The main objectives of thie Mid-term Evaluation of the EU's Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem services are to provide the relevant services of the European Union, the interested stakeholders with:

• an overall independent assessment of the past performance of the EU’s Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystems (NCAVES) funded under the Partnership Instrument, paying particular attention to its emerging results measured against its expected objectives; and the reasons underpinning such results;
• key lessons learned, conclusions and related recommendations in order to improve current and possible future Actions in this sector.

'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 environmental policy and with other EU policies and Member State Actions, and other donors, namely the UN.

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.