Transcript Climate Change Countdown

Impact assessment climate change
advocacy in Bolivia
Learning from Christian Aid Bolivia
1
What & Why?
Climate Change Platform
http://www.cambioclimatico.org.bo/
National advocacy network of INGOs,
Bolivian NGOs & social movements
Platform for civil society to engage with &
influence climate change debates & policy
Accountability – CA / DFID Latin America
PPA (both climate change & learning)
Learning – key theme for country strategy
Good practice – organisational shift from
reporting on process to outcomes & impact
Context & Challenges
Advocacy objectives fluid; activities highly
responsive, unpredictable (& unrecorded!)
Results chain is complex (& hidden!)
National policy change – no plausible
control
Multi-stakeholder process – attribution to
any one actor?
Evaluation Design – Learning First
Annual impact assessments to identify
emerging changes & lessons, & feed them
into updated plans
Test theory of change by assessing
changes & change processes at both:
■ Partner level: focus on capacity
■ Policy level: civil society and government
policy discourse as well as public policy
Ongoing process monitoring (blogs) to
capture key moments & evolving dynamics
4
Methodology
Focus on qualitative data
Review of process monitoring records, policy
documents etc to reconstruct timeline
Semi-structured interviews with range of
informants on:
■ Changes at both levels (partner /
platform & policy)
■ Process of change / contribution of
different factors
Focus group with INGOs on contributions
of different agencies to observed changes
Evaluation Design – Validity?
Independent evaluation team
Contribution rather than attribution
Triangulation based on perspectives of
multiple stakeholders:
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■
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■
Government & civil society
People’s movements & NGOs
UK embassy & Bolivian govt / civil society
Other INGOs as well as CA
Iterative refinement of theory of change
Findings – partner level
Organisational strengthening of members
Coordinated mobilisation on climate
change (& more collaboration btn INGOs)
Increased visibility of civil society demands,
nationally & internationally
Platform now taking a leadership role in
global climate change campaigns
Institutional sustainability & grassroots
protagonism – Platform now led by social
movements with little support from INGOs
Findings – policy level
Platform was the driving force in getting
climate change on the government’s
policy agenda
Platform gained recognised place for civil
society in climate change debates at
national & international level – especially
indigenous movements
Stronger government attention to climate
change in practice – e.g. cross-ministry
resilience programme
Lessons
More useful to assess contribution of
individual actors rather than attribution
Build plausibility through triangulation and
iteration
Regularly reconstruct process of change
Focus on ‘good enough’ assessments that
are directly useful to decision-makers
Build habit of reflection on results
Use of blogging for ongoing process record
Policy change is easy to observe!
What next?
‘Designed-in’ focus on gender and …
Perspectives of poor women & men –
downward accountability
Explicit attention to value for money – using
triangulation approach
Explore alternative ‘plausible
counterfactual’ approaches & long-term
post-intervention assessments
Disseminate approach across CA …
From habit to culture of reflective practice