Oxfam GB

The 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami destroyed many lives and livelihoods. After Oxfam’s first response DP Evaluation was asked to assess Oxfam's preparedness in terms of advocacy and communications. This piece of work involved interviewing a range of senior policy staff in Oxfam as well as international media and campaigns managers in the Oxford headquarters and in the south-east Asia region in order to assess the effectiveness of Oxfam’s response and learn lessons for the future.

Also in 2004 we conducted an evaluation of the coalition running the 'Olympics Campaign' with Oxfam, TUC and Labour behind the Label – Evaluation of the partnership and added values. The central piece for this evaluation was a carefully planned and sensitively facilitated workshop that allowed the team, coming from three very diverse organisations, to examine the strengths and weaknesses of their joint working with maximum openness. The workshop was followed up with one to one telephone interviews. The final report was well received: "What an excellent, upbeat yet eminently useful evaluation report." Chantal Duval, coordinator of Labour behind the Label.
"The tone and questioning of the workshop was very high quality. The way it was handled brought out the best in people, I am really looking forward to reading the final report." Mike Powers, Media Spokesperson, TUC

'The Big Noise to Make Trade Fair' – Evaluation of the Big Noise as a popular campaigning vehicle to collect signatures from around the world. This was a comprehensive review of Oxfam’s Big Noise, the popular mobilisation element of the Make Trade Fair campaign, which by December 2005, at the time of the WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong had been signed by 17.8 million people around the world, making it one of the world’s largest ever petitions. The aim of the review was to assess the outcomes and impact of the Big Noise, to learn what worked best and to make this information available for the future development of the trade campaign and for the future planning of Oxfam’s global popular mobilisation work. The Campaign Manager said: "… very professional input, the evaluation has played a vital role in helping us not only to draw out salient points in terms of impact, but also has allowed us to refine our communication about the Big Noise Campaign both within and outside the organisation to achieve better understanding as well as increased buy-in" - Jo Fox, Campaign Manager Oxfam GB

The review adopted a primarily qualitative approach, with the main source of information being a series of interviews with staff, volunteers, partners, signatories and decision makers around the world, based on twenty five key review questions developed jointly by Oxfam and DP Evaluation. This was supported by a document review and by a piece of quantitative work in the form of an online survey for signatories in the Global North. The review focussed on Burkina Faso, Colombia, Ethiopia, India and the Philippines, and on the UK and Spain but also used evidence from other countries. "The evaluation of Oxfam's ‘Big Noise to Make Trade Fair’ in 2006 was excellent in its design, planning and implementation. The findings and recommendations in the report are proving very useful to us and are already informing our strategic thinking about future global campaigns." Richard English, Trade Campaign Manager, Oxfam GB

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