Evaluations

Locally Led Emergency Response Fund (LL-ERF) Project: Experiences from Bangladesh, Puerto Rico, and Uganda

This report contains learning from a pilot implementation of the Locally Led Emergency Response Fund (LL-ERF) Project in three countries. The LL-ERF is a funding innovation that provides flexible, quick humanitarian funding to local actors in order to save lives during emergencies, advocate for the rights of people affected, and advance the shifting of power to local actors in the humanitarian sector. In the pilot, the LL-ERF was designed and managed by a consortium of local actors in each of the three pilot sites. Feedback from communities showed that this funding facility helped reduce suffering caused by low-attention disasters. This learning report identifies good practices and challenges and documents the experience of local actors in managing funds and designing response options.

The learning in this report presents opportunities to explore how best to increase and direct funding to local actors. At the same time, it identifies barriers encountered during the LL-ERF Project that stakeholders in this sector must continue to overcome together.

Assessing the Implementation of Climate Targets: Behind the Brands agribusiness companies

In Oxfam’s most recent Moving the Middle assessment, published in 2023, climate performance was not assessed, because the existing climate framework did not reflect the increasing urgency of the climate crisis. It also did not account for recent reporting and disclosure developments relevant to the agricultural sector, including updates from the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) and the United Nations High Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non State Entities (HLEG).

This report provides the outcomes of a new and updated climate assessment of the seven major agribusinesses. The assessment applies a new, comprehensive and ambitious climate framework which evaluates the strength of companies’ climate commitments as well as the extent to which they report on progress. This includes how companies are implementing their commitments, including evidence of internal changes; budgeting for planned climate actions; reporting on progress against identified targets; and monitoring impacts, particularly in relation to suppliers and small-scale farmers.

While the assessment outcomes vary considerably across indicators, companies performed poorly across the board, suggesting that action remains far below what is necessary to sustain a sustainable and just global food system.

The outcomes of the assessment highlight the urgent need for improved climate action in the agribusiness sector. Companies should not only increase the ambition and scope of their climate commitments, but also work to ensure they are implemented throughout their direct and indirect supply chains. They should make the development of their emission reduction strategies participatory and inclusive, and support sourcing models which strengthen small-scale producers’ ability to implement low carbon, resilient and regenerative agriculture practices. They should recognize the unique role of women in the agricultural transition, and actively support women’s inclusion in agricultural supply chains. At the very least, companies should ensure that human rights are respected across their operations. The report includes key recommendations for the agribusiness sector, centered around the themes of climate ambition, gender and small-scale producer inclusion, and transparency.

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.