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Monitoring and evaluation for community-based adaptation is a new field, and the CBA project is piloting innovative approaches to evaluating the success of locally-driven adaptation projects, and generating lessons to inform ongoing practice.
Key considerations in M&E for CBA include:
- Grounding M&E in the local context: M&E for CBA should avoid overly rigid frameworks, recognizing community heterogeneity and maintaining local relevance
- Capturing “global” lessons from local projects: CBA projects are highly contextualized, but lessons generated should be relevant to stakeholders globally
- Incorporation of both quantitative and qualitative indicators: to ground projects in tangible changes that can be objectively evaluated, and to capture lessons and case studies for global dissemination
To these ends, the CBA project uses three indicator systems: the Vulnerability Reduction Assessment, the SGP Impact Assessment System, and the UNDP Climate Change Adaptation Indicator Framework.
The Vulnerability Reduction Assessment (VRA)
The VRA is a question-based approach with the following aims:
- To make M&E responsive to community priorities
- To use M&E to make projects more accountable to local priorities
- To make M&E capture community ideas and local knowledge
- To gather community-level feedback to guide ongoing project management
- To generate qualitative information
- To capture lessons on specific issues within community-based adaptation
- To generate case studies highlighting adaptation projects
The VRA follows UNDP’s Adaptation Policy Framework, and is measured in a series of meetings with local community stakeholders. In these meetings, locally-tailored questions based on standard VRA questions/indicators are posed, and the community assigns a numerical score on a 1-10 scale for each question. Progress is evaluated through changes in scores over the course of implementation, as well as through qualitative data collected in community discussions surrounding the exercise.
UNDP has developed a Users Guide to the VRA (Espanol) (Francais) as a tool to assist practitioners to conceptualize and execute VRA measurements in the context of CBA projects.
The structure of the VRA
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APF Step |
VRA Indicator |
VRA Question
In these examples, we consider the case of a community facing increasing drought risks | |
Assessing current vulnerability |
1. Vulnerability of livelihood/welfare to existing climate change and/or climate variability. |
Example: What happens when there is drought? How does this affect you and your community? | |
Assessing future climate risks |
2. Vulnerability of livelihood/welfare to developing climate change risks. |
Example: What would happen if drought was twice as frequent? How would this affect you and your community? | |
Formulating an adaptation strategy |
3. Magnitude of barriers (institutional, policy, technological, financial, etc) barriers to adaptation. |
Example: What stands in the way of adapting to increasing drought? What means do you or your community have to manage events occurring more frequently? | |
Continuing the adaptation process |
4. Ability and willingness of the community to sustain the project intervention |
Example: Rate your confidence that the (project activity) will continue after the project period. |
The SGP Impact Assessment System (IAS)
The CBA, being a project of the GEF Strategic Priority on Adaptation, aims to increase the resilience of ecosystems and communities to the impacts of climate change – generating global environmental benefits, and increasing their resilience in the face of climate change impacts. To this end, the CBA projects use the SGP’s impact assessment system for monitoring achievements in GEF focal areas (focusing primarily on biodiversity and sustainable land management).
The IAS is composed of a number of quantitative indicators which track biophysical ecosystem indicators, as well as policy impact, capacity development and awareness-building.
UNDP Climate Change Adaptation Indicator Framework
CBA projects also track quantitative indicators from UNDP’s adaptation indicator framework, corresponding to the thematic area on natural resources management. More information on UNDP’s indicator framework can be found on the UNDP climate change adaptation monitoring and evaluation website.
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