Effective Results Frameworks for Sustainable Development

8. Monitoring climate adaptation and resilience

Climate change is a global threat faced by all countries across the world. Regular severe floods, fires, droughts and hurricanes underline the current climate emergency. In this context, it is essential to scale up climate adaptation efforts and build resilience against the future impacts of climate change.

Government and development partners both have important roles to play in fostering climate change adaptation efforts, so territories and communities develop in a climate-resilient manner.

To support global goals on climate change adaptation and to implement the Paris Agreement, climate change adaptation and resilience concerns will need to be built into all types of results frameworks from the design stage of any strategy, programme or project.

What is Climate Adaptation?

IPCC’s definition: In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects, in order to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects (Matthews et al., 2021[1]).

OECD DAC’s definition of climate change adaptation activities: An activity should be classified as adaptation-related if it intends to reduce the vulnerability of human or natural systems to the impacts of climate change, including climate vulnerability, by maintaining or increasing resilience, through increased ability to adapt to, or absorb, climate change stresses, shocks and variability and/or by helping reduce exposure to them (OECD, 2018[2])

Issues covered in this chapter

• Integrating climate change adaptation into results frameworks

• Conducting climate change risk and vulnerability assessments

• Selecting adequate indicators to measure climate adaptation and resilience

• Monitoring the results of climate change adaptation initiatives

8.1. Why is it important?

As support for climate change adaptation action continues to grow and as development partners providing climate finance strive to meet the climate finance target of USD 100 billion per year, integrating climate change adaptation and resilience concerns into results frameworks and adequately measuring the effectiveness and outcome results achieved by adaptation projects has never been more important.

Yet international development partners and governments face multiple challenges in measuring climate adaptation and resilience efforts, and in correctly defining and attributing the results and impacts of such adaptation-related investments. These challenges include difficulties related to observing the effectiveness of an adaptation and resilience project unless a climate risk materialises (e.g. without the test of a hurricane or drought), difficulties in establishing the counterfactual (e.g. the capacity of a population to cope, adapt and overcome a climate-induced crisis without the intervention), and challenges related to gaps in data availability, granularity and quality; unclear benchmarks/targets; and rapidly shifting baselines.

The use of adequate results indicators, baselines, and methodological approaches to plan for and monitor climate adaptation and resilience is thus paramount. Firstly, to improve the impact of climate adaptation and resilience efforts and, equally importantly, to ensure that climate investments indeed align with adaptation goals.

8.2. Integrating climate change adaptation and resilience into results frameworks

Some investments and development interventions can be explicitly designed for the primary purpose of supporting climate change adaptation efforts, in which case they will be designed with specific outcomes related to adaptation in mind. These are called targeted interventions.

However, current concerns about sustainable development call for integrating a lens on climate change adaptation and resilience across all interventions. Mainstreaming climate adaptation concerns involves looking at all strategies, programmes and projects (regardless of the sector or topic) from a climate adaptation and resilience perspective to ensure the sustainability of each intervention by accounting for climate risks and vulnerabilities (e.g. a road construction project in an area subject to intense weather events).

Whether the intervention is targeted specifically to climate change adaptation or integrates a climate change adaptation lens, including climate-sensitive outputs and climate-related indicators and baselines throughout the results chain can ensure that the results framework is also fit to measure progress on climate change adaptation ambitions.

Due to uncertainties related to the future impacts of climate change, the results frameworks for climate change adaptation should be based on flexible and adaptive approaches that can be adjusted throughout the lifetime of the intervention. These adaptive approaches should be applied to all levels of the results chain and be reflected in the monitoring and evaluation phase as well.

8.2.1. Actions to consider

• Climate change adaptation and resilience needs are context-specific and highly dependent on local and regional social, economic and environmental factors. Thus, results frameworks need to be based on adequate context analyses and consultative processes with potentially impacted stakeholders.

• When designing a climate adaptation strategy or programme (and its related results framework), maintain flexibility and keep in mind that climate change impacts are often volatile and difficult to predict, even when using the latest scientific models – although they do provide a close approximation to the expected change in a particular territory. It is therefore necessary to be able to adapt baselines and indicators to changing scenarios.

