Page - (000027) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

works, underwhat circumstances and forwhom. Evidence-based analysis of past experiences and ongoing innovations is likely to shed light on how we might enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of actions at various levels and achieve win-win situations and multiple benefits, such as reducing risk and increasing resilience. Evaluation makes a judgement of the value or worth of the evaluand – the subject of evaluation – be it a policy, strategy, programme, project or any other typeof intervention. It can take several forms. It canbe formative, looking into the ways an intervention is implemented in order to identify ways in which the intervention and its performance could be improved. It can be summative to determine the extent towhich the interventionhas achieved its anticipateddesired results. An evaluation can also be prospective, assessing the likely outcomes of proposed interventionsapriori (Morra ImasandRist 2009).Acategoryof summa- tive evaluations is impact evaluation that looks into whether the programme or interventionhascontributed inameasurableway toa larger longer termgoal (such as transforming national policy or the market towards a more climate friendly directions) than just the direct outputs and outcome of the intervention itself. An impact evaluation can use a range of approaches and methodologies that are rigorous (Stern et al. 2012). It has been argued that it is important to distinguish between the ‘direct’ and ‘final or ultimate’ impact of interventions (van denBerg 2013). As we address issues critical to climate change, we must ensure that interventions make a difference and help to significantly increase mitigation or adaptation or both while also ensuring sustainable development, or be able to identify andmeasure trade-offs. In thiscontext,aspecialchallengeisposedbytheprivatesectorandcivil society initiatives on impact investing, corporate responsibility and sustainable develop- ment, as well as civic initiatives and social enterprise. The role of evaluation in these relatively new areas ofwork is not yet established,which iswhy they have been identifiedas the ‘NewFrontiers forEvaluation’, an initiativeof theCentre for DevelopmentImpact in theUK.14AWiltonParkconferenceinJuly2015discussed the potential role of evaluation in various initiatives, calling for a gap analysis of what has been evaluated andwheremethods and capacity need to bedeveloped.15 Much of this is relevant for climate change to inform investments in green tech- nologiesand transitions towards sustainable resourceuse inbusinesspractices.We alsoneedtotakestockofwhatweknowtostart,operationalizeandmanageclimate smart enterprises. Evaluation can play a very important role inmeasuring effec- tiveness, cost-effectiveness and longer term impact. Evaluatingclimatechangecanbechallengingprimarilybecauseclimatechange is a global good (Puri and Dhody 2016). Other challenges include the fact that climate change programmes are frequentlymulti-sector, multi-objective complex programmes that aim to affect not just environment but also poverty, livelihoods, 14See http://www.cdimpact.org/projects/new-frontiers-evaluation 15See https://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/WP1411-Report.pdf 6 J.I.Uitto et al.