Page - (000181) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

basis for an impact evaluation.Firstly, although thenecessaryconditionspredicted byaproject’s theoryof changemayhavebeenmet theobservedchangemayhave beenduetofactors thatwere independentof theproject.Second, theremaybesome uncertainty involved in howandwhen the intended impactsmanifest, particularly in the cases inwhich important causal relationshipsmay be non-linear in nature. Focusingentirelyon theproject’s theoryof changehas a riskofoverstatingGEF’s role in effecting the observed changeormay lead to neglect of conditions that are impeding future progress. Furthermore, exclusive focus on the causal links pro- posed by a project’s theory of change can function as blinders that constraints an evaluation in recordingandassessing theunintended impactsof theproject (Garcia andZazueta2015).Therefore, inaddition to taking intoaccount thegivenproject’s theoryofchange, theevaluationalsoaddressedother factors thatmayhaveacausal relationship with the observed change but were independent of the GEF project. The evaluation also searched for alternative explanations that could explain the observed change and assessed their merit in contributing to the observed change vis- a-vis a given GEF project. During the visits to the field the evaluation team gathered information on this issue from different stakeholders such as project implementers,beneficiaries,otheragencies thatwerenot involved inproject imple- mentationbutwere familiarwith the project, andgovernment officials. Despite limitationsof the theoryofchangeapproach, for themostpart it remains a useful basis for tracking a given project’s provable impact pathways. As the general frameworkofGEF’s theoryofchangesuggests, foranyobservedchange to be attributable to GEF project, the behaviors promoted by the project should be adopted by the targeted actors within a market. This broader adoption in turn creates a basis to assess the progress towards the expected long term transforma- tions.Toassess thisprogress, theevaluation tracked the intensity, thescale,and the processes throughwhich itwas takingplace. Of the18projects in17 instances therewasevidence that broader adoptionwas taking place through one or more of the following processes: sustaining project supported activities; mainstreaming; replication; scaling up; and, market change (Table9.4).Foreachof theseprocesses, themanner inwhich itwashappeningand theextent towhich itwas linkedwith theGEFprojectwasdetermined. In14cases the evaluationwas able to establish causal links between the project activities and the progressmade. This involved linking specific activities or components of the GEF supported projectswith the intended observed outcomes based on the infor- mationgathered through terminal evaluations and interviews conducted anddocu- ments accessed during field verifications. The next stage was to also assess the effects of the other actors and factors that could account for the observed results. Based on the qualitative assessment of the information gathered, in ten cases the evaluation was able to discard rival theories and establish primacy of the GEF supported project in effecting the observed change. For example, in India the technologies and approaches promoted by projects on Photo Voltaic Systems (PVMTI GEF 112) and Hilly Hydel (GEF 386) were scaled up at the national level with significant link establishedwith the underlying project. For four other projects (India Alternative Energy, PVMTI and Energy Efficiency; Mexico 9 MethodologicalApproachof theGEF IEO’sClimateChangeMitigation. . . 165