By Jeneen R. Garcia, Evaluation Officer, Global Environment Facility Independent Evaluation Office

Photo on the left, credit: PNGQ, UNDP Ecuador.PlanetGold.org

When it comes to making the private sector more environmentally sustainable, we don’t usually think of the millions of small businesses—better known as micro, small and...

By Gabriel Sidman, Evaluation Officer, Global Environment Facility Independent Evaluation Office

Photo credit: Gold panner in Burkina Faso, where the GEF has a long history of working in the artisanal and small-scale gold mining sector. Ⓒ Artisanal Gold Council.PlanetGold.org

It was the early...

My recent work as consultant to the UNEG Working Group on Integrating Environmental and Social Impact into Evaluations (ESI) has shown that UNEG member evaluation offices face challenges in adequately evaluating interventions that are not primarily focused on the environment, but which are likely to have effects on it. I have pulled together below nine specific areas where guidance from ESI would be particularly useful.

Potential areas for coverage by ESI guidance

1. Addressing all dimensions of agency...

Tokyo dawn,photo by Juha Uitto

COP26 is about to start in Scotland and thousands of government and civil society representatives, international organization and private sector types, scientists, journalists, and hangers-on are descending upon the city of Glasgow while the pandemic is still ongoing. In fact, the accommodations in town and its surroundings are already so overbooked that many participants...

Blog co-author: Neeraj Negi, Senior Evaluator Officer, GEF IEO

When COVID-19 was discovered in Malaysia, it affected a GEF project supporting reduction in greenhouse emissions across...

We live in a rapidly changing world although we don’t always notice it as our lives unfold in the midst of these changes. Only when you think back, even only a few years, to a specific time and you compare how life was then, do you notice how different it is now. I had this epiphany when I worked on the new revised edition of Evaluating Environment in International Development. The book was originally published in 2014—only seven years ago—so I was somewhat surprised and distinctly pleased when the publisher approached me for an update. At the time of its...

Energy efficiency has the capability to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Provisions to tap this resource must be central to climate policy to get the needed reductions, and to get them as quickly and cheaply as possible. Sustainability is also a central concern arising due to the crisis of climate change. As a result, increasing attention has been focused on the challenges faced in evaluating sustainability. Furthermore, sustainable development is more likely to be effectively achieved by building sustainable organizational evaluation systems.

The funding and...

Summary: IFAD was one of the pioneers in the UN system to recognize the need to evaluate the intended and unintended environmental consequences of development interventions. This blog piece analyses the key elements of the system developed in IFAD to sustain this effort, and to keep it going strong for the past decade. Among these, the piece highlights that the evaluation of environmental consequences of development interventions is relevant and useful to the extent that organizations are committed to mainstreaming such analysis in their programmes. 

It is widely recognised...

A lot has been said about the importance of the environmental dimension in evaluations. From the discussion of concepts like “triple bottom line” to the Agenda 2030 efforts have been made to strike a balance between the key goals of international development cooperation (social, environmental, economic) while evaluation should provide us with the evidence on the results of these efforts. In practice, however, there have been barriers to these efforts and a recent stock-taking exercise carried out by UNEG revealed a rather worrying status quo; with evaluation policies, guidance and reports...

Blog co-author: Juha I. Uitto, Director, GEF Independent Evaluation Office (GEF IEO)

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the attendant Sustainable Development...

Project sustainability- the continuation of benefits after project support has ended- receives a lot of attention in the GEF partnership, and rightly so. Creating lasting benefits is the ultimate goal of development work, and a higher bar to reach than delivering on planned project outcomes. But evidence of the actual sustainability of project benefits is also hard to come by, because monitoring systems typically end with a project. For this reason, evaluations traditionally rely on predictions of likely sustainability of outcomes as when project support ends, based on the risks to...

Within the research and evaluation world, the use of remote data collection, especially with the use of ICTs, has become increasingly prevalent. It provides us with the opportunity to gather primary data in contexts where it is not possible to have direct interaction with respondents, e.g., during the current COVID-19 pandemic and/or when the environment is not safe. However, remote data collection also poses several potential risks which need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

In the first blog post of the #Evalcrisis series...

Blog co-author: Hur Hassnain, Senior Evaluation Advisor, European Commission DEVCO/EES

The presentation titled...

Blog co-author: Hur Hassnain, Senior Evaluation Advisor, European Commission DEVCO/EES

Evaluations in contexts that are not easily accessible, constantly changing, and unpredictable, for example, the situation posed by the current global pandemic, are challenging...

Over the past eight months, the novel coronavirus pandemic has infected some 20 million people and killed more than 700,000, sparing virtually no country. The economic and social consequences have been devastating. The virus SARS-CoV-2 that caused COVID-19 crossed over from its non-human host, probably a bat, directly or more likely through an intermediate host like a pangolin, to a human in or around the city of Wuhan in China in late 2019. The exact transmission mechanism is still not known but...

GEF’s support to countries is critical in promoting and implementing environmentally sound practices for medical waste treatment during health crises. It not only promotes global environmental benefits through best management practices, but also builds capacities in countries to minimize the impact of infectious waste on people. Synergies between health care and environmental sustainability are demonstrated through GEF-financed interventions, leading to overall reduction in harm to human health and the environment.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak in December 2019,  ...

Blog co-author: Gabriel Sidman, Evaluation Officer at the GEF Independent Evaluation Office (GEF IEO)

Introduction

This blog is the second in our series to address challenges in evaluating impacts of environmental interventions...

Not in a hundred years has the world been hit by a pandemic this deadly. This means that most of us –whether project designer, implementer or evaluator—have no previous experience on how to cope with a crisis of this scale, nor anticipated it when assessing and preparing against risks to project outcomes. Even worse, how do project managers handle not just one but two shocks during project implementation?

The ongoing project...

Blog co-author: Geeta Batra, Chief Evaluation Officer at the GEF Independent Evaluation Office (GEF IEO)

The current COVID-19 pandemic is a zoonosis- a disease or infection that is naturally transmissible from animals to humans and can be caused by viruses,...

In her 2020 Earth Day blog the GEF CEO Naoko Ishii emphasized that the COVID-19 crisis is fundamentally an environmental crisis. I couldn’t agree more. Sure, at the face of it, this is first a health crisis, a pandemic with tragic consequences to people who get infected, especially those who perish or who see loved ones perish. Economies of families, communities, companies, states and countries are stressed, even destroyed. It’...

by Geeta Batra, Dan Runfola, Heather Baier

Introduction -

The COVID-19 crisis has turned impact evaluators' lives upside down: suddenly, we can’t visit the sites we are responsible for, interview participants in person, or otherwise conduct assessments as we normally would.  As with much of the world economy, this necessitates a period of unprecedented creativity to ensure that the critical role impact evaluation serves is not left by the wayside for the duration of the crisis. In this brief overview of an...

Blog co-author: Juha I. Uitto, Director, GEF Independent Evaluation Office (GEF IEO)

When you first hear the phrase “environmental peacebuilding,” you may think...

Conferences are a wonderful event for professionals and working groups. There is time to network, up-date on the newest trends in various fields of expertice, discuss and exchange. New inspiration and motivation is found and spread. The Climate Change ITIG (IDEAS Thematic Interest Group) and its current leader, Christine Wörlen, took the 2019 Prague Global Assembly as an opportunity to promote the ITIG, reach out and find new members.

Evaluation for transformative change is the core task of evaluators nowadays and the main topic of the Third International Conference on...

