Evaluation of Kōtui, Oxfam Aotearoa’s Negotiated Partnership Programme

Context

Oxfam Aotearoa, co-funded by MFAT’s Negotiated Partnership implemented Kōtui, a five year multi-country programme (2021-2026) across Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, and Tuvalu.

The programme, which includes five individual projects implemented across four countries, is delivered in partnership with Oxfam in the Pacific, Oxfam in Timor-Leste and in-country partners.

While the projects have distinct focus areas that reflects the uniqueness of their contexts, they also share some common features such as a focus on accountable governance, gender justice and empowerment and the aim of building transformative capacity.

“To me, Kōtui is about working alongside communities, civil society organisations, and whānau to support their aspirations in the face of climate change and disasters — creating space to share knowledge, amplify local voices, and ensure communities lead the decisions about their own resilience and adaptation.” — Rosemarie Powell, Kōtui Programme Manager

What we did for Kōtui and how

An external evaluation, undertaken by Future Partners, was completed in March 2026.

The evaluation was guided by two complementary approaches: a Utilisation-Focused Evaluation, developed by Michael Patton, focusing on real and specific users and uses and Power and Systems Approach to recognise and understand power and be alert to its impact and influence throughout the evaluation process.

Within these approaches, the role of the evaluator was to engage and listen to the views and perspectives of all partners and facilitate reflection to capture achievements to date, identify gaps to support future direction for the partnership and promote ownership of the evaluation process and findings.

Meenakshi Sankar, the evaluation lead, worked in close collaboration with Future Partners Associates Eileen Kwalea based in Solomon Islands and Elvino Aparicio de Oliveira based in Timor-Leste to maintain contextual and cultural relevance across all phases of the assignment.

The team undertook an extensive desk-based review and analysis of key programme design documents and reports, field visits to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste and key informant interviews with programme staff in Oxfam Aotearoa, Oxfam in the Pacific and Oxfam in Timor-Leste.

Following a sense-making workshop, the team produced its report that assessed the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of the Kōtui programme. The report included programme level analysis as well as analysis of the three country case studies to provide direction for design considerations for Kōtui Tuarua. A range of actions for strengthening programme impact and coherence were identified around five key areas.

Conclusion

The evaluation concluded that Kōtui had been highly effective in sustaining delivery of its outputs despite facing significant challenges in its operating environment including COVID-19, elections, staff turnover and Oxfam in the Pacific’s journey towards self-determination.

While these challenges led to some delays in implementation in the early years, Kōtui regained momentum and, by the end of Year 5, the five projects demonstrated visible shifts in relational trust between implementing partners and government, the capability of both Oxfam staff and partners, the uptake of evidence in policy and advocacy processes, and social norms. Oxfam’s commitment to localisation and partner-led approaches lay at the heart of its success.