The main objectives of this evaluation were to provide the relevant services of the European Union and the interested stakeholders with:

• an overall independent assessment of the past performance of the Public Diplomacy Actions (EU Policy and Outreach Partnership in South America – Phase II and EU Policy and Outreach Partnership, Canada – Phase II), paying particular attention to its 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 future Actions.

In particular, this final evaluation served to understand the performance of the Actions, their enabling factors and those hampering a proper delivery of results as to inform the planning of the future EU interventions in relation to EU Policy and Outreach Partnerships (EUPOPs) and Cultural Diplomacy. To this end, this final evaluation also looked at the package of Actions as a whole.
The evaluation assessed the Actions using the five standard DAC evaluation criteria, namely: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and perspectives of impact. In addition, the evaluation assessed two EU specific evaluation criteria:

• The EU added value (the extent to which the Actions bring additional benefits to what would have resulted from Member States' interventions only);
• The coherence of the Actions and approach with the EU Global Strategy, the new EU priorities for 2019-2024, as well as with other EU policies and Member State Actions.

Additionally, the evaluation team performed the following tasks:

• Identified type of activities that are frequently included across EUPOP Actions and facilitate the comparison across countries by highlighting the approach, the organisation costs (fees, incidentals) and summarised the key aspects in a table.
• Summarised some best practices per type of initiative/target audience/country in a booklet format.

The evaluation team furthermore considered whether gender, environment and climate change were mainstreamed; the relevant SDGs and their interlinkages were identified, and the extent to which they have been reflected in the implementation of the Actions, their governance and monitoring.