• The impact of climate adaptation programmes and projects on increasing climate resilience may only be measurable in the long term. Therefore, consider including longer-term climate ‘impacts’ in your intervention logic and results chains, with a view to reflecting on how inputs, activities, outputs and outcomes should be shaped in order to contribute to longer-term adaptation and resilience.

• Align results frameworks as much as possible with national results frameworks on climate adaptation and with international dialogues, such as the UNFCCC process.

• Whenever relevant, and even if climate adaptation is not the primary objective of the programme or project, privilege the use of indicators that can account for climate adaptation and resilience considerations (see section 3 below).

8.2.2. Good practice

See Box 8.1 for positive experiences and lessons for mainstreaming climate considerations.

Box 8.1. Creating enabling conditions for mainstreaming climate considerations

Canada’s integration of environmental sustainability in international assistance programming

Global Affairs Canada recognises that environmental sustainability is a critical factor in poverty reduction and sustainable development. It requires that environmental sustainability be reflected in all project outcomes in accordance with the Agency’s Sustainable Development Strategy.

An environmental integration process is applied to ensure the assimilation of environmental sustainability into each project. This process includes an environmental analysis of proposed policies and programming and the integration of environmental sustainability considerations in their design, implementation and monitoring. This leads to two main approaches: one integrated and the other targeted.

An integrated approach is applied to safeguard or enhance results and the environment through the incorporation of environmental sustainability considerations into all projects. This requires identifying specific environmental indicators and targets corresponding to the environmental sustainability considerations reflected in the project outcomes.

Example of expected outcomes and indicators in an integrated approach:

• Intermediate outcome: Enhanced sustainable management of healthcare facilities in district X of country Y

  • Environment Indicator: #/total health care facilities supported by the project managing biomedical waste in accordance with environmental standards established by the government.

A targeted approach is used when the project targets environment-related opportunities specifically, or when the state of the environment is such that other development efforts would be compromised in the absence of targeted initiatives. This requires developing specific environment outcomes, indicators and targets.

Example of expected outcomes and indicators in a targeted approach:

• Environment intermediate outcome: Enhanced water quality of rivers in district X of country Y

  • Environment Indicator: #/total of kilometres of riverbanks protected with buffer zones of at least 10 metres from agricultural land in district X

Source: Global Affairs Canada (2022[3]), Results-Based Management for International Assistance Programming: A How-to Guide, https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/funding-financement/results_based_management-gestion_axee_resultats-guide.aspx?lang=eng&_ga=2.160825597.1906522704.1681308381-1529632137.1681308381#a3_3

Resources

• EU (2020), Monitoring and evaluation of national adaptation policies throughout the policy cycle

• ADEME (2019), Elaboration and implementation of a local adaptation strategy or action plan

• OECD (2009), Integrating Climate Change Adaptation into Development Co-operation

Resources

• World Bank (2023), Climate Change Knowledge Portal

• ISIMIP (2023), The Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project

• GIZ, Adaptation Community, Climate Risk Assessment Method Search Engine

• GIZ (2022), Scoping Study: A Comparison of Climate Risk Assessment Methods to Support Informed Decision-Making

• GIZ (2021), Assessment of climate-related risks: A 6-steps methodology

• IPCC (2022), Key Risks Across Sectors and Regions in: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

• IPCC (2020), the Concept of risk in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report: A summary of cross-Working Group discussions

• Climate ActionTool (2017), Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments

• Climate ADAPT (2023), Assessing Climate Change Risks and Vulnerabilities

• SMR (2023), Risk Systemicity Questionnaire (Excel)

• SMR (2023), The Resilience Maturity Model

• USAID (2016), Climate Vulnerability Assessment: An Annex to the USAID Climate-Resilient Development Framework

8.3. Conducting climate change risk and vulnerability assessments

Before embarking on the design of a results framework that integrates climate change adaptation and resilience concerns, it is important to conduct a climate change risk and vulnerability assessment.

