Management and Evaluation Services (PMES) Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) mechanism, to carry out the evaluation. The evaluation report includes findings and conclusions from the evaluation research, which serve as the basis of recommendations for PRM included in Annex B. The evaluation’s scope included reviewing and assessing (1) PRM’s financial support for statelessness work from 2014 to present, with a focus on its funding to UNHCR; (2) PRM-supported U.S. diplomatic engagements, including multilateral and bilateral, on statelessness from 2014 to present; (3) UNHCR’s implementation and PRM’s support for the GAP and #IBelong Campaign; (4) The GCENR; (5) PRM’s staffing and monitoring of statelessness; and (6) all of the above-cited aspects via in-depth research at the country level on three countries (Thailand, Nepal and the Dominican Republic) to determine the effectiveness of PRM-supported initiatives. 4 Over a period of 10 months, the evaluation’s phases included: An Inception/Desk Review Phase (July–October 2020); a Data Gathering and Analysis Phase (November 2020–February 2021); and a Validation and Reporting Phase (March–April 2021). The report is organized around three (EQs): • • • EQ1: To what extent are PRM investments in statelessness initiatives—both financial and diplomatic—contributing to the prevention and reduction of statelessness and to the protection of stateless persons? EQ2: To what extent have PRM efforts supported progress toward achieving the goals of UNHCR’s GAP? EQ3: What changes or updates need to be made to PRM’s statelessness strategy to strengthen the ability of statelessness initiatives to prevent and reduce statelessness, including PRM monitoring of statelessness activities overseas? EVALUATION DESIGN AND DATA COLLECTION METHODS EVALUATION DESIGN Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the inability of the Evaluation Team to travel as originally planned, the Evaluation Team pivoted to carrying out all data collection fully remotely, explained in greater detail below. The evaluation design includes an overarching utilization-focused evaluation (U-FE) approach, which is based on the principle that an evaluation should be judged by its usefulness to its intended users. Primary-intended users, namely PRM and UNHCR, were consulted through structured and participatory virtual workshops and engagements, including Inception Meetings, an Inception Workshop, Validation Meetings following each virtual field visit with UNHCR country teams, a UNHCR Feedback Workshop and a PRM Validation Workshop using tools such as Zoom, Teams, Miro and Jamboard. The purpose of the feedback and validation meetings was to share learnings from data collection, coordinate on evaluation design, validate initial findings and collect feedback on recommendations. The Evaluation Team applied qualitative methods, including individual interviews, group interviews, participatory workshops, a focus group discussion and a survey. For the work on the three countries, the Evaluation Team used an outcome harvesting methodology through the identification of a series of “outcomes” and “milestones” in each country’s journey to eradicate statelessness. Interviewees were queried around these to uncover trends in what and who contributed to driving the changes that led to the outcome or milestone. As a key part of this, the Evaluation Team conducted a desk review and organized a statelessness expert roundtable with academics and researchers to identify outcomes that would be used in “harvests.” From this roundtable, the desk review and the global interviews, the Evaluation Team constructed a general theory of change for a country’s journey to eradicate statelessness (Annex A). This framework was used to map actors working on statelessness, identify how they were supporting change in the country, assess the extent to which their actions can be linked to an outcome or milestone and assess where linkages could be made to PRM-supported initiatives. 4 Initially, the SOW contemplated two countries for in-depth research. In light of COVID-19 and the move to completely remote fieldwork, the evaluation expanded to three countries. 2