This blog was written by Malac Kabir (Facilitator of Earth-Eval), Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Renata Mirulla (Facilitator of Evalforward), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

As program designers and implementers, how do we make sure our intervention will scale up? As program evaluators, how do we know if something is going to scale up? In 2018, we at the GEF IEO decided to find out by looking at completed projects that reported both successful and less successful scaling outcomes.

We identified factors mentioned in 18 interviews with GEF...

This blog was originally published on the Evalforward website by Serdar Bayryyev (Senior Evaluation Officer) and Renata Mirulla (...

When we at the GEF IEO looked at how impact was scaled up in GEF-supported interventions, many of the interviewees used terms such as “magic moment”, “luck” or “perfect storm” when referring to how scaling-up happened “spontaneously” through serendipitous circumstances, even when the project itself had no concrete plans for scaling-up. On the other hand, we also know how seemingly successful programs can quickly fall apart under political and economic changes.

How do we reduce the negative effects of such changes – and maybe even turn them into “lucky” positive outcomes? In the...

Change is the only constant, we all learn sooner or later. But what to do when political and economic changes threaten the success of your carefully-implemented program?

In 2018, we at the GEF IEO examined how impact is scaled up across different types of environmental interventions funded by the GEF. We looked at 20 cases in-depth, supported by evidence from an additional 40 cases, to assess which factors mattered the...

Monitoring and evaluation practice can do harm. It can harm:

• the environment by prioritizing economic gain over species that have no voice
• people who are invisible to us when we are in a position of power
• by asking for information that can then be misused.

In the quest for understanding What Works the focus is often too narrowly on program goals rather than the...

Global factors such as technological advances, lowered costs, available capital, consumer demand and climate change have been encouraging the development and deployment of clean technologies as part of low-carbon economic growth. To accelerate progress in this area, emerging market countries need to look at conditions to best support solution providers.

...

In November 2018, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has released an evaluation of its contributions to integrated natural resource management for sustainable agriculture.

The evaluation was global in scope and examined FAO’s efforts in promoting integrated approaches for making agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable. The evaluation underscored that the Sustainable Food and Agriculture (SFA) principles, developed by FAO, have been instrumental in integrating key concepts of agricultural sustainability into FAO technical and...

The scale and urgency of the climate crisis demands rapid action to prevent a range of consequences – from increased droughts and floods to huge economic losses and more extreme natural disasters.  

All major climate funds and practitioners are struggling with a basic yet essential question: How do we best leverage scarce public resources for maximum impact?

...

“How the world deals with large and serious problems is almost certainly going to shape our collective future” is the second line – and a promising start – in this edited Springer volume titled “Rethinking resilience, adaptation and transformation in a time of change”. The volume is edited by Wanglin Yan and Will Galloway, both based in Japan, and many of the contributors were in Japan during the massive disaster that struct...

You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. At least that’s what we’ve always been told. Having finished the Evaluation of the Multiple Benefits of GEF’s Multifocal Area Portfolio, now we know it’s not that simple – and thankfully, not that bleak!

In...

They say multitasking is counterproductive. But what about trying to achieve multiple environmental and socioeconomic objectives in one project?

Last November, we presented the conclusions and recommendations of the Evaluation of the Multiple Benefits of GEF’s Multifocal Area Portfolio to the GEF Council. Particularly interesting were our findings on how synergies are...

My name is Jeneen R. Garcia. I’ve been a full-time evaluator at the Independent Evaluation Office of the Global Environment Facility (GEF IEO) for the last seven years. The GEF is the largest multilateral funder of environmental programs worldwide. Because the programs we evaluate almost all take place in complex social-ecological systems, we constantly need to seek out new methods for dealing with complexity.

One of the methods we’ve used is Social Network Analysis (SNA). In one evaluation,...

One of the underlying assumptions of urban resilience oriented interventions is that cities control policies and vital systems, such as system-level management of infrastructure development, natural resource management, and setting environmental standards.

For example, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) helps develop tools and knowledge that aid city level decision-makers and municipal leaders in determining how to reform policies...

We have recently completed the Sixth Comprehensive Evaluation of the GEF (known by its acronym OPS6). The Comprehensive Evaluations are conducted by the Independent Evaluation Office every four years as critical inputs to the GEF replenishment process. I presented the final draft of the OPS6 to the second replenishment meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in October 2017 and the GEF...

As part of the GEF-6 replenishment phase, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) introduced three integrated approach pilot (IAP) programs. These programs aim to address global environmental issues more holistically.

The Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the GEF was tasked to review...

As part of the GEF-6 replenishment phase, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) introduced three integrated approach pilot (IAP) programs. These programs aim to address global environmental issues more holistically and help recipient countries generate global environmental benefits that correspond to more than one Convention or GEF focal area. The specific drivers of environmental degradation tackled by each program are the following:

...

Blog by Eoghan Molloy (Evaluation Specialist) and Serdar Bayryyev (Senior Evaluation Officer), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Forests are recognised as playing a key role in the Paris agreement, and their sustainable management is fundamental to achieving progress towards the SDGs (most specifically SDG 15 for life on land, and SDG 13 for climate action). Sustainable...

Blog by Serdar Bayryyev (Senior Evaluation Officer) and Eoghan Molloy (Evaluation Specialist), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 

In July 2017, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) published the first FAO Strategy for Climate Change, a new policy document to support countries in further developing their capacities for climate change adaptation and mitigation in the...

In the run-up towards the GEF’s seventh replenishment period (GEF-7 starting in 2018), the Independent Evaluation Office of the GEF undertook an evaluation focused on the GEF’s private sector engagement. The study analyzes the environmental finance landscape, assesses the GEF’s private sector engagement activities, and provides recommendations for roles, instruments and tangible measures that the GEF could incorporate to strengthen its collaboration with the private sector. The evaluation is based on extensive desk research, a survey among 60 GEF stakeholders, and in-depth interviews. The...

Authors: Jonas Schoenefeld and Andy Jordan

What is needed to make the Paris Agreement a success? This blog post focuses on one of the most central but underappreciated elements – the periodic reviews of progress. States must of course make ambitious and credible contributions in the first place.  But if there is no system to ensure that they are monitored and...

For those of you who haven’t heard of the LDCF and SCCF before; the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) is a climate fund, established during the UNFCCC COP meeting in Marrakech in 2001, that focuses on - among other things - providing support to least developed countries’ (LDCs’) climate change adaptation efforts. The Special Climate Change Fund was established at the same time, and has a broader mandate. SCCF funds can be accessed by ‘...

The previous blog post was the first one of two posts discussing the recent evaluation of gender mainstreaming in the Global Environment Facility (GEF), conducted over the past year by the...

Over the past year the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) has worked on an...

Recently, Climate-Eval and the UN Evaluation Group (UNEG) hosted a webinar to launch the book, Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development.

This book was written by more than 15 groups of experts from a range of backgrounds who shared their ideas, experiences and state of the art methodologies on climate change evaluation.

What is this book all about? Why is it worth reading?...

This blog is written by Nathalie Beaulieu, Aliou Diouf and Guy Jobbins

In 2016, the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) program invited us to prepare a working paper to share lessons learned while strengthening evaluation capacity of researchers involved in the Climate Change Adaptation program in Africa (CCAA). This experience, and our subsequent reflection, convinced us that developing...

Looking back on years of using the sustainability evaluation criterion, one has to ask - how well have we done? The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have brought renewed attention to sustainability. Although the DAC evaluation framework includes sustainability as one of its five criteria, looking back on years of using this DAC evaluation criterion, one has to ask - how well have we done? And here I mean in...