What are climate change risk and vulnerability assessments?

A climate risk assessment assesses the extent to which climate-related risk impacts on people, assets, value chains, infrastructure and ecosystems. There is a variety of available climate risk assessment methods and both governments and development partners will have to choose what is most appropriate for the specific context within which they are working, considering available resources, capacities and objectives (GIZ, 2022[4]). You can find a number of tools to carry out these assessments in the “Resources” section below.

Climate vulnerability can be determined by three interacting factors:

• Exposure to climate stressors

• Sensitivity to those stressors

• Adaptive capacity to manage stressors

A climate vulnerability assessment can identify the what, where, when and why of vulnerability, considering the social, economic and environmental systems upon which people depend (USAID, 2016[5]). As with climate risk assessments, there is a variety of methods available and the appropriate method will be dependent on the context, the objectives of the intervention, availability of resources and capacities (see links in resources below). A combined climate risk and vulnerability assessment addresses both the vulnerability to and the impacts of climatic hazards.

Climate change risk and vulnerability assessments are essential to give an understanding of a country’s or territory’s specific climate vulnerability. They can provide a baseline against which progress on climate change adaptation can be reviewed, and can serve as a useful tool to monitor how adaptation priorities are changing over time. It is important to consider that climate risk and vulnerability assessments will include a number of uncertainties as it is difficult to determine the future impact of climate change in a given context. Climate change risk and vulnerability evolve with time and are tied to a number of other variables, such as the progress of socio-economic development more broadly and technological advancement, which may contribute to mitigating the impact of climate change over time (see Table 8.1).

Conducting climate change risk and vulnerability assessments is resource-intensive. This task will become easier in the future as countries conduct their own risk and vulnerability assessments in the context of their:

a) National Adaptation Programmes of Action – plans submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by Least Developed Countries which identify priority activities that respond to their urgent and immediate needs with regard to adaptation to climate change (UNFCCC, n.d.[6]);

b) National Adaptation Plans – a process established under the Cancun Adaptation Framework of the UNFCCC to identify medium- and long-term adaptation needs of all countries, and develop strategies and programmes to address these needs (UNFCCC, n.d.[7])); and

c) UNFCCC National Communications (OECD, 2015[8]).

Table 8.1. Information potentially relevant to risk and vulnerability assessments

Issue	Relevant information
Climate hazard-related information	Quantitative models that project precipitation and temperature changes at different scales Quantitative models that examine the consequences of temperature and precipitation changes (e.g. droughts, floods, sea-level rises, changes in pest and disease outbreaks) Qualitative information (e.g. expert judgment and stakeholder consultations), that can enhance or validate information about local-level climate hazards
Exposure of people and assets to climate hazards	Hazard maps depicting the location and distribution of people, infrastructure and ecosystems in areas that are or may be affected by hazards
Sensitivity and the degree to which people and assets are affected, positively or negatively, by climate variability and change	Database of previous impacts of hazards – e.g. crop loss, economic loss, human and animal deaths Models to estimate the impact of past or future climate hazards on e.g. crops, livestock and ecosystems Maps depicting the location and distribution of fragile or poor-quality housing, land and infrastructure, as well as degraded ecosystems and marginal populations Local observations, experiences with climate hazards
Adaptive capacity and the general ability of institutions, systems and individuals to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences	Development data and indices (e.g. population, inequality, debt, economic productivity, trade flows, education levels, foreign direct investment, disease patterns) Ecosystem goods and services Census data, household surveys Institutional capacity assessments Local coping and adaptation strategies
Consultations with local communities and stakeholders in the context of a risk and vulnerability assessment are also essential to understand local conditions and the concerns of local communities.

Note: While the above list is comprehensive, it does not cover all the potentially relevant elements associated with a given context.

Source: (GIZ (2013), as cited in OECD, 2015[9]), National Climate Change Adaptation: Emerging Practices in Monitoring and Evaluation, https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/environment/national-climate-change-adaptation_9789264229679-en

8.3.1. Actions to consider and pitfalls to avoid

• Take into account vulnerability and how that impacts the ability of populations to adapt to climate change – focus on the vulnerability, discrimination and poverty experienced by people living in the area of intervention and how their exposure to climate change differs from the rest of the population.

