of Caquetá and Vichada in Colombia.

This evaluation uses an outcome harvesting methodology and asks: How has the project contributed to the advancement of social and environmental justice in Peru and Colombia, and to curbing the expansion of agribusinesses that threatens biodiversity and the rights of local communities? The evaluation finds that the project has made significant contributions in multiple areas, and it has made progress toward social and environmental justice in Peru and Colombia. However, the problem of the socioenvironmental impacts of agribusinesses and monocrops is complex and massive in scale, and there is no project that could succeed in solving such an intricate problem or in creating long-term transformations in just three or four years. In contexts like those described, outcomes in many cases are associated with protection, prevention, and curbing of adverse threats and changes. It is likely that without the Protecting the Amazon project there would be more deforested hectares in the Amazon, more monocrop projects acquiring land in illegal ways, new ZIDRES projects in Colombia financed with public funds to benefit the private sector, less transparency regarding the operations of business groups and large-scale agribusiness, a less active and vigilant public sector, and more defenders vulnerable to the intimidation of companies and corrupt public officials.