Indicators for Monitoring and Evaluation of

Adaptation and Allocation of Adaptation Financing

Shardul Agrawala Meeting of the OECD Task Team on Climate Change

and Development Co-operation

Bern, June 20-21, 2011

1. Policy Context

Significant ramp up in international funding for

adaptation (relative to a few years ago) .. Adaptation Fund, PPCR, fast track and long-term finance.

Significant increases in investment in adaptation programmes and implementation in domestic OECD contexts as well

Necessitates the broadening of the focus of adaptation analysis beyond identification of options, costing and financing, to include issues related allocation of financing, implementation, and results monitoring and evaluation.

2. The Need for indicators

In this context, indicators – in principle - offer the

advantages of transparency, replicability, comparability (both over space and time)

Could be used as part of the criteria for allocation of adaptation financing across (and potentially within) countries, to track progress and perform mid-course corrections in ongoing activities, for fiduciary accountability, and for quantification of outcomes.

At the same time, adaptation does not lend itself to easily definable metric as reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is for the case of mitigation.

3. Vulnerability Indicators

“Vulnerability has two sides: an external side of risks, shocks and

stress … and an internal side which is defenselessness, meaning a lack of means to cope with damaging loss” (Chambers 1989)

Vulnerability = fn (impacts, determinants of exposure,

capacity to adapt) If vulnerability could be unambiguously measured, and if relevant data were available, then financing could be allocated on basis of vulnerability, and progress measured on the basis of reduction in vulnerability over time.

Typical Locus of Vulnerability Research

Ethnographic

Research

GIS based

Indices

3.1 Some issues with indicators for vulnerability

to climate change • Multitude of climate related impacts: temperature

(means/extremes), precipitation (means/extremes), sea-level rise and storm surges etc.

• Certainty of impacts varies over space and time • Number of factors conditioning exposure to specific impacts

(e.g. exposed population/assets below a certain elevation in the case of sea level rise)

• Very high dimensionality of number of variables that might condition the capacity of a system to adapt. Many of these variables are also highly correlated.

• Data availability, frequency of updates, scale, aggregation – all pose significant challenges.

4. Other Indicator types and some issues

Indicators for Enabling Activities - tools & training,

institutions, policy environment - More relevant for M&E than allocation questions - Question of proper contextualisation and link to downstream outcomes Indicators for “doability” -- quality of existing

institutions and governance, education and training base

- More relevant for allocation questions - “Doability” might not coincide with “need” or “risk”

5 . Workshop Objectives

Overarching objective – to review current thinking

and practice in the use of indicators for adaptation m&e and as a potential guide for financing allocation

Focus on “good enough”, operationalisable approaches and their limits

How to address questions of measurement and data

collection, dimensionality & aggregation, attribution of outcomes, counterfactuals, scale, trade-offs ....

Overview (Nick Brooks) Experience in the use of indicators to evaluate adaptation

relevant projects in development co-operation (Nicolina Lamhauge, OECD)

Discussion – Sara Trab Nielsen (GEF Evaluation Team)

Indicators for monitoring progress on adaptation/climate resilience (Sam Fankhauser for UK Adaptation Sub-Committee)

Discussion + View from Switzerland (Roland Hohmann, Federal Office for the Environment, Switzerland)

Discussion + recent work on indicators for DFID (Ian Tellam, ETC Foundation)

Overview of Presentations

Indicators for Adaptation Financing – Sam Fankhauser (LSE)

Metrics for Adaptation – Axel Michaelowa (University of Zurich)

Discussion – Dima Shocair Reda (Adaptation Fund Board

Secretariat / GEF Secretariat – SCCF)

Discussion – Francois Gemenne (Institute du développement durable et des relations internationales, Paris)

Roundtable Discussion and Wrap-up