Monitoring & evaluation to enhance adaptation and reduce disaster risk

Our webinar examined some of the lessons learned from M&E emerging from CCA and DRR evaluation processes, and considered how we can ensure that learning can inform practice in both fields.

If you have any comments or queries for the panellists, please use the comment facility further down the page.

Climate change is exacerbating disaster risk, increasing vulnerability and eroding resilience. An increasing emphasis on adapting systems and better managing disaster risks places greater attention on proactive, rather than reactive, approaches.

This requires an understanding of the factors that contribute to adaptation processes in practice; we need to understand what works (or not), in which contexts and why. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) can play a critical role in improving this understanding by providing the evidence and experience that can improve future practice. M&E can help to avoid costly maladaptation and learn more quickly how the most catastrophic impacts of climate change can be avoided.

5 thoughts on “Monitoring & evaluation to enhance adaptation and reduce disaster risk”

  1. In the beginning you referred to the Theory of Change as a method for M&E in BRACED – would this also be a good method to support M&E of national policies as social change is also important for NAS evaluation which should build on social change at lower admin levels and in sectors?

    1. Yes, Theory of Change is an approach that can support effective M&E of national level adaptation policies. This is considered in the 2015 EEA Report “National monitoring, reporting and evaluation of climate change adaptation in Europe” with further detail of the potential role of ToC on page 49. http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/national-monitoring-reporting-and-evaluation

      You may also be interested in UKCIP’s Guidance Note on Theory of Change approach to climate change adaptation programming:
      http://www.ukcip.org.uk/wp-content/PDFs/MandE-Guidance-Note3.pdf

    1. Thank you Daniel. Please note that indicators should be designed to fit with the purpose of the adaptation strategy – the examples given below may not be appropriate for your particular work.

      Austria:
      “Mainstreaming of climate change adaptation into funding schemes for housing” Sector: Urban/ Buildings: The indicator shows the extent to which existing funds for housing consider adaptation relevant aspects.

      “Mainstreaming of climate change adaptation into tourism strategies on national and provincial level” Sector: Tourism: The indicators shows if existing strategies for tourism address the issue of climate change, for example, less snow in winter tourism, increased heat days in cities etc.

      UK:
      UK also combines quantitative indicators with qualitative information to assess adaptation progress (see Box 2.11, p .47 of the EEA (2015) report for a description of the approach) http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/national-monitoring-reporting-and-evaluation

      Example of a mixed method indicator: “Proportion of people living in floodplain unaware of being at flood risk” Sector: Health and Resilient communities: The indicator shows the percentage of people living in areas at risk of flooding from rivers or the sea. A percentage of people is assigned to categories: definitely at risk; possibly at risk; not all at risk; don’t know.

      The Adaptation Sub-Committee of the UK’s Committee on Climate Change produced an interesting sector-based list of indicators that may also be of interest.
      https://www.theccc.org.uk/charts-data/adaptation-indicators/

  2. Thank you very much for that great webinar. My Question relates to the presentation from Ms Schmidt. Could you please name the exact legal basis (like the name of the document) for the risk assessment and (self) assessment of the risk management, which the member states are supposed to develop and hand in to the commission?

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