• Consult on the risk and vulnerability assessment with local communities, local farmers, civil society and LNOB groups.

  • Avoid: Symbolic consultative processes where relevant stakeholders are not present or not empowered to have a meaningful voice. A good understanding of the situation, characteristics and views of potentially impacted populations is fundamental to good assessments.

• Consider gender differences and women’s experiences of climate change adaptation, in particular the experiences of women in rural areas. Apply an intersectional lens to the analysis to understand how climate change can impact different groups in different ways.

• Use indigenous knowledge where possible to inform climate risk and vulnerability assessments. The combination of scientific information and indigenous knowledge can give valuable insight into adaptive capacities.

• Consider climate change impacts on biodiversity as well. Preserving and strengthening ecosystems’ resilience to climate change is key for human resilience and adaptation capabilities.

8.4. Selecting adequate indicators to measure climate adaptation and resilience

Defining indicators for climate change adaptation can be challenging due to data availability issues and difficulties related to measuring impact. Often the progress is not measurable until much later or it may be difficult to attribute progress on adaptation to a specific intervention.

Identifying appropriate indicators for capturing climate adaptation and resilience efforts continues to be an area of exploration and experimentation for all steps of the results chain. Given the multifaceted and context-dependent nature of climate adaptation and resilience, as of 2024 there is no technical consensus on a final set of indicators for measuring the results of climate adaptation and resilience efforts.

Climate adaptation efforts will vary depending on context and other factors such as local socio-cultural elements. Specific climate adaptation indicators must therefore be designed for each intervention and should be adapted to the context of each intervention, taking into account local climate risks and vulnerabilities.

Due to uncertainties related to the future impacts of climate change, the effectiveness of climate adaptation interventions has been frequently (and imperfectly) measured by focusing on processes and outputs – for instance, indicators that measure the policies and plans put in place, rather than outcomes and how the intervention has reduced climate risks and bolstered adaptive capacity (Jeudy-Hugo, 2022[10]). To compensate for this shortcoming, emphasis must be placed on relying on sound theories of change to link those processes and outputs to the “theorised” outcomes and impacts along the results chain. A regular review and update of the theories of change, based on the latest evidence on the effectiveness of climate adaptation investments, will also be necessary.

8.4.1. Selecting indicators

When defining indicators for results outcomes or impacts of climate adaptation interventions, also consider that the baselines for measurement are not completely fixed (or stable) and the effectiveness of the interventions is sometimes best measured by comparing (when possible) with the counterfactual scenario, i.e. if the intervention would not have taken place.

Climate risk and vulnerability assessments are an important source of information to ensure that indicators are adapted to the specific context, carefully defined and based on available data. The indicators should be developed based on a consultative approach with national authorities and should be aligned with national adaptation priorities.

• Using indicators that disaggregate by gender and other factors such as disability, age or level of income is essential to prevent maladaptation and ensure that LNOB groups are not made more vulnerable to climate change (see Section 7.3). Maladaptation is when a project fails to reduce vulnerability to climate change and, in some cases, may even have the opposite effect and exacerbate vulnerability.

8.4.2. Climate adaptation and resilience in the Sustainable Development Goals framework

When development partners and governments align the indicators in their results frameworks as much as possible with the SDGs, all partners are brought together around shared results. The Sustainable Development Goals set out specific targets and indicators related to climate change adaptation in SDG 13 on “Climate Action”. Other SDGs also include important environment-related targets and indicators that could be useful, for instance SDG 6 (“Clean water and sanitation”), SDG 7 (“Affordable and clean energy”), SDG 11 (“Sustainable cities and communities”), SDG 14 (“Life below water”) and SDG 15 (“Life on land”).