Climate change adaptation practices are comprised of local knowledge and practices. These autonomous and planned interventions are designed to reduce risk and enhance the resilience of vulnerable households and communities with respect to their livelihoods and economic well-being.

People in the Gandaki River Basin are already experiencing climate change and its effects on their livelihoods. Major climate change risks and hazards in the Basin include drought, landslides, flash floods, landslides, water shortages, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF), and the potential outbreak of...

Resilience is based on complex connections between social, environmental, and economic domains.

Building resilience has and continues to be central to the human endeavor. Extreme events have caused harm, shock, and suffering for centuries. At the same time, they have stimulated innovation, technological advancements, and adaptation—hallmarks of resilience under challenging circumstances.

In today’s world...

co-authored with Anna Williams

Urgency is a word often associated with climate change. The scale and urgency of the climate crisis demands scaled-up action to prevent a range of future—and current—consequences: from extreme weather events, to poor air quality affecting the health of millions and shifting weather patterns jeopardizing agricultural production and water supplies.

Urgency, though, is not typically a word associated with evaluation or learning.

This needs to change, given the growing threats posed by climate change and the high commitment...

The Independent Evaluation Office of the GEF (IEO) recently organized two panel sessions at the Adaptation Futures 2016 conference, which took place in Rotterdam May 10-13.

One of the sessions, chaired by Ms. Anna...

Policy analysts have a new addition to their toolbox, one that recognizes the importance of deep uncertainty and the resulting need for adaptive planning approaches. The use of adaptation pathways, as this new addition is known, supports the development of adaptive policies and programmes. These are policies or programmes that do not put a blueprint design centre-stage, or specific programme goals or targets, but which recognize various pathways that could lead to the realization of long-term ambitions. Adaptation pathways provide a means to structure various possible sequences of actions...

Are we ready, will we ever be? The conversation about professionalization in evaluation has a long history, and often raises much concern and interest. Over the 25 years that I have spent working in evaluation, there have been moments when I thought “haven’t we discussed enough?” but come to think of it: many other professions took hundreds of years to shape their professional standards. 

...

As multilateral development banks, private sources and governments gear up to fill massive infrastructure gaps in Asia, we must not miss a unique opportunity. With trillions of dollars envisaged for constructing dams, bridges and roads, all with long lifespans, this is the chance to make infrastructure climate-friendly. Doing so will be in one’s self-interest.

At current rates of greenhouse gas production, global average temperatures will, in a quarter of century, rise above 20 degrees C from pre-industrial levels, a threshold for avoiding catastrophic impact. To dodge this scenario...

We’re all knowledge brokers. As social beings we naturally pass around information, filtering it and combining it with other bits of information that we think are relevant or interesting, then communicating that to others. In this way knowledge moves from one person to another, whether it’s the latest football scores, what candidates said during an election campaign, or how a changing climate is likely to impact on the frequency of flooding in a particular place.

Some people take on this knowledge brokering role explicitly in their jobs. Not many will have the job title 'knowledge...

I recently had an informal meeting with the kind people of the University of Maryland’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, who focus on environmental decision-making under uncertainty. Towards the end of the meeting Dr. Melissa Kenney asked me; “What would you do if you had 200 million US Dollars to improve the...

A few weeks ago I wrote a book review of Philip Eubanks’ book titled The Troubled Rhetoric and Communication of Climate Change: The argumentative situation. A second book on my desk, edited by Lorraine Whitmarsch, Saffron O’Neill and Irene Lorenzoni, is titled Engaging the Public with Climate Change: Behaviour Change and Communication, and that book will be reviewed in this blog post. “Engaging the...

Evidence produced from research and evaluation plays an important role in shaping how we address international development challenges. For example, conditional cash transfers are now used all over the world as an important lever in the fight against poverty, thanks in part to the rigorous (and ongoing) evidence provided by the Opportunidades program evaluation in Mexico, which is showing how the program is affecting outcomes in schooling, health, and consumption...

There is a steady stream of reports on using innovation to address climate change, economic transformation for clean innovations,...

Planning for the impacts of climate change is a complex and challenging issue. Solutions can only be driven through informed decision-making and to date there is little evidence to suggest that this is occurring in any meaningful way in most of the cities around the world. For local and city governments managing climate change is complex and fraught with challenges associated with resource constraints, community buy-in, legal risks and political positioning. These government decision-makers also have to work within a shifting State and National policy environment.

Cherry-...

For the summer period I’ll be posting a number of book reviews on Climate-Eval. This week, two books ended up on my desk, begging to be read. The first one being Philip Eubanks' book titled The Troubled Rhetoric and Communication of Climate Change: The argumentative situation

The second book, edited by Lorraine Whitmarsch, SSaffron O'Neill and Irene Lorenzoni, and titled...

Rural communities throughout Latin America are increasingly suffering the impacts of climate change and few policies exist to help them adapt to these impacts. The basic infrastructure and services that they frequently lack can be provided by low carbon technologies, potentially funded by international carbon finance flows. This could enable the upcoming Sustainable Development Goals of economic growth and...

Continuing its effort at the country level to measure climate vulnerability and measure readiness to accept adaptation investment, Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index (ND-GAIN) now starts down-scaling the adaptation assessment to the city level. The Urban Adaptation Assessment project, funded by the...

This blog was originally posted on BetterEvaluation by Simon Hearn and the original post can be found here. We feel that the post and linked materials are very relevant to those working in the environmental and climate related evaluation fields, and as such this blog is being re-blogged by Simon Hearn here on Climate-Eval. 

It is with a sense of pride that I present to you the final report of the Climate-Eval Good Practice Study on Principles for Indicator Development, Selection, and Use in Climate Change Adaptation Monitoring and Evaluation. This study identifies and addresses key challenges concerning M&E for CCA. It does so by documenting good practices and good practice principles on the development, selection, and use of indicators used in...

The concepts of "resilience", "adaptation" and "transformation" have captured the attention of the global policy community, and are being translated into aspirational goals that...

It is a great pleasure to return to Climate-Eval and contribute a blog on an issue that should be music in your ears! As President of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) I am involved in the preparations of the Global Assembly 2015 which will take place in Bangkok, Thailand, October 26-30, 2015. This conference has “evaluating sustainable...

A recent discussion with some colleagues on the differences between data, knowledge and information made me realize that there still is a lot of confusion when it comes to the use of terms; confusion that goes well beyond my earlier blog post on indicators, measures and metrics.

In this blog post I'll discuss the differences between data, information and knowledge by using an example of counting cattle from space. 

The Answer is 42

...

There are various ways of defining protected areas. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) defines protected area (PA) as “a geographically defined area which is designated or regulated and managed to achieve specific conservation objectives.” The IUCN had lengthy debates and developed the...

Lessons from Mauritius, Seychelles and Iran, other GEF-UNDP projects

In developing countries and regions, knowledge for natural resources management (NRM) and climate change adaptation (CCA) remain scarce and fragmented within weak knowledge systems. Knowledge about CCA and NRM, including environmental, social and economic risks, costs and benefits, is not integrated with mainstream development knowledge nor are its architects systematically linking its scientific sources to policy decisions and practical actions. 

This blog intends to make two main points: 1. Using NRM and...

