monitoring and evaluation of the aime activity

138 Pages·2017·1.32 MB·English

MONITORING AND
EVALUATION OF THE AIME
ACTIVITY
Mid-Term Evaluation Report
MAY 2016
This document was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development,
Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean—Office of Regional Sustainable Development. It was
prepared by The Cloudburst Group for the Accelerating Inclusion and Mitigating Emissions (AIME) Task
Order under the Strengthening Tenure and Resource Rights (STARR) IQC.
Written and prepared by Stephanie Fenner, Nora Nelson, and Karol Boudreaux with support from Dr.
Cynthia Caron.

Prepared for the United States Agency for International Development, Bureau for Latin America and the
Caribbean—Office of Regional Sustainable Development, USAID Contract Number AID-OAA-TO-14-
00011, Accelerating Inclusion and Mitigating Emissions (AIME) Task Order under Strengthening Tenure
and Resource Rights (STARR) IQC No. AID-OAA-I-12-00030.

Implemented by:
Cloudburst Consulting Group, Inc.
8400 Corporate Drive, Suite 550
Landover, MD 20785-2238
Monitoring and Evaluation of the
AIME Activity
Mid-Term Evaluation Report

MAY 2016

DISCLAIMER
The authors' views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States
Agency for International Development or the United States Government.
CONTENTS

CONTENTS ................................................................................................................................... I
ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................... II
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................. 1
1.0 PROJECT BACKGROUND .................................................................................................... 9
1.1 AIME ACTIVITY PROJECT OBJECTIVES ......................................................................................... 9
1.2 AIME ACTIVITY IMPLEMENTATION ............................................................................................ 12
2.0 EVALUATION PURPOSE AND EVALUATION QUESTIONS ...................................... 13
2.1 EVALUATION PURPOSE .................................................................................................................. 13
2.2 EVALUATION QUESTIONS ............................................................................................................ 13
3.0 EVALUATION METHODS & LIMITATIONS ................................................................... 15
3.1 EVALUATION METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................. 15
3.2 EVALUATION LIMITATIONS .......................................................................................................... 18
4.0 FINDINGS ............................................................................................................................. 20
4.1 PROGRESS TOWARDS OVERALL AIME OBJECTIVE .............................................................. 20
4.2 PROGRESS TOWARDS INTERMEDIATE RESULT 1 ................................................................. 22
4.3 PROGRESS TOWARDS INTERMEDIATE RESULT 2 ................................................................. 34
4.4 PROGRESS TOWARDS INTERMEDIATE RESULT 3 ................................................................. 42
5.0 CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................................. 53
CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................................................................. 53
RECOMMENDATIONS .................................................................................................................................. 55
ANNEX 1. EVALUATION SCOPE OF WORK ....................................................................... 59
ANNEX 2. DESK REVIEW SOURCES OF INFORMATION ................................................. 70
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DOCUMENTS REVIEWED ..................................................................................... 70
DESK REVIEW: DOCUMENT REVIEW MATRIX .................................................................................... 75
ANNEX 3. DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS ................................................................ 89
INDIGENOUS AND TRADITIONAL COMMUNITY LEADERS: KEY INFORMANT INTERVIEW
PROTOCOL ...................................................................................................................................................... 90
SUB-NATIONAL GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL: KEY INFORMANT INTERVIEW PROTOCOL .. 94
PROJECT BENEFICIARIES: FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION PROTOCOL ........................................ 97
ANNEX 4. LIST OF PERSONS INTERVIEWED ................................................................... 101
AIME ACTIVITY AND FBLC MEMBER STAFF ........................................................................................ 101
KEY INFORMANTS ....................................................................................................................................... 102
ANNEX 5. DISCLOSURE OF ANY CONFLICTS OF INTEREST ...................................... 104
ANNEX 6. APPROVED PERFORMANCE EVALUATION PLAN AND TIMELINE ......... 107
ACRONYMS AND
ABBREVIATIONS