For illustrative purposes, a couple of examples of climate-related SDG indicators include:

SDG Target 13. 1 – Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries

• Indicator 13.1.1: Number of deaths, missing persons and directly affected persons attributed to disasters per 100 000 population

• Indicator 13.1.2: Number of countries that adopt and implement national disaster risk reduction strategies in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030

8.4.3. Actions to consider and pitfalls to avoid

• Use a mix of activity, output, outcome and impact indicators, especially since climate change adaptation and resilience investments will often not produce results in the short term.

  • Avoid: including activity/process indicators alone, without any direct or indirect method to assess the actual outcomes or impacts.

• Consider that baselines and targets are difficult to estimate due to the uncertain nature and volatility associated with climate change. Comparing the situation before and after an intervention may not be sufficient for assessing its effectiveness and impact without taking a broader (systems) look at correlates and interactions. The baseline may have to be revised to provide a more accurate understanding of what would have happened in the absence of the intervention (OECD, 2021[11]).

• Aim to use disaggregated data as much as possible, as climate change is global, but adaptation and resilience tend to have local characteristics.

  • Note: As a nascent area of attention for governments and international development partners, data availability might be a constraint in many jurisdictions. Consider (with other partners) how to pool efforts to progressively institutionalise the collection of data for salient adaptation issues that are particularly relevant for that jurisdiction.

• The selected indicators should be aligned as much as possible with relevant indicators used in national strategies on climate adaptation, hence they should be defined in collaboration with national authorities.

• Ensure that the indicators are aligned with international processes and the global goal of adaptation in Article 7 of the Paris Agreement on enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change.

8.4.4. Good practice

Examples of sets of climate change indicators and other resources follow.

Box 8.2. United Nations’ Global Set of Climate Change Statistics and Indicators

The United Nations Statistical Commission adopted the Global Set of Climate Change Statistics and Indicators in March 2022 as the framework to be used by countries when preparing their own sets of climate change statistics and indicators. The scope of the Global Set covers the climate change aspects defined by the five policy areas of the IPCC, namely drivers, impacts, vulnerability, mitigation and adaptation. The Global Set is intended to help countries develop national programmes to regularly produce climate change statistics and indicators, in order to improve data availability and support the implementation of the Paris Agreement as well as the climate-related Sustainable Development Goal indicators. It will contribute significantly to filling data gaps and improving data comparability internationally, thus also facilitating the selection of indicators for development interventions and helping to monitor climate adaptation and mitigation.

The Global Set includes a Climate Change Statistics and Indicators Self-Assessment Tool (CISAT) which assists countries to assess the resources needed to develop a national programme on climate change statistics. It also includes Implementation Guidelines that specify the key steps needed to produce national climate change statistics.

Source: United Nations (2023), Global Set of Climate Change Statistics and Indicators, Implementation Guidelines, https://unstats.un.org/unsd/envstats/climate%20change/Implementation_Guidelines.pdf

Box 8.3. Green Climate Fund’s Integrated Results Management Framework and Indicators

This results framework enables tracking the ways in which projects and programmes are contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation outcomes, as well as how these interventions are supporting enabling conditions and environments that can promote a paradigm shift. It includes two sets of four core indicators that monitor contributions to mitigation and adaptation on the one hand, and support to creating an enabling environment for the climate response on the other:

Figure 8.1. Overview of the Integrated Results Framework

Each of the core indicators includes a set of supplementary indicators which enable the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to track progress at a more granular level. For example, see the supplementary indicators below for the core indicator “Direct and indirect beneficiaries reached”:

• Number of beneficiaries adopting improved and/or new climate-resilient livelihood options

• Number of beneficiaries with improved food security

• Number of beneficiaries with more climate-resilient water security

• Number of beneficiaries covered by new or improved early warning systems

• Number of beneficiaries adopting innovations that strengthen climate change resilience

• Number of beneficiaries living in buildings that have increased resilience against climate hazards

• Change in expected losses of lives due to the impact of extreme climate-related disasters in the geographic area of the GCF intervention (number of individuals)

Data for all seven supplementary indicators is expected to be disaggregated by sex (female/male).