My doctoral work opens the black box of practice (Mosse 2004) to examine how climate-compatible development projects that utilize carbon finance can enable (or hinder) local economic development. Together with my research assistant, Yiting Wang, we have documented the importance of water filter distribution networks on local livelihoods. Our finding is significant because, at present, there are no reporting or design requirements on distribution networks when designing a climate-compatible development project, a gap we hope to redress given their key significance for the project outcome....

Veronica Gonzalez joined the Office of Evaluation and Oversight (OVE) of the Inter-American Development Bankin 2001 and has made a career in the evaluation field. At OVE, Veronica led several evaluations on environment and development. She...

Hello to the Climate-Eval community! My name is Shanna Edberg, and I am the new moderator of Climate-Eval. 

For a little bit about my background, I am currently in my second year working at the Global Environment Facility's Independent Evaluation Office. I am part of the Performance Team here, which focuses on assessing the internal workings of the GEF, evaluating new organizational initiatives, and providing feedback...

I started my career as a corporate lawyer, but shifted my work focus to development cooperation and geography by working on research projects on relief and reconstruction in urban and coastal contexts. These experiences have led to my current work at the intersection of business, climate change and spatial views of adaptive capacity. The recognition of interdependence of firms, workers and their families, and community all come closer into focus, particularly in developing countries.

Within this context, we can recognize that in the broad organizational landscape, business firms are...

On May 13, 2013, I boarded the “Climate-Eval Train” super motivated to make the most of a new professional journey that at the time was equally exciting as it was intimidating. Two years later, as I move on to another professional challenge, I am delighted to report that thanks to you we have made some progress in the evaluation of climate change.

As a journalist transitioning into evaluation, the learning curve was pretty daunting and at times seemed almost insurmountable. Yet, from day one, I willed myself to...

Last year I worked with Plan International to evaluate the pilot phase of their child-centered climate change adaptation (4CA) project implemented in Indonesia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam between 2011 and 2014. Children are often more vulnerable to impacts of climate change than adults. Plan considers it important for girls and boys to contribute to and benefit from community adaptation...

Although Bolivia – in the last years - has been able to reduce poverty and inequality, both still remain high, especially in the rural area. According to official measures, poverty decreased in a decade (2002-2012), from 63% to 45% , while the extreme poverty in the same time period, reduced from 37% to 22%. However, Bolivia still faces the challange to be a megadiverse country (cultural and ecological) with high level of rural  poverty (61%)- a combination which makes the country very vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. The increase of average temperature is causing...

Background

Ethiopia ranks 10th in the list of countries most at risk from climate change in 2014, according to the Climate Change Vulnerability Index, prepared by Maplecroft. The low-level of development and dependence on agriculture are the main reasons for this vulnerability. Agriculture is the mainstay of the country’s economy contributing 50% of its GDP and employing 85% of its population. The majority of farmers are smallholders that depend on rain-fed agriculture for subsistence. These smallholders face numerous challenges and struggle to make ends meet and even a slight...

Natural Resource Management (NRM) is at the center of the Climate-Eval Community of Practice’s expanded focus for the next phase of engagement. As such the community is looking to explore the issues relevant to evaluation practitioners when climate change aspects are incorporated into NRM interventions. Although the NRM sector is not new, looking at it from the environmental evaluation perspective is somewhat new and unchartered territory. That is why Climate-Eval commissioned a ‘scoping study’ of evaluations of NRM interventions linked to climate change a few months ago (see...

“The Race against Climate Change, Economics, Politics and the High Stakes of the next 12 months”

By choosing this title for his presentation, Andrew Steer immediately addresses the key issue for evaluators, since these “sleuths with superhero potential” have the Herculean task to race against the closing time window for climate change. Despite this new and...

Climate Policy Initiative has just released our Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2014. By providing the most comprehensive overview available of climate finance, this series of reports helps decision makers to measure progress against policy goals, identify barriers to the smooth flow of climate investments, and find opportunities to reallocate scarce public resources to drive more investment.

Doing all this well requires effective...

Over the past months I have been blogging about indicators, measures and metrics, some good discussion took place on various LinkedIn groups on counterfactual analysis beyond ‘no intervention’, maladaptation was touched upon in a blog post and we ended the month of October with...

The 2nd International Conference on Evaluating Climate Change and Development has ended in Washington D.C leaving many evaluation questions answered and perhaps many more unanswered – even though it would be fair to argue that the conference did not set out to answer all questions associated with the evaluation of climate change and development.

Lesson 1: We Know How to Evaluate Mitigation

There might still be ambiguity and absence of standards and norms, but for the most part, we know how to evaluate climate change mitigation. “We know how to calculate...

Hello, my name is Pablo Benitez and I am sharing with you a blog about my forthcoming presentation on Climate Finance M&E, which will be part of the 2nd International Conference on Evaluating Climate Change and Development. I hope that the members of this community will enjoy reading it, and am looking forward to getting any feedback you may have.

While discussions about the Green Climate Fund advance, there are increasing needs to support climate finance “readiness” programs in developing countries. With pledges to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) slowly coming along [$2.3 billon...

Hello, my name is Quinn Reifmesser and I am honoured to have been invited to share a blog about the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership’s (REEEP’s) newly developed Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Strategy and Framework and accompanying paper, which will be presented at the 2nd International Conference on Evaluating Climate Change and Development this November 4th, 2014 in Washington, DC. We look forward to presenting the work we’ve done on our M&E framework to our peers, many of whose own M&E methodologies, strategies, publications and work in the field...

Hello! I am Yesuf and I would like to communicate to you my work (co-authored with Théophile T. Azomahou) scheduled to be presented at the 2nd International Conference on Evaluating Climate Change and Development. The title of our study is Insurance against weather risk: A quasi-experimental evaluation of weather index insurance impacts on productivity and welfare. 

A bit of background: In light of the substantial rise in weather risk and the evidence that households suffer from the consequences of weather risk, there are now provisions of weather indexed...

During a good part of my early childhood my mother was a frequent visitor of my school’s principal’s office. The point was that as a young child I was maladapted, though teachers disagreed as to what that meant exactly. And although that was the situation when I was 9, I would dare to self-evaluate and say that 30 years later I am rather well-adapted.

As part of the ...

Hello, my name is Jacques Somda, and I would like to share a blog with you about the paper I intend to present at the 2nd International Conference on Evaluating Climate Change and Development.  This paper focuses on evaluating the adaptive capacities in human systems in relation with agriculture and food security at the community level in West African countries. It aims to highlight approaches and domains of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of behavioral changes which can be used to formulate adaptive capacity indicators. The study was conducted through the CGIAR’s research program on...

This is a co-authored piece by the following authors: Takaaki Miyaguchi(Associate Professor, Ritsumeikan University (Japan), takaaki@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp) and Juha I. Uitto(Director, GEF Independent Evaluation Office, juitto@thegef.org)

Hi, I'm Taka, and I’d like to give you a preview of what my co-author Juha and I are going to discuss at the ...

We now know the urgency and criticality of the climate challenge.  We know well what needs to be done: stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere or risk catastrophic warming; and prepare for the impacts already, irreversibly, in train.

Just one question: how?

Responding to opportunities and obstacles

It is not as if there were a pre-existing, clear, roadmap for economic development and poverty reduction.  Now the way forward is further obscured by the need for pervasive changes in the way that we produce energy, grow food, use water, and prepare for...

Building on its successes and increasing membership, Climate-Eval has broadened its scope to take on a wider set of issues and development interventions around evaluation in the field of Natural Resource Management (NRM). This intent was first communicated to the online community in a blog last year as well as a...

