Page - (000170) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

9.1 Introduction TheGlobal Environment Facility (GEF) is a partnership for international cooper- ationtoaddressglobalenvironmental issuesrelatedtobiodiversity,climatechange, internationalwaters, land degradation, and chemicals andwaste.1 Since its incep- tion in 1991GEF has providedmore thanUS 14.5 billion dollars for addressing these concerns, ofwhichat least $4billionhasbeenprovided to support activities that directly address climate changemitigation.2Within theGEFpartnership,The GEFIndependentEvaluationOffice (GEFIEO)has thecentral roleofensuring the independent evaluation function.3 The OECD DAC ‘Glossary of Key Terms in Evaluation and Results Based Management’ (OECD 2002) defines impact as “Positive and negative, primary and secondary long-termeffects producedby adevelopment intervention,directly or indirectly, intendedorunintended.”TheOECDDAC’sPrinciples forEvaluation ofDevelopmentAssistance’ (OECD1991)definesevaluationas“anassessment,as systematic and objective as possible, of an on-going or completed project, programmeor policy, its design, implementation and results.” Thus, impact eval- uationsmaybeunderstoodassystematicandobjectiveassessmentof the long-term effects of a development intervention.The impact evaluations undertakenbyGEF IEOseek togauge the long termeffects ofGEFsupport, how thesewere achieved and howGEF’s effectiveness in achieving themmay be improved. These evalua- tions have a strong focus on learning. The GEF IEO undertook “Climate ChangeMitigation Impact Evaluation4 to assess impact and learn lessons from GEF supported climate change mitigation projects. This paper discusses themethodological approach adopted for the evalu- ation, the challenges faced and choicesmade in developing and implementing the evaluation, which was carried out by the GEF Independent Evaluation Office in four emerging economies: China India,Mexico andRussia.5 The evaluationwas implemented from2012 to2013. 1Instrument for theEstablishment of theRestructuredGlobalEnvironmentFacility,March2015. GEFdocs. 2AccessedonNovember 30th2015. https://www.thegef.org/gef/whatisgef 3TheGEFMonitoring andEvaluationPolicy, 2010.GEFDocs. https://www.thegef.org/gef/sites/ thegef.org/files/documents/ME_Policy_2010.pdf 4https://www.thegef.org/gef/sites/thegef.org/files/documents/Impact%20-%20Climate%20Change% 20Mitigation%20IE.pdfUnderPublication. 5Within theGEFpartnership,TheGEFIndependentEvaluationOffice (GEFIEO)has thecentral role of ensuring the independent evaluation function. The impact evaluations undertaken by the GEF IEO seek to determine the long termeffects ofGEF support, how thesewere achieved and howGEF’s effectiveness in achieving themmay be improved. These evaluations have a strong focus on learning. 154 A.Zazueta andN.K.Negi