Source: Green Climate Fund (2022[12]), Integrated Results Management Framework: Results Handbook, https://www.greenclimate.fund/document/results-handbook

Resources

• EU (2023), Results and Indicators for Development: Resilience, Conflict Sensitivity and Peace (see proposed indicators for environmental resilience)

• EU (2023), Results and Indicators for Development: Sustainable Cities (see proposed indicators for strengthening urban resilience to natural and manmade disasters as well as other indicators related to climate adaptation and resilience)

• EU (2023), Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture (see proposed indicators for resilience and adaptation in agriculture)

• United Nations (2022), Global Set of Climate Change Statistics and Indicators

• United Nations (2022), Global Set of Climate Change Statistics and Indicators, Implementation Guidelines

• OECD (2020), Common Ground between the Paris Agreement and the Sendai Framework

• GIZ (2013), Adaptation made to measure - A guidebook to the design and results based monitoring of climate change adaptation projects

• GIZ, IISD (2014), Repository of Adaptation Indicators, Real case examples from national Monitoring and Evaluation Systems

• World Bank (2020), Adaptation Principles: A Guide for Designing Strategies for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience

• Climate ADAPT (2022), Monitoring and evaluation for climate change adaptation: A synthesis of tools, frameworks and approaches

• EarthEval (2017), Good Practice Study on Principles for Indicator Development, Selection, and Use in Climate Change Adaptation Monitoring and Evaluation

• Climate ADAPT (2023), Adaptation Support Tool

8.5. Monitoring the results of climate change adaptation initiatives

Effective monitoring and evaluation of climate change adaptation and resilience efforts can foster enhanced learning and lower the risk of maladaptation.

Unfortunately, many governments and development partners underinvest in developing monitoring and evaluation systems, and this is particularly true for climate adaptation. The reasons for this include:

• Perception of burden: Measuring climate adaptation and resilience indicators adds additional workload, even for organisations that have well-established monitoring and evaluation systems. Unless climate adaptation and resilience are the primary goals of a strategy or intervention, the default behaviour might be to exclude monitoring indicators that capture those dimensions.

• Lack of technical consensus: The lack of a universal consensus on indicators for climate adaptation that could help harmonise measurement and data-gathering efforts across development actors constitutes another shared challenge, and so does the diversity of sectors concerned by climate adaptation projects – ranging from transport to agriculture to water management.

• Short-termism: The impacts of climate adaptation and resilience efforts are, in some cases, only measurable years after the project has been completed. This inability to observe results in the short term may discourage efforts to monitor this area of concern.

• Complexity of attribution: Multiple drivers, such as socio-economic development and technological advancement, may also contribute to a desired outcome or impact and it may be difficult to attribute the outcome/impact to a particular intervention (OECD, 2021[11]).

In terms of international process and the development of national monitoring and evaluation frameworks, the IPCC’s Working Group II on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability has found that countries are increasingly progressing in the development and application of monitoring and evaluation systems for climate change adaptation, even if only about 25% of countries (which are parties to the UNFCCC) had an M&E framework in place in August 2021. New and updated Nationally Determined Contributions are also starting to contain more quantitative time-bound targets that can help facilitate the monitoring of progress on adaptation (UNFCC, 2023[13]). It is important to look to these international processes for inspiration and to align monitoring and evaluation approaches as much as possible with what governments are developing in this context.

Chapter 5 presents standard good practice to strengthen monitoring and evaluation of results frameworks. While these practices and suggestions also apply to the specific issue of climate adaptation and resilience, the additional actions listed below can help mitigate the issues listed above and improve results monitoring.

8.5.1. Actions to consider and pitfalls to avoid:

• Align with national monitoring and evaluation systems as much as possible and ensure co-ordination between different sectors and levels.

• Ground monitoring and evaluation objectives and processes in thorough consultative practices with those stakeholders most at risk of experiencing the climate impacts (OECD, 2021[11]).

• Apply mixed methodologies and rely on both quantitative and qualitative assessments to monitor climate adaptation efforts and changes in climate risks (OECD, 2021[11]). Keep in mind that indigenous and local knowledge can provide important qualitative information relevant to understanding sustainability and resilience.