The post-2015 development agenda is taking shape.

As expected, climate change takes a preponderant place on the blueprint designed to end poverty in all its forms everywhere in the period (2015-2030) and also ensure the overarching goal of sustainable development is achieved.

In the current iteration of the plan, climate change is positioned...

Working on the upcoming study on Indicator Development, Selection and Use Principles for Climate Change Adaptation M&E I was reading through a wide selection of adaptation M&E frameworks. After a while I started to notice the different ways in which authors talked about indicators, measures and metrics. The definitions of the terms 'indicator', 'measure' and 'metric' vary across agencies and are often used interchangeably,...

Over the past years, Climate-Eval has commissioned state-of-the-art studies to facilitate evaluations of climate change mitigation and adaptation. The latest two studies have been

1. the 'Guidelines to Climate Mitigation Evaluations', and

2. 'Meta-Evaluation of Climate Mitigation Evaluations', both conducted by Dr. Christine Wörlen in 2013 (links are provided at the bottom of the blog).

A third study looked at the monitoring and evaluation of adaptation to climate change. This adaptation M...

The evaluation of the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) has been published and contains plenty of food for thought for board members of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), its stakeholders and the overall international climate change community focused on finance.

...

• No, says the World Bank

Many in the Climate skeptic community have peddled the notion that climate-smart development and economic growth are mutually exclusive. And too often, this narrative has dominated mainstream climate change debate.

With governments at all levels often preoccupied with delivering jobs, stimulating their economies and spurring competition, it might look like environmental and economic prosperity are mutually exclusively...

A real-time evaluation of the Asian Development Bank

In the context of climate change, real-time evaluations are used to provide timely and useful information needed to progressively assess the implementation of interventions. Unlike summative evaluations, findings from real-time evaluation help make rapid adjustments and improvements to ongoing activities and subsequently help ex-post evaluations.

The Asian...

The 2nd International Conference on Evaluating Climate Change and Development has been confirmed for November 4-6, 2014 in Washington DC. A call for Abstracts has been communicated and June 30 identified as deadline for submission of proposals. As practitioners wrap their brains around words that could clearly and succinctly convey their message...

Low carbon development gained prominence at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen. Since then, many countries have established low emissions growth strategies aligned to their national development plans. But as countries seek to invest in low carbon initiatives in order to reduce poverty and achieve the overarching goal of sustainable development, it is still not certain what works and what does not.

Governments, Non Governmental Organizations, businesses and the development parners at all levels are creating new low carbon programs and establishing energy...

Recently, the Government of India announced plans to award licenses for an additional one gigawatt of solar in the next year – about half the capacity of the Hoover Dam and enough to meet the energy needs of two million people. This move is part of India’s already ambitious targets for renewable energy that aim to address rising energy demand, decrease the country’s dependence on fossil fuel imports, and mitigate climate change.

To ensure the country meets...

I spent the early part of March in Yaoundé, capital of Cameroon participating in the 7th international conference of the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA). Central to my role at this conference was the promotion of activities of a learning community of practice (Climate-Eval) which is my main job in the...

After a year and a half of hard work on creating user friendly monitoring and reporting toolkits, the fruits are beginning to show with all four CIF programs now able to use their toolkits to report FY14 results.  It’s been a challenging but rewarding journey!
 
We started in November 2012 so that by July 2013, two monitoring and reporting toolkits for the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) and the Pilot Program for Climate...

Speaking at the World Bank, Ben Ramalingam, author of Aid on the Edge of Chaos set out a challenge to those working in the humanitarian and development fields: Move away from a narrow focus on what we think is important and take a more wide-angle approach to the issues we’re dealing with.

“Responses to complex challenges need to be adaptive,” he said. “Rather than strategies for best practice we should be looking at strategies for best fit.”

Ben discussed his plans to push the debate on change in the development system...

In late January, we advertised an opportunity to serve as representative of the Climate-Eval Community of Practice (CoP) in the Steering Committee currently planning 2nd International conference on Evaluating Climate and Development expected to hold in Washington DC in September 2014.

The 2nd international conference on evaluating climate change and development is a follow up from an initial conference held in Alexandria, Egypt in 2008 during which the idea of creating Climate-Eval originated....

The climate change portfolio of the World Bank Group is growing. It is central to the programmatic priorities of other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). Governments at all levels are aligning climate change to their programing and planning processes.  At the November 2013...

YAOUNDE, March 06, 2014: Invited to brainstorm on the challenges and prospects of climate change evaluation in Africa, three seasoned panelists with many years of evaluation experience in Africa converged on the fact that evaluation shall be immensely helpful in providing policy makers at local, national and international level with vital evidence required to design and implement policies that will further the sustainable livelihoods of poor communities across Africa in the decades to come.

Pointing to the need for payment of environmental services to local communities, the Director...

I spoke to the President of the Cameroon Development Evaluation Association, Debazou Yantio upon my arrival here in Yaoundé for the 2014 African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) conference.

Debazou who has a long experience of evaluating environmental and climate change interventions in the region said “for most NGOs operating in the region, there is a culture of just...

The World Economic Forum is over. As you might have expected, climate change was part of the discussion. An interesting report capturing the latest thinking on climate change adaptation and climate finance was launched during the forum in Davos.

The 40 page report titled, Climate Adaptation: Seizing the Challenge, has as main goal, assisting decision-makers in the public and private sectors gain a better...

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is the most prominent international financial mechanism supporting developing countries (and countries with economies in transition) on climate change. For its mitigation support it has an allocation system that is based on sending money where the problem is: developing countries with higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions get higher levels of money. This has led some critics to assume that GEF money rewards the “polluter” and gives these countries an incentive to emit even more greenhouse gasses as they will receive more money as a result. Other...

Back in 2008, delegates to the Alexandria International Conference on Evaluation of Climate change and Development proposed the creation of a virtual knowledge exchange platform.

Thanks to the financial largess of a few bilateral partners -- Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Norway), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Denmark), Deutsche GesselschaftfuerInternationaleZusammenarbeit (Germany), Agence Française de Developpement (France), the...

This comparative analysis titled Monitoring and Evaluating Adaptation at Aggregated Level: A Comparative Analysis of Ten Systems examines ten different M&E systems in both industrialized and developing countries.

It is a publication of the Deutsche GesselschaftfuerInternationale...

New York-based nonprofit, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) has urged the Global Environment Facility to maintain investment in the transportation sector at the current rate as a means of cutting down on emissions of greenhouse gases. In a report: Maximizing the Effectiveness of the Global Environment Facility Sustainable Transport Portfolio published several weeks ago, ITDP states that “rapid...

• Main elements of compromise deal
• Loss and Damage Mechanism Set Up
• First quarter of 2015 for ‘All’ Parties to Volunteer Emissions Reduction Targets
• A Warsaw Framework for REDD+ ...

• Multilateral Development Banks Provided $27 Billion in Climate Finance in 2012
• 78 Percent Spent on Mitigation and 22 Percent on Adaptation
• Our Top Five Pick for Climate and Natural Resources Management Evaluators
• Road to Paris 2015 Remains Challenging

Today, the International climate change negotiations enter the second and last week. No significant breakthrough was expected in...

Pedro Hemsley is a senior analyst at Climate Policy Initiative (CPI). He received his BA in Economics from Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) and went on to his Masters at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV-Rio). The original version of this blog was first published on the website of CPI.

In business, it is unusual to find a technology that proves to be better and costs less than the one in use. In...

