The Living Water National Evaluation Summary provides a high level overview of the achievements, outcomes and lessons from the 10-year DOC-Fonterra partnership.

The summary covers:

• Context and background: What the Living Water partnership was, its strategy and the evaluation approach for the programme
• Progress assessment: What was achieved, contribution to outcomes and also what was a surprise, along with areas of improvements that could be used by future programmes
• Value: An assessment of the value and impact of the Living Water partnership
• Recommendations: Drawing on the five site evaluations, summarising eight key recommendations from the insignts, challenges and lessons of the partnership.

The recommendations include:

1. 1. Strengthen cross-sector collaboration and partnerships
2. 2. Support mana whenua aspirations and implementation
3. 3. Enhance community and stakeholder engagement
4. 4. Diversify capacity and capability for effective management
5. 5. Implement adaptive management: enhancing planning, acting, and reflecting
6. 6. Promote integrated planning and acknowledge co-benefits
7. 7. Innovate and improve technical interventions
8. 8. Practise patience and flexibility

The recommendations have informed the development of a Place-based Engagement and Impact tool, to assist agencies and organisations who develop and deliver programmes of work at place with others. It aims to improve the planning, execution, and evaluation of programmes, emphasising thorough preparation, inclusive engagement, strategic alignment and collaborations, collective action, capacity and capability building, scalability and ongoing monitoring and evaluation practices to improve outcomes and sustainability.