AB Assembly Bill
AIME Accelerating Inclusion and Mitigating Emissions
AIME-PE Accelerating Inclusion and Mitigating Emissions Performance Evaluation
AMPB Alianza Mesoamericana de Pueblos y Bosques
CCBA Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance
CO Contracting Officer
COIAB Brazilian Amazon Indigenous Peoples
COICA Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca
EDF Environmental Defense Fund
EII Earth Innovation Institute
FBLC Forest Based Livelihoods Consortium
FGD Focus Group Discussion
FUNAI National Indian Foundation of Brazil
GCC Global Climate Change
GCF Governors’ Climate & Forests Task Force
GHG Greenhouse Gas
IP Indigenous People
IPAM Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia
IR Intermediate Result
LAC/RSD Latin America and the Caribbean Office for Regional Sustainable Development
LED-R Low Emission Rural Development
M&E Monitoring and Evaluation
METAREILA Metareilá Association for the Paiter-Surui People
MOU Memorandum/a of understanding
MTPE Mid-term Performance Evaluation
PIRS Performance Indicator Reference Sheets
PMP Performance Monitoring Plan
PNGATI National Program for the Management of Indigenous Territories
PNS Pronatura Sur
PRISMA Programa Salvadoreño de Investigación Sobre Desarrollo y Medio
RAN National Agrarian Registry
REDD+ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation
RIA REDD+ Indígena Amazónico
RIBCA Red Indígena Bribri-Cabecar
SEDAM Secretary of State for Environmental Development
SISA Sistema Estadual de Incentivos a Serviços Ambientais
VCS Verified Carbon Standard
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report presents the findings of the Mid-term Performance Evaluation (MTPE) of the Accelerating
Inclusion and Mitigating Emissions (AIME) activity funded by the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, Office of Regional Sustainable
Development (LAC/RSD). The evaluation was conducted from September 2014 to March 2016 by a
team from The Cloudburst Group.
PROJECT BACKGROUND
AIME is a 5-year USAID cooperative agreement awarded to U.S.-based nonprofit Forest Trends. Forest
Trends implements the project together with nine additional environmental and indigenous
organizations that serve as members of the Forest-Based Livelihoods Consortium (FBLC). AIME
program activities started in Fall 2013 and are currently underway.
The overall objective of the AIME activity is to increase the participation of marginalized, forest-based
communities in activities and negotiations related to climate change mitigation, REDD+1, and REDD+-
compatible activities in ways that improve livelihoods and well-being for traditional communities, while
also promoting conservation and carbon mitigation.
AIME works towards this objective by engaging in three focus areas, including:
• Communities: Creating tools and approaches that increase the capacity of local communities to engage
with the private and public sectors more confidently and productively on resource management in
general, and carbon credits in particular;
• Jurisdictions: Improving the capacity of sub-national governments to play a critical role in community-
based REDD+ programs, with a focus on developing legal, regulatory and administrative frameworks
to support fair inclusion of indigenous and traditional communities in REDD+; and
• Dialogues: Bringing community, local and regional government, and private sector representatives
together to develop new approaches to negotiate REDD+ contracts and/or support REDD+
compatible activities that benefit local communities and promote private sector engagement.
Each focus area of the program is intended to generate an Intermediate Result (IR). The 3 AIME IRs are:
• Intermediate Result 1: Communities are empowered for territorial governance, buen vivir,2
conservation, and the reduction of emissions.
• Intermediate Result 2: Indigenous and local community contributions to forest conservation are
recognized and incentivized through the reform and alignment of jurisdictional policies and markets to
support resilient and low emission development.

