The Conserving Greater Virunga (CGV) project (2015-2019) was financed by the Netherlands Government through its Kigali Embassy, and implemented by the Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC). Towards the end of the project, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN) called for an evaluation with the objective to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the CGV project, and of the GVTC as a regional institution.
The evaluation was awarded to Fair & Sustainable Consulting in the Netherlands, and implemented in July 2019 by a multinational and multidisciplinary team, consisting of Paul Sijssens, Dominiek Plouvier, Andrew Muganga Kizito and Yvette Umurungu. The evaluation included data collection in the three countries of the Greater Virunga Landscape (GVL): Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda.
The evaluation was generally positive about the relevance and effectiveness of the project, but less about efficiency. Sustainability was seen as depending on the ratification of the GVTC Treaty, which was signed in 2015 but not yet ratified by any of the signatory states. To increase commitment by the Partner States, the evaluation recommended to link new project funding from EKN to the contributions by the Partner States (matching grant).
The future programme should follow a broader interpretation of the Treaty, allowing it to better handle the whole spectrum of conservation and sustainable natural resource management in the GVL, including the threats to conservation and sustainable development of the GVL.