Chiara Trabachi is an analyst at Climate Policy Initiative (CPI)and is currently enrolled in Ca’ Foscari University of Venice’s PhD program on the Science and Management of Climate Change. The original version of this blog was published recently on the website of CPI.

Investment in projects that help countries adapt to climate change attracted around USD 20-24 billion in 2012, according to CPI’s recently published...

Having covered five UNFCCC conferences in the past, I recognize how challenging it could be to wrap one's mind around all the major issues going on in a conference with widely different interests and agendas.

But I guess it is fair to say that the UNFCCC annual gatherings comes down to an official negotiation track, a stream of advocacy and pressure activities from activists and pro-climate NGOs such as Greenpeace and WWF and a stream of activities from development organizations seeking to inform policy and better...

• An emotional opening statement from the lead negotiator of the Philippines
• Full statement of Executive Secretary of UNFCCC
• Conference expected to make progress on GHG emissions reduction, funding for adaptation, Green Climate Fund, and concrete steps to reach target of $100 billion by 2020 in climate funding
• Sessions of interest to evaluators of climate change and natural resources management

"A new universal climate agreement...

About this same time four years ago, publicity was awash with the historic Copenhagen climate change summit. Understandably, more than 100 Heads of State and government representatives had signed up to attend and everyone had heightened expectations: a legally binding climate deal.

Well as we all know, much did not go as expected and the world was left to grapple with the Copenhagen Accord which many observers described as ‘toothless’. Till this day, the outcome of that conference continues to divide international public opinion.

Since then, Cancun, Durban and Doha have come...

Diane Archer is a researcher in IIED's Human Settlements Group and can be contacted at diane.archer@iied.org. This blog was original published on the website of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

Three new studies from Vietnam show how research can help governments devise solutions that help their citizens adapt to the effects of climate change.

...

Launched in 2007, Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) supports efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries known as REDD+.

Supporting the measurement, reporting, and verification (MVR) of emissions from forests in relation to REDD+ is part of...

The AfrEA board, the IOCE and NONIE take pleasure to invite submissions for another milestone Pan-African Evaluation event: the 7th AfrEA International Conference.

The Cameroon Development Evaluation Association (CaDEA) is hosting the conference, to be held at the Hilton hotel in Yaoundé, Cameroon from March 3 – 7, 2014.

In the past, various African and international participants submitted and presented paper and...

Christine Woerlen has authored two studies for Climate-Eval Community of Practice (Guidelines to Climate Change Mitigation and Meta Evaluations of Climate Change Mitigation Evaluation). The original version of this article appeared in the September 2013 edition of Evaluation Connections, the monthly newsletter of the European Evaluation Society (EES...

Not very often do we talk about independence, credibility and use as challenges of climate change evaluation. Does this in any way suggest that there are no issues of independence, credibility and use of climate change evaluations? I bet no. But what are they?

Right now, the Evaluation Office of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), local partners in Brazil and other international organizations as well as regional and international evaluation associations are meeting in Sao Paolo to brainstorm over innovative solutions to general evaluation challenges linked to independence...

The attention of the international development community will in the days ahead be focused on Sao Paolo, Brazil which is hosting the Third International conference on National Evaluation Capacities (NEC).

More than 160 participants carefully drawn from evaluation associations, government agencies, and international organizations will be in Sao Paolo to seek innovative solutions to the following three major challenges to evaluation: credibility, independence and use.

The conference which is the third of...

Rob Van Den Berg is the  Director of the Global Environment Facility Evaluation Office (GEFEO). The original version of this article appeared in the September 2013 edition of Evaluation Connections, the monthly newsletter of the European Evaluation Society (EES).

Over the past decade, evaluations have been influenced by the scientific method: to show what...

Berlin-based renewable energy policy expert and former program officer at the Global Environment Facility, Christine Wörlen has detailed out clear guidelines to help those evaluating climate mitigation interventions at local, national, sectoral or global levels.

Titled “Guidelines to Climate...

In 2010, India’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) set a target to develop 20,000 MW of solar energy by 2022.

This target was to be achieved in three phases: Phase 1 by early 2013; Phase 2 and 3 by 2017 and 2022 respectively. Phase 1 was further implemented in two batches: Batch 1 with capacity targets for solar PV and solar thermal; and Batch 2 with a capacity target for solar PV only.

However, as of June, 2013, it appears that JNNSM, though moderately...

Gianleo Frisari is a fellow at Climate Policy Initiative, an organization that analyzes the effectiveness of the most important energy and land use policies around the world.

Has Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) finally turned the corner, going from an emerging technology (albeit with 20 years of history) to an (almost) commercially-ready one?

CPI recently published an update to an earlier report on a large-scale CSP plant to be built near the city of Ouarzazate in Morocco. CPI finds that the...

A new report from the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the World Bank, “developing countries are not yet well adapted even to current climate risks: floods, droughts and storm. Yet those risks are becoming harsher as the world warms, climate extremes become more intense, and the oceans rise – the consequences of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.”

This evaluation draws lessons from...

The 19th conference of the parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place in the Polish city of Warsaw from November 11 – 22, 2013.

Thousands of delegates from across the world are expected in Warsaw to continue consideration of a legally binding agreement to deal with climate change beyond 2020.

But while the spotlight may be on the ability of negotiators to harsh a strong and universally binding deal to address the growing effects of climate change as well as the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the growing portfolio of...

The Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest, but protecting it from illegal deforestation is a challenge nearly as immense as the forest itself. In a previous study, CPI has discussed explanations for a slowdown in the rate of forest clearings observed in the 2000s. In a new study, DETERring Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, we take a step further and answer...

YOUR TAKE

Democracy is what it is today thanks to free speech. And if free speech is good for democracy, it is also good for the advancement of the cause of evaluation of climate change and development and evaluation at large.

Our community is growing every day and from our end (Climate-Eval), we are constantly looking for innovative and creative ways to engage you and benefit from your rich experiences and extensive knowledge. Meaningful change in evaluation will only happen if we start to do things differently, learn good practices, replicate and scale them up.

It...

The Director of the Global Environment Facility Evaluation Office (GEFEO), Rob Van Den Berg has told an audience that negative evidence emanating from evaluations is vital to tackling global problems afresh. Mr Van Den Berg was speaking during a panel discussion at the recent General Assembly of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) in Bridgetown, Barbados.

...

LoCAL is the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility. It is a United Nations facility for investment in local level climate resilience. The facility channels global adaptation finance to local governments - who are at the frontline of dealing with the effect of climate change - and enables them to invest in building local resilience.

The method for doing so is innovative: The LoCAL Facility connects to existing national intergovernmental fiscal transfer systems and...

At various levels of Governments in the world, policy makers and those in decision-making positions are recieving evaluation reports regularly. While the methodology, conclusions and recommendations of some of the studies are clear and straight to the point, it is not the case for others.

“Policy makers have trouble evaluating whether the studies that passed their desk were sensible or not,” explains Dr Lykke Andersen, lead researcher with the Bolivian-based Institute for Advanced Development Studies (INESAD).

Following an initiative of the Community of ANDEAN nations and...

A few weeks ago, Climate-Eval online community of practice registered the membership of Guene Herve Jean-louis, consultant and researcher working with Burkina Faso’s National Institute of Statistics and Demography . Like many other people seeking membership of Climate-Eval, Guene was in need of specific information. In his case, he needed case studies on climate change and poverty. Once his membership granted him full access, he skimmed through the website, found some relevant...