• Consider information from international monitoring processes such as the Paris Agreement’s Global Stocktake, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction.

• Take into account that the impacts of climate adaptation programmes and projects on increasing climate resilience may only be measurable in the long term.

• Due to the uncertainties related to climate adaptation, the information from monitoring and evaluation should be used to adjust future policy development and interventions on climate adaptation.

• Given the methodological uncertainties as to how best to monitor adaptation and resilience, create spaces for cross-learning, encourage innovative approaches, and capture and disseminate lessons and acquired knowledge from successive iterations.

• Engage local and national stakeholders in assessing emerging findings from monitoring and evaluation to foster learning through an iterative and adaptive approach.

• Give visibility to your climate adaptation and resilience results in your overarching results reporting mechanisms.

  • Avoid: While this is a difficult area to communicate on, avoid using very technical language when sharing your results. Contrasting stories of resilient and impacted communities, together with your results data, can help stakeholders better understand the stakes at hand, while raising awareness and attention to the climate adaptation agenda.

8.5.2. Good practice

Example of the African Development Bank approach, lessons and other resources follow.

Box 8.4. African Development Bank’s Strategic Framework on Climate Change and Green Growth

The African Development Bank (AfDB) introduced a Strategic Framework on Climate Change and Green Growth in 2021, which consists of an action plan that articulates how the Bank’s individual operations will be implemented and includes targets, indicators as well as a monitoring, evaluation, reporting and learning (MERL) framework. The bank monitors its climate change actions to be able to track, evaluate, correct, report and learn from previous projects, as well as to assess the Bank’s impact through climate investments.

The results framework in the Climate Change and Green Growth Strategic Framework (2021–30) and the Action Plan (2021-25) are structured in line with the broader Results Measurement Framework of the institution. There are four levels of indicators:

• Level 1: Contribution. Development outcome and impact indicators that monitor development progress in Africa, in areas which the Bank is seeking to contribute to

• Level 2: Attributable results: Sector and project results (outputs/outcomes) indicators

• Level 3: Operational performance. Indicators related to the effectiveness of Bank operations

• Level 4: Financing. Input indicators, measuring the allocation and efficiency of investments.

Source: OECD (2022[14]), Learning and Adapting in turbulent times, 14th Results Community Workshop, Key Messages, https://www.dropbox.com/s/m3hcv096y6mt6a9/14th-Results-Workshop-Key-Messages-2022%20.pdf?dl=0

Resources

• UNFCC (2022), Adaptation Committee, Draft technical paper on monitoring and evaluation of adaptation at the national and subnational level

• OECD (2022), Adaptation in the global stocktake, OECD/IEA Climate Change Expert Group Papers

• OECD (2015), National Climate Change Adaptation – Emerging Practices in Monitoring and Evaluation

• OECD (2021), Strengthening Climate Resilience: Guidance for governments and development co-operation

• DTU (2016), Monitoring & Evaluation for climate change adaptation: A summary of key challenges and emerging practice. Understanding, discussing and exemplifying the key challenges of M&E for adaptation

• ADEME (2016), Monitoring and evaluating climate change adaptation at local and regional levels: Learning from international experience to develop an M&E methodology

• AFD (2023), How do we measure adaptation to Climate Change?

8.6. Summary checklist for integrating climate adaptation in results frameworks

• Is the results framework based on adequate context analysis and consultative processes with potentially impacted stakeholders?

• Is the results framework aligned with national results frameworks on climate adaptation and with international dialogues, such as the UNFCCC process?

• Is the climate adaptation strategy or programme (and its related results framework) flexible enough to adapt to changing climate impact scenarios?

• Does the intervention logic and results chain include longer-term climate impacts?

• Have local communities, local farmers, civil society and relevant LNOB groups been consulted in the preparation of the climate change risk and vulnerability assessment? Has the climate risk and vulnerability assessment been based on a combination of scientific information and indigenous knowledge of adaptive capacities?

