Developing nations strengthen ability to demonstrate effective climate change adaptation

A tool for developing countries to provide evidence of effective adaptation to climate change, allowing them to access international climate funds, will be launched today (27 February) after three years of development by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and partners.

News, 27 February 2015
A group meeting on climate change on boat run by the organisation Shidhulai in Natore, Bangladesh (Photo: Tony Stonehouse/IIED)

A group meeting on climate change on boat run by the organisation Shidhulai in Natore, Bangladesh (Photo: Tony Stonehouse/IIED)

Governments will use the Tracking Adaptation Measuring Development (TAMD) framework to demonstrate if climate finance has been well spent and that the climate vulnerability of communities has been reduced. The framework is unique in its focus on the effectiveness of adaptation, and its flexibility to be tailored to local or national contexts.

Climate finance is being made available through channels such as the Green Climate Fund. But to be ready for such finance, developing countries need systems to track and assess how well money is invested.

To address this gap, national governments, in partnership with IIED, have spent three years developing the TAMD framework to provide evidence for funders and decision makers on the effectiveness of climate change adaptation.

TAMD is launched this week at the end of a workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in which government representatives and researchers from eight countries shared their experience of developing the framework:

  • In Kenya, the framework has been implemented at a county level to track and assess local climate adaptation funds, and provides a way of assessing the effectiveness of decentralised climate finance. It is now being scaled up to four new counties as part of local climate funds
  • In Mozambique, the framework has been integrated into the Local Adaptation Plans for the districts developed with the Government of Mozambique and Save the Children in Mozambique
  • In Cambodia, the framework has supported the national government to develop a framework to track their national climate change strategy, and is now being applied to the transport sector
  • In Ethiopia, the framework has allowed the government to track the climate resilience of its Sustainable Land Management Programme (SLMP-1), which it implemented in 2008 to trial a new approach to tackling declining agricultural productivity and persistent rural poverty. The TAMD framework was also used in developing bottom-up results frameworks for the Climate Resilient Green Economy at the woreda level, and
  • In Pakistan, the framework has identified the resilience benefits of existing government programmes and identified the benefits to women and girls of rainwater harvesting.

Assessing the success of climate change adaptation and choosing a goal for adaptation has become a key topic within the UN climate negotiations and will be an important discussion in the international climate conference in Paris at the end of this year.

Susannah Fisher, senior researcher at IIED, said: "The process of developing TAMD with our partner organisations has shown it has the potential to transform the way finance for adaptation to climate change is measured. It can support countries to make sure funds for climate adaptation are well spent and is actually achieving climate resilience which will help them access finance from international channels.

"Ultimately this will help make sure adaptation to climate change is more effective – so that more people are better protected from increasing disasters like floods and droughts."