David Akana is the new moderator of Climate-Eval. He joins the Evaluation office of GEF with more than 15 years experience in environmental and climate change reportage with specific focus on climate change adaptation in Africa. Akana who has interviewed high profile environment personalities and world leaders including Presidents Obasanjo of Nigeria, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, and Ely Mouhemed Vall of ...

Seema Jayachandran, Associate Professor of Economics Northwestern University, Affiliated Professor and Health Co-Chair, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), writes a follow-up blog on PES programs. Click here to read her previous blog for climate-eval published on April 22, 2013.

Many people in developing countries do not have access to credit. They have a tough time borrowing money to start a small business, buy farm equipment, send their children to school, or weather bad...

and Wouter Peeters

In our previous post we touched upon two design characteristics of the EU ETS - i.e. grandfathering of emission entitlements and offsetting - that we deem ethically troublesome. In light of this predicament we offer some reflections on the practices of one...

Seema Jayachandran, Associate Professor of Economics Northwestern University, Affiliated Professor and Health Co-Chair, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL),  discusses the effectiveness of payments for ecosystems (PES) for reducing deforestation in developing countries.

Finding effective ways to curb deforestation is a key question for climate policy: Deforestation and forest degradation account for about 20 percent of anthropogenic carbon emissions, most of which occur in developing countries. Slowing deforestation is also a potentially very cost-effective way to...

Today officially marks my last day at the GEF EO, and subsequently as moderator of the Climate-Eval community of practice. My two-year term came and went so quickly. In-between those two years, however, are some learning and insights worth highlighting in my final blog post as Climate-Eval Moderator.

I have a confession to make: I am not an evaluator. While I have worked with Climate-Eval members, a big number of whom are evaluators, I myself have never conducted an evaluation. Thus, I had to learn on the job. And learning about evaluation, as in any endeavor, has been challenging...

Global leaders are postponing the negotiations on a new binding emissions reduction treaty until 2015, coming into effect no sooner than 2020. The UN and the EU focus their climate policies on the prevention of a 2°C global mean temperature (GMT) rise by 2100, relative to pre-industrial levels, which implies that emissions have to peak and decline before the end of this decade. Since strong mitigation action remains absent,...

Ram Chandra Khanal discusses the challenges in the evaluation of climate change based on the climate change adaptation session of the Evaluation Conclave 2013 held on February 26 to March 1 in Kathmandu, Nepal. The article was originally published in the features section of the Climate & Development Knowledge Network.

Evaluation of climate change interventions in South Asia was one of the themes discussed at the recent South Asia...

Romero Rocha, a senior analyst at Climate Policy Initiative, summarizes an assessment of the impact of Brazil's rural credit policy on deforestation. Senior analyst Clarissa Costalonga e Gandour also contributed to this piece.

The deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon decreased sharply in the second half of the 2000s, falling from a peak of 27,000 km2 in 2004 to 5,000 km2 in 2011. In a previous CPI/NAPC study...

Lawrence Haddad outlines issues on knowledge and learning in the context of development and climate change. He gave the opening remarks for the two-day climate change knowledge exchange 'Acting on what we know and how we learn for climate and development policy' at the Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK last 5-6 March 2013. The blog was originally published in Development Horizons.

Last March 5 IDS welcomed 80 participants to a learning event on how we learn...

Kelly Hewitt delivered the following message for the Climate Change M&E Panel of the Evaluation Conclave 2013 in Kathmandu, Nepal:

Please, let me start by saying that though I and my colleague Kapil Thukral, serve on the Evaluation Oversight Committee for the current CIFs global evaluation, it is my separate, independent and individual professional observations as an evaluator that guide my comments this morning. So with that let's move on.

I believe that we all can agree that carbon investment funds aim to bring about additionality, leveraging, and transformation. In the...

From 26 February to 1 March 2013, hundreds of evaluators will pilgrimage to Kathmandu, Nepal for the Evaluation Conclave 2013. The four-day congregation will consist of about 70 sessions on everything evaluation, from theories of change to outcome mapping. Six to seven presentations will occur simultaneously at any given time. With so many options to choose from, it's easy to lose track of sessions which will cover topics on or related to climate change and development evaluation.

Below I am sharing my cheat sheet of the sessions I will most likely attend. This is in no way an...

Gireesh Shrimali, an Assistant Professor of Energy Economics and Business at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), summarizes in this blog an assessment of India's renewable portfolio standard strategy.

In 2008, India's National Action Policy on Climate Change set a renewable portfolio standard, called the Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO), to produce 15% of the country's electricity with renewable energy sources by 2020. Further, under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, the Indian government aims to develop 20,000 MW of solar energy by 2022.

To...

Vijayalakshmi Vadivelu of the Evaluation Office at UNDP outlines the conclusions of the recently published Evaluation of UNDP Contribution to Disaster Prevention and Recovery.

The role of climate change in natural disasters is increasingly acknowledged, and reducing interrelated vulnerabilities is assuming ever greater significance. The Bali Action Plan negotiations have highlighted vulnerability and disaster risk reduction as key elements of climate change adaptation. Despite uncertainty over the exact magnitudes of changes in temperature and precipitation, climate change and its...

By Alan Miller and Vladimir Stenek, from the IFC Climate Business Department.

The IFC is unique among international financial institutions in that it only finances private sector projects.  IFC has implemented climate change projects for more than two decades but until recently only tracked and counted investments in mitigation, primarily energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.  Along with other MDBs, the IFC announced its agreement on a common definition and...

As those of you who have been members of Climate-Eval since its inception will know, the Community of Practice was developed to promote collaboration and knowledge sharing around issues related to climate change and development evaluations.  Its genesis came during the 2008 International Conference on Evaluating Climate Change and Development held in Alexandria, Egypt, after which the CoP was duly established.  Over the next four years Climate-Eval has steadily grown to become the platform for a number of successful activities and projects including an active blog with contributions from...

Prof. Mikael Hilden, Director for the Climate Change Programme at the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), outlines the findings and recommendations of a recent study exploring how poverty reduction and climate change responses could, and are in some cases, being integrated in the activities of development cooperation organizations such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Special Climate Change...

Juha Uitto, Deputy Director of the Evaluation Office at UNDP, outlines the conclusions of the recently published Evaluation of UNDP Contribution to Environmental Management for Poverty Reduction.

Environment and poverty are inextricably interlinked; people who depend directly on natural resources for their livelihoods tend to be poorer in material terms. Whether working in agriculture, forestry or fisheries 'or relying on small scale extraction to eke out a living' the returns from their labor are subject to environmental factors. Even relatively small fluctuations in...

In this blog, Dr. Luisa Cristini, a climatologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, draws on her experience working on climate-related disasters in the Asia-Pacific region, to explain the different kinds of observational data gathered by climatologists and how it can be applied to climate change adaptation policies, interventions and related evaluations.

Climate is observed over long time scales, from direct observations or through proxies. Climate is not weather, though the two are often confused. The weather in a certain location is the state of the atmosphere at a...

Dr. Vinod Thomas, director general for Independent Evaluation at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), shares insights from the ADB's recent evaluation of its work responding to natural disasters, both prevention and recovery, linked to Climate Change.

Population growth, people's vulnerability to hazards, and global warming are further driving the rise and risks in hydro-meteorological disasters. This disturbing trend is especially apparent in Asia; four of five cities worldwide classified as at extreme risk are in the region, which accounted for half of the estimated economic...

