Mid Term Review of IUCN’s “Global Learning, Finance, and Partnerships Project under the Restoration Initiative”

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in partnership with the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is presently implementing a large Global Environment Facility (GEF) program, The Restoration Initiative (TRI), in partnership with 10 Asian and African countries and other partners. TRI consists of 11 national child projects in the 10 countries, further complemented and supported by a Global Learning, Financing, and Partnerships child project (the Global Child Project) providing programmatic coordination and technical support, and facilitating capture and dissemination of learning on forest landscape restoration (FLR) to TRI partners and the wider restoration community. The MTR conducted was for the Global Child Project.

The MTR assessed progress towards the achievement of the project expected results (outputs and outcomes) as specified in the Project Document and assessed early signs of project success or failure with the goal of identifying the necessary changes to be made in order to set the project on-track to achieve its intended results. The MTR reviewed the project’s strategy (including its design and associated Theory of Change and results Framework), and its risks to sustainability.

Main tasks:

• Assessed the appropriateness and relevance of the TRI Global Child project strategy and design in supporting TRI national child projects;
• Assessed whether the TRI Global Child project is proving to be effective in achieving its desired results throughout its four components and provide clear insights about what has and has not worked so far and why. It should also highlight how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the project and how the project adapted to this situation;
• Assessed the project implementation and management arrangements, including coordination among partners, the monitoring and evaluation system and the viability and efficiency in terms of use of funds and value for money, to identify any challenges and propose corrective actions as needed.

Main outputs:

• Mid-Term Review report.