Page - (000039) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

level to generate data; lack of systematic efforts to conduct “end-of-project” evaluationsandperhapsmost importantly: the timehorizon.WhereasGEFprojects on average take no longer than 5 years, environmental changemay take decades before it becomesmeasurable (ICF 2005, 22). However, OPS3 notedwithmuted optimism thatmonitoring and evaluation had becomemore important in theGEF andtherewasevidenceofgrowingharmonizationofgoalsandprocessesacross the GEF (ICF 2005, 12).Wewill see these themes return in other organizations and their evaluations. TheClimate InvestmentFunds(CIF), initiated in2008,weresetup toovercome two obstacles that the GEF had to face: slow procedures and fragmentation of funding. TheGEF had to spread its contributions over a large group of countries (more than 150) and not just in climate change, but in other priority areas such as biodiversity, internationalwatersandpersistentorganicpollutants.Theslowimple- mentationofGEF interventions, also led to timedelays inachieving impact,while time isof theessence in thefightagainstclimatechange.TheCIFwouldfocusona relatively small number of countries, to enable it to provide higher levels of funding, “potentially allowing greater impact” (ICF 2014, viii) and it would apply a “light touch” approach to ensure quick decisionmaking – relying on the multilateraldevelopmentbanks toprovide the technical expertise todesign, review and implementprojects.However,up toMay2014onlyasmallproportion–about 9%–oftheapprovedfundinghadbeendisbursedtoactionontheground(ICF,vii). Theevaluationnotes in2014 that “mostCIFprojects are still on thedrawingboard or in early execution” (ICF, viii) and thus the effort to speed up procedures in comparison to the GEF largely failed. Failure to overcome the second barrier of insufficient funding to achieve longer term impact cannot yet be ascertained: the question cannot yet be answered. Yet “transformative impact is a major goal of the CIF, and a justifiable one” (ICF, x). The evaluation notes that CIF resources, even thoughmore focused and considerably higher than theGEF’s in its partner countries, “are small relative to globalneeds”, so theyneed tobe focusedoncountries andonactivitieswhere they will be able to support transformative change.However, the evaluation also notes thatmanyof theCIFsactivities lackaconvincing theoryof change that provides a clear picture of howbroader adoptionwouldbe achieved.On thepositive side the evaluationcommends theCIFfor its learningandpilotingobjectives, andnotes the “vast potential” for providing knowledge on how countries can respond to the challengeof climate change (ICF, xii). The evaluations of climate change efforts of theWorldBankGroupgoback in time from2009 (when thefirst studywaspublished) to2012(when the third report was published on the IEG website). They refer to a much broader and older portfolioof activities that theBank implemented,manyofwhichwereundertaken with co-funding from theGEF. The longer term impact on several areas ofwork couldbeevaluated.However, theprimaryfocusofmanyinterventionswasoftenon aspects suchas support forenergypolicies,deforestation, lowcarbon technologies, and adaptation, and differed in how they related to climate change. The emerging picture is thus less straight-forward than the GEF assessment. Nevertheless, the 18 R.D. vandenBerg andL.Cando-Noordhuizen