Christine Woerlen outlines the content of her recent webinar and answers some of the questions raised in more detail.  The webinar-recording and the slides are now available.

On Tuesday I held my second webinar for the Climate Evaluators Community of Practice.  The presentation focused on some of the more operational aspects of...

by Dr. Christine Woerlen*, Sr. Consultant, GEF Evaluation Office

Since my last blog post in July - guidelines for climate change mitigation evaluations part I, part II has been completed. So now it's time to summarize what can be found in the guidelines.

In part I, we provided some general...

By Ken Chomitz*, Sr. Advisor at the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank

As the readers of this blog know, climate change adaptation is a sprawling and confounding concept, challenging both to pursue and to evaluate. IEG has just completed a wide-ranging assessment of the World Bank Group experience with adaptation, and I wanted to share with our fellow evaluators some highlights of how we approached the problem, and what we learned.

For us, the key was to distinguish three ways to adapt. You can do things that reduce vulnerability both today and...

By Andrew Jordan, Professor of Environmental Politics at the University of East Anglia, a.jordan@uea.ac.uk

 The European Union has just published the latest in a long line of reports which examine the progress achieved so far towards targets under the Kyoto Protocol as well as 2020 targets set at EU level. It reveals that collectively the EU-15 is on track to reduce its emissions by 8% from 1990 levels. But some states, notably Italy and, to a lesser...

 (Photo courtesy of IRRI Images under a Creative Commons license)

By Genevere Marciano*

In August this year, Metro Manila and outlying provinces (Bulacan, Pampanga, and Pangasinan to the North; Laguna to the South - the conurbation referred to as Metro Luzon) were caught red-handed by the flooding caused by...

Work on the guidelines for climate change mitigation evaluations has progressed since my last post. From this link you can find the first part of the guidelines. Overall the guidelines are expected to lend a hand on some of the technical challenges (in the second part – yet to be written) while in the first part clarify some...

As part of a mid-term evaluation for the Africa Climate Change Resilience Alliance project (ACCRA), we faced challenges in communicating the evaluation findings around this very interesting project that focuses on influencing the policies and approaches of governments and development agencies in responding to climate change.

With the agreement of the project, we, the evaluation team...

Last year, there was a lengthy discussion among some members of the community of practice on the possibility of writing guidelines for climate change mitigation evaluations. The preparation of the guidelines is the third Climate-Eval study, and will be conducted in the context of evaluating programs and projects which include the dual objectives of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and sustainable development in developing countries and countries with economies in transition. The study will build on the concepts and tools developed in the previous...

Adaptation to climate change is increasingly supported through international financing. In contrast to mitigation, where the effectiveness of policy action can be measured through the metric "tonnes of CO2 equivalent reduced", no universally accepted metric for assessment of adaptation effectiveness...

In cooperation with Climate-Eval, the Global Environmental Facility Evaluation Office (GEF EO) organized the COP17 side event "Energy Efficiency: What works and what doesn't- Lessons from Evaluation" in Durban, South Africa last December 6, 2011. The side event presented evaluation findings of energy efficiency portfolios supported by the GEF, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank (ADB), and an analysis from the Climate Policy Initiative. All presentations attempt to answer the question: What are the benefits realized from energy efficiency projects as a way of mitigating climate change...

This World Bank-sponsored TEDx video may be almost two years old, and perhaps the facts presented may be older considering the time to undertake evaluations. Yet the insights it provides to evaluating the effectiveness of protected areas may still remain relevant.

Ken Chomitz, Sr. Adviser at the Independent Evaluation Group at the World Bank initially warns against the pitfall of ââ‚Â...

Using participatory video for monitoring and evaluation in community-based adaptation to climate change

By Soledad Muniz and Isabelle Lemaire

It was when the camera was handed over to the community elder that the project came together, because it finally made sense to them. The village committee would now be able to record the flooding, when it happened, how far the water went and what it destroyed. They would...

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) Secretariat and Evaluation Office presented initial findings and lessons in evaluating climate adaptation funds, while the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group addressed the link between adaptation and development. However, more questions are also raised.

The videos below were recorded in the side event "Adaptation in Practice- Evaluating innovative approaches" at the UNFCCC COP17 in Durban, South Africa. Anna Viggh, Sr. Evaluation Officer at the GEF Evaluation Office, moderated the discussions.

...

Greenhouse gases are invisible to the naked eye. This lack of visual evidence makes greenhouse gas emissions difficult to comprehend as a root of a problem. In the US, buildings and construction are energy-intensive sectors that contribute to as much as 50% of greenhouse gas emissions.

But now you can see GHG emissions from buildings, at least through your computer.

Carbon Visuals developed 3d visualization tool using graphs...

The Asian Development Bank recently released its Fall 2011 publications catalogue. Here are three publications most related to M&E of climate change and development. The printed version of the publications is available for a fee, but I have searched the internet and found free downloadable copies. The publications' retail price and description are also below. 

1. ...

We seldom cover topics on REDD here at Climate-Eval for its unique and complex nature as a mode of climate mitigation. For this reason, it has grown a life of itself, with its own issues, community of practitioners, approaches and monitoring systems.

REDD is an integral part of climate mitigation. And like any climate change mitigation intervention, REDD interventions require a monitoring system to measure the impacts they generate. The Social and Biodiversity Impact Assessment (SBIA) Manual for REDD+ Projects is a guide designed for project developers for conducting social and...

Can’t come to Durban? Participate in a live webcast of the GEF Evaluation Office side event presentations using an internet-connected computer and a phone. At the end of the presentations, online participants will get the chance to ask questions via online chat.

Please read further below for details on how to join our two side events online.

Side Event 1: Adaptation in Practice: Evaluating innovative approaches

Monday, December 5, 2011
Room: Hex River
Time: 1:15 p.m. (Durban) / 11:15 a.m. (London) / 7:15 p.m. (Beijing) / 6:15 a.m...

My colleagues at the GEF Evaluation Office and I are here at the epicenter of climate change talks: Durban, South Africa. It is day 4 of the COP17, and Durban is starting to warm-up (literally, in some ways). We are four in our team who flew in to Durban, and now tapping away on our laptops, busy listing side events to attend, and of course preparing for our own side events on December 5 and 6.

Sara Nielsen and I will be blogging on topics related to the evaluation of climate change and development interventions. We...

You’ve finished writing your evaluation report containing a neat LogFrame and objective and verifiable indicators. Rating: highly satisfactory. That’s good, but is it true for the development intervention as a whole?

In a guest post at the World Bank’s Development Impact blog, Martin Ravallion criticizes development evaluation that assesses projects in isolation of the entire development portfolio. He cites common pitfalls in conducting evaluation, such as the...

In the evaluation of climate change mitigation interventions a lot of questions revolve around the greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation impact. Did the intervention actually reduce GHG emissions? And if yes: Who can claim that his actions were the cause for that? What a difficult question. For one, it is always hard to measure something that did not take place like the GHG emissions that were supposedly avoided. But beyond this conundrum, additional attribution issues are introduced through the indirect nature of many climate mitigation interventions.

The direct sources that emit most...

Water is one of the valuable natural resources that climate change will affect. The climate projects lie on extreme sides that could bring extreme consequences. Too much water would submerge human settlements and destroy livelihoods and properties; too little of it would result to drought in already arid areas.

There are people and places that may seem less prone to these impacts. However, they already encounter another water problem. For them, access to clean and potable water has been for a long time and still remain a problem. Compound this by climate change impacts and it can...