About the Biodiverse Landscapes Fund
The Biodiverse Landscapes Fund (BLF) was established as a £100 million programme, intended to restore six key transboundary landscapes and their ecosystems and to support human development objectives in global biodiversity hotspots.
The BLF aimed to:
- Reduce poverty and create sustainable economic development for communities living in – and dependent upon – environmentally precious landscapes.
- Restore landscapes and deliver long-lasting protection through sustainable management practices, improving the quality of ecosystems and safeguarding biodiversity.
- Help to tackle climate change with a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions through the protection of natural carbon sinks.
- Address the drivers of environmental degradation and support national governments, local and park authorities and communities to deliver long-term sustainable management and use of natural resources.
Our role
In partnership with Oxford Policy Management, we served as the independent evaluator for the BLF.
We co-developed the monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) system for the BLF at both landscape and portfolio levels, working as part of a ‘One Team’ alongside Defra and the Fund Manager.
We provided ongoing MEL advisory support and facilitated structured learning cycles with implementing partners during the programme’s inception and early implementation phases. This helped ensure that emerging evidence could be used to support adaptive management throughout our five-year delivery period.
Our approach
We developed a theory-based evaluation MEL framework grounded in systems thinking and complexity-aware evaluation. The approach was capable of assessing impact, implementation process, learning and value for money.
Our framework combined a range of complementary approaches, including:
- Political economy analysis.
- Contribution analysis.
- Transformational change assessment aligned with the Climate Investment Funds’ five dimensions of transformational change: relevance, systemic change, scale, speed and adaptive sustainability.
We also led the development of outcome indicators spanning the BLF’s people, nature and climate objectives. These were aligned with the UK’s International Climate Finance Key Performance Indicators and provided a consistent framework for monitoring progress across diverse landscapes.
To support implementation, we produced practical guidance for partners and provided tailored capacity strengthening to improve data collection, analysis and reporting.
Learning was a core component of our approach. We designed and facilitated comprehensive learning cycles informed by single-, double- and triple-loop learning principles, helping partners and programme stakeholders reflect on evidence, challenge assumptions and adapt interventions in response to emerging insights.
Outcomes and impact
By combining robust monitoring and evaluation with structured learning and adaptation, we helped the Biodiverse Landscapes Fund move beyond compliance-focused reporting towards evidence-informed decision-making. Our MEL framework enabled Defra, the Fund Manager and implementing partners to track progress consistently across six landscapes while generating insights to improve delivery in real time.
The systems and learning processes we established strengthened partners’ ability to collect, analyse and use evidence, strengthening a culture of reflection and adaptation across the portfolio. This helped ensure that lessons were identified early, shared widely and used to inform decision-making, laying the foundations for greater and more sustainable impact for people, nature and climate.
