The story in Uganda seems quite different from Indonesia, as here, GEF was attached to a World Bank loan that radically restructured the way national agencies managed protected areas. In one of the PAs we will be visiting, GEF also supported the very first trust fund in Africa that apparently has been replicated in other countries, and is planned to be scaled up to the entire country by other donors. So I'm really looking forward to doing this country case study. An official from the Uganda Wildlife Authority was very helpful in coordinating interviews with other government agencies as well as within PAs, so my schedule is really packed here, and in fact we're still getting in touch with bilateral donors and NGOs and trying to fit them into the schedule.
Agrippinah and I had our first interview today with the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities. Before we started, I gave a presentation on what the evaluation is about, why we are doing it, and what we are doing in the country. This is because just like in Indonesia, they have a misconception here that we are evaluating the projects. So I explained the difference between impact and project evaluation, and our framework of assessing outcomes and then tracing what factors led to these outcomes. They had quite interesting questions afterwards about the methodology, and how we would separate GEF's impact from the others'.
I tried to record a video post-interview for the first time (in Indonesia, I didn't understand what they were saying so was more hesitant about taking videos), as you can see below. Took less than a minute, but the result is very effective I think for supporting the final report as well as promoting the evaluation among different audiences.
Our itinerary during my stay here:
May 19-26 Interviews at national level
May 27 Travel to Bwindi
May 28-30 Interviews in Bwindi and Buhoma
May 31 Travel to Kibale and Itwara
June 1-6 Interviews in Kibale and Itwara (non-GEF)
June 7 Travel to Budongo (non-GEF)
June 8-11 Interviews in Budongo
June 12 Travel to Kampala
June 13 Debriefing meeting with stakeholders -- presentation of preliminary findings for verification
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