Evaluation of the Global Leaders Empowered to Alleviate Poverty (LEAP) Program

Overview

Oxfam’s Global Leaders Empowered to Alleviate Poverty (LEAP) program ran for four years from 2011, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Its main purpose was to promote political leadership for global development. The global reach and the range of partnerships involved in the LEAP project enabled Oxfam to identify and demonstrate improvements in practice across six areas:

• How to influence policy
• Effective tactics
• The global balance in practice
• The role of Civil Society in global development policy
• Public support for global development issues
• How the project developed – identity, strategy and priorities

The external and independent evaluation of the first three years of LEAP focussed on two main areas of work: Oxfam’s relative contributions to policy advocacy outcomes; and how, and how far, Oxfam’s linking of global, national and local advocacy for policy change can show measurable added value.

The evaluation concludes that LEAP offered Oxfam and its partners increased influence on policy processes and outcomes, as well as increased advocacy capacity across a range of issues. It identifies three strands from the project for future action:

• Improving and making the case for aid to fight hunger and poverty
• Increasing G20 and BRICSAM leadership on global poverty
• Making the US a global development leader

For each strand the report outlines internal and external issues:

• Which factors facilitated and hindered the success of the project?
• What strategies were most and least effective?
• Did ‘linking to global’ add value and amplify voices in and from the Global South?
• How far did the project encourage staff from Oxfam and external stakeholders to reflect on the development and management of the project?
• What were challenges of coordinating staff, partners, governments, policies and projects?

The LEAP Final Evaluation research was carried out in Brazil, France, Haiti, India, Mexico, Spain, South Africa, the United States and in Pan African (AU) and European (EU) institutions.

The Management Response to LEAP Evaluation paper offers specific feedback on the Global LEAP project (as of February 2015) from the LEAP Project Director and from Oxfam America’s Vice-President of Policy and Campaigns.

For a full list of LEAP Evaluation files and translations, scroll down below this record and click on the file.