The main objectives of this Mid-term Evaluation of the “Cooperation with Northern and Southern Transatlantic Dimension - Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)” (Transatlantic Action) are to provide the relevant services of the European Union, the interested stakeholders and the wider public with:

• an overall independent assessment of the past performance of the “Cooperation with Northern and Southern Transatlantic Dimension - Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)” (Transatlantic Action) to be evaluated, paying particular attention to its intermediate results measured against its expected objectives; and the reasons underpinning such results, focusing on assessing the policy relevance of the emerging results of the action;
• key lessons learned, conclusions and related recommendations in view to inform the upcoming follow-up project to start in mid- January 2020 as well as future programming enabling cooperation on the topic.

The evaluation will assess the Action using the five standard DAC evaluation criteria, namely: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and early signs of impact. In addition, the evaluation will assess two EU specific evaluation criteria:

• the EU added value (the extent to which the Action brings additional benefits to what would have resulted from Member States' interventions only);
• the coherence of the Action itself, with the EU strategy in Ocean Governance and Biodiversity and its contribution to strengthened Transatlantic relations between the EU and targeted partner countries and with other EU policies and Member State Actions.

The evaluation team shall furthermore consider whether gender , environment and climate change were mainstreamed; the relevant SDGs and their interlinkages were identified; the principle of Leave No-One Behind and the rights-based approach methodology was followed in the identification/ formulation documents and the extent to which they have been reflected in the implementation of the Action, its governance and monitoring.