OCEAN is part of the UK Government’s Blue Planet Fund, a programme to support countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific to protect the marine environment and reduce poverty.
Around three billion people rely on the ocean for their food security and livelihoods, with coastal communities having high dependence on the ocean and most acutely impacted by climate change. The ocean contributes US$1.5 trillion to the global economy but is facing increasing threats from over-exploitation, pollution, diversity loss, and climate change alongside gaps in marine conservation funding to address them.
OCEAN is a competitive grants programme which seeks to redress these imbalances by supporting community-led initiatives with the potential to impact ocean and community wellbeing.
OCEAN recognises that local organisations working with coastal communities may have difficulty in accessing overseas development assistance (ODA) funding and the programme therefore specifically targets small local community groups and larger organisations partnering with local organisations. This approach centres local knowledge and creates opportunities to scale up effective initiatives. By supporting local communities to improve the marine environment, the programme aims to:
- support marine conservation and local marine resource management
- improve marine ecosystem health
- improve coastal community livelihoods and wellbeing
- enhance community resilience to climate change and
- reduce poverty.
Our role
Our team has been engaged to work alongside the OCEAN programme to understand the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability, and impact of the programme, and support learning that contributes to improvements in programme design and delivery.
The evaluation will run from 2024 to 2030 and will consist of interim and final process and impact evaluations alongside facilitating a learning process to share knowledge and deliver learning events.
The evaluations will include a strong focus on the programme’s ability to deliver against aims on gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) and poverty reduction, alongside progress towards achieving environmental impacts.
Our methods and approaches
Our evaluation is designed to support learning and adaptation of the programme in real time.
Our team will work collaboratively with Defra and the Grant Administrator to interpret evidence, input into the annual learning cycle, and support programmatic decision-making.
The evaluation will take place at two key stages – an early interim evaluation and a final evaluation, which together will evaluate the process, and the impact of the programme, in addition to assessing value for money.
As part of the evaluations we will undertake case studies of grants at an individual and country-level, and deep dives to understand learning questions in detail.
Outcomes and impact
The anticipated outcomes of the OCEAN programme are:
- increased ability of organisations to access ODA funding
- increased knowledge-sharing of harm to the marine environment and how to tackle it
- increased capacity of local organisations and communities to tackle environmental challenges
- local organisations supported to help communities manage marine resources sustainably and inclusively
- increased ability of organisations to influence policy at local and national levels.
By evaluating the programme alongside its implementation we will have the opportunity to inform improvements to the programme design and delivery and influence impacts. We will seek to learn from both successful and unsuccessful applicants to the programme to increase inclusivity, and expand the programme’s reach and impact.
