Seite - (000302) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

Keywords Climate change adaptation • Community-based adaptation • Children and youth • Participatory approaches • Evaluation • Developmental evaluation • Indicators 16.1 Introduction Supporting communities to adapt to climate change is a complex, uncertain exer- cise, and there is significant potential to learn directly from the practical applica- tions of adaptation projects and the peoplewhom they aim to assist. Interventions that focusoncommunities recognise that impactsandvulnerabilitiesare specific to local contexts, livelihoodsareoftendirectlydependenton local environments, and communities are at the front line of responding to the impact of climate-related disasters. Yet adaptation invariably requires concerted, coordinated action across multiple scales, sectors and actors, and community-based projects increasingly focus not only on the relationships and actionswithin local communities, but also whether and how government policy, planning and programs are informed by community priorities andneeds. Consequently, there is no one sizefits all for community-based climate change adaptation(CCA)–andthere isnosingularway toevaluateordrawlearnings from suchprojects.Nevertheless, keyprinciples andgeneral characteristics formonitor- ing and evaluating (M&E)ofCCA interventions arewidely articulated. In partic- ular, it is well understood that conventional M&E approaches are ill-suited to CCA1; and that because adaptation constitutes pathways rather than end-points, evaluating CCA requires investigation of qualitative processes, rather than just solely relying onmeasurement of quantitative inputs or outputs. However, ques- tions remain: how can project practitioners, researchers, evaluators and donors (interested in learning aswell as accountability) operationalise these principles in practice?And,given theneed forCCAinterventions togenerateandcommunicate transferable learnings about CCA activity design, implementation and impacts, howcanwedrawongood evaluation practice and theory to apply to the complex context of understanding aCCAproject on the ground? Thischapter responds toaneed fordocumentedcase studiesofCCAevaluation in practice that generate and share methodological learnings about how to do rigorous, participatory and useful evaluations of CCA interventions. We share one example of an evaluation method applied over a 3-year community-based CCAproject, implementedbyPlan International andSave theChildren in cooper- ationwithcommunitiesandkeygovernmentstakeholders,withresearchpartner the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney. This project acknowledged that children are amongst the most vulnerable to climate change,2 but that they have the potential to advocate for adaptation practice and 1Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2014. Climate Change 2014: Impacts, AdaptationandVulnerability.WgiiAr5Technical Summary.Geneva, Switzerland. 2Risdell, J andCMcCormick. 2013.ProtectMyFuture:TheLinksbetweenChildProtectionand Disasters,Conflcit andFragility: Plan International andSave theChildren. 290 J.Chonget al.