The evaluation assessed three regional forestry projects that had support to small producers, development of value chains and the use of participatory approaches in common:
1. ForInfo: Livelihood improvement through generation and ownership of forest information by local people in products and services markets (Mekong, 2011–2015);
2. Finnfor-II: Integrated environmental and forest management co-operation (Central America, 2012–2016);
3. MFS: Sustainable forest management in the Andean region (South America, 2011–2016).
The purpose of the evaluation was to provide guidance to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland in planning and implementing regional forestry projects. It produced lessons for future forest sector co-operation and planning of other regional programmes. Specific objectives of the evaluation were to:

• Assess the added value of the regional approach compared to a country-based approach;
• Assess the success of the programmes in promoting sustainable forestry based livelihoods and increasing income of small producers;
• Identify the lessons learned from developing value chains and payment for ecosystem services.

The evaluation was conducted in several phases:

• An inception phase focusing on the design and the methodology of the evaluation;
• A desk and field phase with document review and visits to eight different countries in the three regions;
• A synthesis phase with global-level conclusions and recommendations across the three regional projects, presented in a final report to concerned stakeholders.