1 Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in
forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable
development. REDD+ goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of
forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (UN-REDD, 2013).
2 The concept of buen vivir, loosely translated as “good living,” is rooted in the worldview of the Quechua and Aymara people of the Andes. It
refers to a way of living which is focused on living in community, in harmony with nature and others, and in a culturally sensitive manner.
AIME Mid-Term Evaluation Report: May 2016 1
• Intermediate Result 3: Greater demand for products with mitigation benefits and greater trust
between actors, leading to transactions which support the concept of buen vivir and the mitigation of
emissions.
EVALUATION PURPOSE AND EVALUATION QUESTIONS
In September 2014, USAID awarded The Cloudburst Group a 52-month contract to design and conduct
a Mid-term and Final Performance Evaluation of the AIME activity. The purpose of the AIME Mid-term
Performance Evaluation (MTPE) is to review project performance, assess the ways in which project
activities are contributing to the achievement of the AIME project objective, and to provide
recommendations to ensure progress is made in the final years of implementation.
The MTPE Report examines project progress and key activities under each of the three AIME
intermediate results to answer the following evaluation questions:
1. How has AIME empowered indigenous groups/local communities to engage in: territorial governance;
buen vivir; conservation; and the reduction of carbon emissions?
a) Within these groups, have the results been equitable (extended to both sexes)?
b) Have there been any unintended consequences of the project with respect to vulnerable
subgroups of populations?
2. To what extent has AIME made progress towards enabling local governments to reform and align
jurisdictional policies and markets so that they recognize, protect and compensate Indigenous and
local communities for their contributions to public goods (REDD+)?
3. What kind of progress has been made towards transactions (including REDD+ financing) that support
the concept of buen vivir and emission mitigation?
4. What changes will enhance the project’s implementation in the final years of implementation?
EVALUATION METHODS AND LIMITATIONS
To assess the performance of the AIME activity, the AIME Performance Evaluation (AIME-PE) team
employed a mixed methods evaluation methodology that included four interrelated components: a Desk
Review; a Mid-term Field Assessment; Case Studies and; a Gender Assessment.3
The first component involved an in-depth desk review of key documents and materials related to AIME
project activities. Content analysis of the documents allowed the AIME-PE team to track progress
toward expected project outcomes, link project activities to MTPE questions, inform the case study and
field assessment components of the methodology, and identify and prioritize primary data collection
activities.
The second component of the MTPE methodology, the Mid-term Field Assessment, was conducted
during February and March 2016. The Field Assessment included site visits to: 1) Acre, Brazil; 2)
Rondonia, Brazil and; 3) Chiapas, Mexico. Throughout the Field Assessment, the AIME-PE team
collected primary data from a broad range of AIME stakeholders and beneficiaries and facilitated 54
interviews and 10 focus group discussions (FGDs). To inform the Mid-term Field Assessment site
selection and strategy (i.e., identify key stakeholders to interview and the types of questions to ask), the
AIME-PE team used the desk review findings coupled with guidance from Forest Trends and USAID.

3 The approved AIME Performance Evaluation Plan and Timeline can be found in Annex 6.
AIME Mid-Term Evaluation Report: May 2016 2
As a part of the third component, the AIME-PE team developed brief case studies of the AIME
jurisdictions visited during the Mid-term Field Assessment (Acre, Rondonia, and Chiapas). The case
studies, presented in Section 4 of this report, each include an assessment of the networks and
relationships that the AIME activity facilitates and supports in the given jurisdiction, including
partnerships between communities, government officials, and the private sector. Each case study
extends down to the local level (i.e., indigenous or traditional communities) in a jurisdiction and up to
the government and private sector institutions that shape the potential for jurisdictional arrangements
and private sector investment surrounding carbon mitigation activities. The case studies also discuss
various stakeholders’ experience with the project and the relationships between the social and
institutional changes that the AIME activity promotes.
Finally, the gender assessment component of the evaluation considers the differential impacts of the
AIME activity on men and women. More specifically, the gender assessment examines whether or not
project results, and opportunities to participate in the project, have been equitable among project
stakeholders, or if there have been any unintended consequences of the project with respect to women.
The gender assessment component and subsequent findings and recommendations are of particular
significance given the mandatory REDD+ social and environmental safeguards relevant to gender4,
particularly in the context of renewed support for REDD+ following COP21. In addition, the existing
literature surrounding the potential effects of REDD+ and payment for ecosystem services (PES)
schemes in relation to gender equality and the provision of equitable outcomes among men and women
highlight the importance of considering differential impacts. More specially, gender and equity concerns
focused on how existing power relations may limit women’s ability to influence resource-related
decisions suggest that REDD+ policies may reduce women’s access to natural resources and adversely
affect gender equality (Peach Brown 2011; Gurung and Quesada 2009; Terry 2009). The findings and
recommendations from the gender assessment component are intended to inform the development and
implementation of the AIME gender policy to take into account the gender and equity-related social and
cultural norms in the project area to ensure equitable project outcomes.
Limitations of the evaluation are detailed in Section 3 and include the limited availability of reporting data
to measure AIME activity outcomes and to directly attribute results to project activities. In addition, like
most evaluations, the AIME Mid-term Evaluation faced limitations with respect to time and resources.
More specifically, the time frame available for field assessments coupled with the geographic scope of
AIME activity implementation meant the AIME-PE team was unable to visit each site of project
implementation. However, due to the multi-component evaluation methodology employed and the
facilitation of remote interviews with project stakeholders in project sites not visited, the AIME-PE team
is confident that the AIME Mid-term Performance Evaluation findings and conclusions represent a fair
and unbiased assessment of the AIME activity to date.

