Global sustainable tourism alliance (GSTA) performance evaluation : final report

These interventions were carried out as collaborative efforts involving the private sector, development institutions, and USAID under a single, global mechanism that used tourism as a means to achieve USAID's objectives of poverty alleviation, economic growth, biodiversity conservation, and improved governance. GSTA linked biodiversity conservation and ecological resilience to economic development through tourism in a way that had not been tried in USAID conservation or development projects. USAID decided to conduct this assessment to assess how well this model worked and whether the model could be replicated. It considered several specific aspects of the alliance, focusing on how the new approaches enabled GSTA to achieve its objectives. The GSTA evaluation framework addressed how the program achieved its objectives as framed through five evaluation questions: (1) did the differences in the Global Development Alliance (GDA) project development process have any specific effect in the outcomes of the project; (2) how was the SCALE methodology used and to what effect; (3) how did the use of new communication tools and the use of social networking analysis to measure host country collaboration impact results; (4) were biodiversity conservation goals achieved; and (5) were there any gender-related differences or unintended consequences in impacts? Specific evaluation findings, conclusions and recommendations are provided with detailed analysis for each evaluation question. (Excerpt, modified)