Performance evaluation of the integrated protected areas co-management (IPAC) project : democracy and governance components

The evaluation is structured around ten evaluation questions and six DG project indicators relating to the enabling policy and legal framework; community participation and local organizations; capacity building; and communication and outreach. Additional evaluation questions addressed cross-cutting themes of gender and youth engagement; project coordination with stakeholders; project contributions to environmental governance; best practices; sustainable interventions; and project management. Data collection involved a review of project documents and supporting literature, semi-structured interviews with a wide range of stakeholders (from beneficiaries to Ministry staff), and visits to eight of the 25 protected areas in three of the project‘s five geographic clusters. Political disturbances made field work difficult to schedule, and it was not possible to interview all key stakeholders or make all planned field site visits. Overall, the evaluation concludes that IPAC has been a well-managed project that has done some high quality and well-documented work, met most of its DG targets, and contributed to its overall objectives in a very challenging context. IPAC can be particularly credited with what one observer called an