4 The Cancun Agreements specify that developing country parties address “land tenure issues, forest governance
issues, gender considerations” and ensure “the full and effective participation of relevant stakeholders” when
developing and implementing national strategies or action plans (UNFCCC COP 16, 2010: para. 72).
AIME Mid-Term Evaluation Report: May 2016 3
EVALUATION FINDINGS
As a result of the AIME Mid-term Performance Evaluation, the AIME-PE team finds:
In relation to the overall objective of the AIME activity:
• AIME’s advocacy and capacity building efforts at the sub-national and national-levels in Brazil are
helping to increase the involvement of indigenous peoples and traditional communities in political
activities and discussions related to climate change mitigation and REDD+.
• Throughout the first half of the project, AIME’s Monitoring and Evaluation efforts have not produced
a sufficient amount of performance reporting data to accurately and effectively measure the outcomes
of project activities and directly attribute emission reductions to contributions of the project.
In relation to Intermediate Result 1:
• AIME’s capacity building efforts in Brazil and Chiapas have increased stakeholders’ knowledge of
conservation initiatives and climate change mitigation activities. However, limited understanding
among stakeholders in Brazil on the linkages between AIME-supported conservation initiatives and
broader concepts of climate change remains a barrier to additional stakeholder participation in AIME-
supported carbon mitigation activities in Brazil.
• AIME’s support for the development of Life Plans in Costa Rica and Chiapas has potential to
strengthen territorial management and increase environmental protection in these areas in ways that
support local culture and livelihoods. However, the challenges faced in Brazil among the Yawanawa
and Surui indigenous peoples with respect to the implementation of their existing Life Plans, in part
due to tenure insecurity on indigenous lands, highlights the need for continued support for Life Plan
implementation in order to strengthen territorial governance.
• AIME is succeeding in strengthening the capacity of communities to effectively engage in REDD+ and
carbon mitigation activities by creating spaces for dialogue and fostering the exchange of knowledge
among indigenous and traditional communities, members of the FBLC, and project partners. In
particular, the dialogues and exchanges have resulted in increased knowledge and awareness of
conservation initiatives and climate change mitigation activities among indigenous communities, and
increased the exchange of knowledge among members of the FBLC on important topics relevant to
the effective implementation of the AIME activity.
• AIME’s support for workshops with women on REDD+ compatible income generation opportunities
is helping increase the capacity of women in Rondonia and Chiapas to participate in carbon mitigation
activities. It is also contributing to women’s empowerment by reducing gender disparities in access to
income and increasing women’s ability to influence decision making.
In relation to Intermediate Result 2:
• Members of the FBLC are well-positioned to support jurisdictional programs and policies for REDD+
and LED-R based on the project’s effective engagement of governments and indigenous and traditional
leaders and organizations. The FBLC is playing a key role in facilitating this engagement and also in
advancing indigenous rights and inclusion under state jurisdictional frameworks in states like Acre. It is
also providing considerable support to improve inclusion under national-level laws and frameworks,
such as Brazil’s National Adaptation Plan and Mexico’s National Climate Change Law.
• Through capacity building workshops conducted by AIME, indigenous representatives are able to
actively participate in international negotiations and spaces for indigenous dialogues, including COP20
in Lima and COP21 in Paris. The FBLC is supporting this participation by hosting and participating in
internationally-oriented events on indigenous REDD+ and threats to, and opportunities for,
indigenous peoples and Low Emission Rural Development (LED-R).
AIME Mid-Term Evaluation Report: May 2016 4