• Does the climate risk and vulnerability assessment take into account gender differences and women’s experiences of climate change adaptation, in particular the experiences of women in rural areas? Has an intersectional lens been applied to understand how climate change can impact different groups in different ways?

• Does the results framework include a mix of activity, output, outcome and impact indicators, especially since climate change adaptation and resilience investments will often not produce results in the short term?

• Is disaggregated data available? Even if climate change is global, climate adaptation and resilience tend to have local characteristics.

• Are the indicators aligned as much as possible with relevant indicators used in national strategies on climate adaptation and with international processes such as the global goal of adaptation in Article 7 of the Paris Agreement on enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change?

• Is the monitoring and evaluation plan aligned with country’s monitoring and evaluation systems? Does it maximise synergies and harmonisation of indicators and data?

• Have mixed methodologies and both quantitative and qualitative assessments been applied to monitoring climate adaptation efforts and changes in climate risks?

• Has information from international monitoring processes such as the Paris Agreement’s Global Stocktake, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction been considered?

• Is there awareness that the impacts of climate adaptation programmes and projects on increasing climate resilience may only be measurable in the long term?

• Is the information from monitoring and evaluation used to adjust future policy development and interventions on climate adaptation?

• Have spaces been created for cross-learning and disseminating lessons and acquired knowledge from successive iterations on monitoring and evaluation of climate adaptation and resilience? Do these spaces engage local and national stakeholders?

• Is sufficient visibility given to the climate adaptation and resilience results in your overarching results reporting mechanisms? Are you avoiding using very technical language in sharing your climate adaptation and resilience results?

References

[4] GIZ (2022), Scoping study: A comparison of Climate Risk Assessment Methods to Support Informed Decision-Making, GIZ, https://www.adaptationcommunity.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/scoping-study-cra-methods-decision-making.pdf.

[9] GIZ (2013), as cited in OECD (2015), National Climate Change Adaptation: Emerging Practices in Monitoring and Evaluation, https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/environment/national-climate-change-adaptation_9789264229679-en.

[3] Global Affairs Canada (2022), Results-based management for international assistance programming: A how-to guide, https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/funding-financement/results_based_management-gestion_axee_resultats-guide.aspx?lang=eng&_ga=2.160825597.1906522704.1681308381-1529632137.1681308381#a3_3 (accessed on 21 August 2024).

[12] Green Climate Fund (2022), Integrated Results Management Framework: Results Handbook, https://www.greenclimate.fund/document/results-handbook (accessed on 21 August 2024).

[10] Jeudy-Hugo, S. (2022), Adaptation in the global stocktake: Options to deliver on its mandate, OECD Publishing, https://doi.org/10.1787/396b5224-en.

[1] Matthews, J. et al. (2021), Annex VII: Glossary, in Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896.022.

[14] OECD (2022), Learning and Adapting in turbulent times, 14th Results Community Workshop, Key Messages, https://one.oecd.org/document/DCD(2023)4/en/pdf.

[11] OECD (2021), Strengthening Climate Resilience: Guidance for Governments and Development Co-operation, OECD Publishing, https://doi.org/10.1787/4b08b7be-en.

[2] OECD (2018), Handbook on the OECD-DAC Climate Markers, OECD Publishing, https://capacity4dev.europa.eu/library/rio-markers-handbook-oecd-dac-climate-markers_en.

[8] OECD (2015), National Climate Change Adaptation: Emerging Practices in Monitoring and Evaluation, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264229679-en.

[13] UNFCC (2023), Technical paper on monitoring and evaluation of adaptation at the national and subnational level, United Nations, https://unfccc.int/documents/632856.

[7] UNFCCC (n.d.), National Adaptation Plans, https://unfccc.int/topics/adaptation-and-resilience/workstreams/national-adaptation-plans.

[6] UNFCCC (n.d.), National Adaptation Programmes of Action, https://unfccc.int/topics/resilience/workstreams/national-adaptation-programmes-of-action/introduction.

[5] USAID (2016), Climate Vulnerability Assessment, an Annex to the USAID Climate-Resilient Dvelopment Framework, USAID, https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00KZ84.pdf.