Evaluation report : Tibet plateau development program (TPDP), Yunnan Province and Sichuan Province

The overall program goal was to "strengthen the community"s capacity for meeting their socio-economic needs while conserving the environment and preserving their cultural heritage." The three main objectives of TPDP were: (1) to improve livelihoods by building capacity of targeted communities and enterprises to plan, implement and monitor development activities; (2) to improve environmental conservation and natural resource management of the rangeland; and (3) to increase the capacity of Tibetans to preserve their unique cultural heritage; As requested by USAID, an impact evaluation was to be conducted before completion of the projects. The Center for Integrated Agricultural Development (CIAD) was commissioned by The Mountain Institute (TMI) for conducting the impact evaluation. The evaluation team conducted the field evaluation survey in Diqing and Hongyuan from 24 August to 1 September 2009. During the field evaluation survey, the evaluation team interviewed TMI project staff in Chengdu and Shangri-La, held interviews and discussions with governmental officials from counterpart institutions in the two project counties, carried out community and household survey and interviews in four project pilot villages. This evaluation report summarizes the procedures, methods, major findings and recommendations made by the evaluation team. Findings, observations and recommendations presented in this report only reflect the opinions and judgments of the evaluation team. (Author abstract, modified)