From evidence maps to evidence use: digital solutions, climate information and climate funds

Effectiveness of Climate Information Systems (CIS), Early Warnings (EW) and Agro-Advisories for Smallholder Crop Producers in LMICs
Authors: Suchi Kapoor Malhotra, Varsha Nair, Ashima Mohan, Devarati Bagchi, Redolen Rose Dhar, Tejaswini C.
Affiliation: Campbell South Asia

Climate change poses increasing risks to smallholder crop producers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Climate Information Systems (CIS), including early warning systems (EWS) and agro-advisories, can support climate-resilient agricultural decision-making, but evidence on their effectiveness and cost-effectiveness remains fragmented.

We developed an Evidence and Gap Map (EGM) to identify and characterise evidence on CIS, EWS and agro-advisories for smallholder crop producers in LMICs. We searched academic and grey literature, supplemented by machine-learning-assisted citation searching. Eligible evidence included randomised controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies, economic evaluations and systematic evidence syntheses.

The search identified 8,874 records, with 1,341 assessed at full text. The final EGM included 78 studies, concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Evidence focused mainly on productivity and income, agricultural decision-making and adaptive capacity, with limited evidence on direct climate-risk reduction and adoption of climate-smart practices. Only 17 studies included gender analysis, and two examined AI-enabled technologies.

The EGM highlights important geographical, methodological and thematic gaps. Future research should strengthen evidence from underrepresented regions and examine longer-term resilience, climate-risk reduction, equity, scalability and cost-effectiveness.

Climate Action Evidence Gap Map. How mobile and digital technologies support climate action in low- and middle-income countries.
This submission presents an integrated review of the evidence on how mobile and digital technologies support climate action in low- and middle-income countries. It draws on two linked outputs from the GSMA Mobile for Development programme, funded by UK International Development: the Climate Action Evidence Gap Map and an accompanying Climate Tech Literature Review.

The Climate Action Evidence Gap Map is a systematic review carried out using a recognised international standard for systematic reviews (PRISMA). It searched peer-reviewed literature published since 2015, screened around 600 studies, and mapped where evidence exists and where it is missing across four dimensions: climate outcomes, the roles technology plays, the enablers and constraints on use, and the people and groups being reached. The Literature Review then interprets this evidence base, explaining the causal pathways, barriers and enabling conditions across mitigation, adaptation and resilience, environmental management, climate finance and governance.
Together they show mobile and digital tools deliver real but incremental gains, mostly for individuals and households, and mostly in climate adaptation through better access to information. There is far less evidence that these tools strengthen collective resilience or drive the deeper, system-level change that the scale of the climate crisis requires. The review also identifies clear evidence gaps, including on gender, on newer technologies, and on the use of digital tools within broader, more joined-up climate strategies.

The value of this work is that it combines a rigorous map of the evidence with a clear reading of what that evidence means for policy and practice.

Authors: Brendan Halloran and Cara Waller, with contributions from Ruth Orbach, Samir Hafiz and colleagues, GSMA Mobile for Development.

Making Evaluation Matter: Perspectives from Climate Fund Evaluation Units on Utilization
The climate finance architecture is under unprecedented pressure to deliver. As the window for effective climate action narrows, the quality of decisions made by climate funds — on what to finance, how to learn from experience, and how to course-correct — has never been more consequential. Evaluation evidence is one of the most powerful tools available to inform those decisions. And yet, across the climate fund community, the gap between evidence produced and evidence used remains stubbornly wide.

At COP, where political momentum, donor expectations, and accountability demands converge, the question of whether evaluation evidence actually reaches and shapes the decisions of those who need it is not a technical concern — it is a governance one. Climate funds are stewards of finite, hard-won public resources directed at some of the most complex and urgent challenges humanity faces. When evaluation is used well, it enables funds to understand what is working, identify what is not, and improve. When it is not, the same mistakes are repeated at scale, and the credibility of the entire climate finance system is eroded.

This session brings together the heads of evaluation units from five of the world's major climate funds for a practitioner-level conversation on evaluation utilization. Speaking from within their own institutions, panelists share candid perspectives on the structural, relational, and methodological dimensions of utilization — what institutional conditions enable evidence to land, how findings are communicated across audiences that did not commission the work, and what they would do differently.

It aims to facilitate genuine peer exchange and honest reflection among professionals who share the same core challenge: making evaluation matter