Page - (000344) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

Table 18.1 Decision support criteria to selectM&Eapproaches Criterion Description Relevance Main intention/ general purpose Whichof the three general purposes (i)management, (ii) learningor (iii) accountability anM&Eapproach is likely to predominantly address It is important to consider the intendeduseof anM&Esystemat theoutset. This criterionhelps users determinewhether aparticularM&E approachhas thepotential toactually meet the intendedgeneral purpose Management refers to supporting the ongoingmanagement of adapta- tion actions andprocesses (in the sense of adaptivemanagement) Learning refers to acquiring a detailed understandingof howand whyadaptation interventions have led to certain results orwhy theydid not achieve their objectives Accountability refers to demon- strating that processes and/or actions have takenplace andhave led to results Thenature of an approach, i.e.what data andprocedures it uses andwhat information it provides, determines whichofthethreegeneralpurposes it canbest support. For example, if a small number of standard indicators like “Number of beneficiaries” are aggregated for a portfolio of adapta- tion projects, the resulting informa- tion is not adequate to infer howand whyadaptationhasworked (Chen andUitto 2014).Thus, this approach ismost suitable for accountability purposes, but not for learning M&Eapproaches can cater tomore thanonegeneral purpose depending onhowexactly they are designed in practice Process or out- come orientation Whether theM&Eapproach is focusingmoreon theprocessof implementation or on theoutcomes of adaptation Thedecision tomonitor either pro- cesses or outcomes, or both, influ- ences the selection of suitable approaches, because it entails differ- ent requirements forM&E In the context of increasing levels of climatefinance it is particularly important to outlinewhichM&E approaches are actually capable of assessing adaptation outcomes, and whichonly focus onprocesses This distinction is common in the literature on adaptationM&Esince assessing adaptationoutcomes is facedwithvariouschallenges (Bours et al. 2014b).As a result, itwas suggested to initially focus on process-based indicators andgradu- allymove tooutcome-basedones (Harley et al. 2008) (continued) 332 T.Leiter