Accessing, sustaining & scaling finance

Sustaining and Scaling Climate Adaptation: Evidence from Recent Evaluations
Cumulatively, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) has invested more than US$2.5 billion in climate change adaptation and resilience to reduce vulnerability and strengthen resilient institutions, ecosystems, infrastructure, and livelihoods. Drawing on recent evaluations by the GEF Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), we identify what enables effective, sustainable, and scalable adaptation.

Evaluations show that adaptation results are more likely to be sustained when investments in resilient infrastructure, ecosystem-based approaches, climate information, and livelihoods are combined with institutional capacity, local ownership, policy integration, and financing for continuity.

Early warning systems illustrate this: equipment and information are insufficient unless warnings reach vulnerable users and are linked to actionable knowledge, preparedness, early-action protocols, and sustained operation and maintenance. Nature-based solutions scale more successfully where country ownership, adaptive management, multistakeholder coordination, policy coherence, and credible financing pathways are present. Results are weaker where capacity is overstretched, economic viability uncertain, financing short term, coordination fragmented, or design underestimates implementation challenges.

The evidence points to moving from delivering adaptation toward building resilient systems. Adaptation is more likely to endure and contribute to wider climate action when project functions are embedded in institutions, plans, budgets, and standards; risks are addressed at design; and monitoring captures outcomes, sustainability, and system change.

Authors: Neeraj Kumar Negi, Geeta Batra, Anupam Anand, Anna Viggh
Affiliations: All staff of GEF Independent Evaluation Office

Ex post evaluations in the Adaptation Fund: Are adaptation results sustained over time?
Susan Legro (Adaptation Fund), Mariana Vidal Merino (Adaptation Fund), Vladislav Arnaoudov (Adaptation Fund)

“What do we know about the Adaptation Fund’s projects after they close?” This question served as a starting point for what the ex post evaluation (ex post) initiative is now. Six years ago, the AF-TERG began to develop a pilot methodology for returning to Adaptation Fund projects after closure to determine what remained and why. At present, the AF-TERG has completed seven ex posts, one ex posts is underway in Cuba, and four new ex posts are about to start in Peru, Belize and South Africa.
Ex post evaluations are important because project timelines and real-world adaptation timelines are not necessarily the same. Many results, such as restoring ecosystems, recharging groundwater, planting forests, and helping people start using early warning information - take longer than a typical 3-5-year project. That’s why AF-TERG carries out ex post evaluations of Adaptation Fund projects to learn from what worked over the longer term.
The following four lessons emerged across the seven completed project types and locations: 1) Sustained outcomes mean sustained buy-in (ownership); 2) Sustainability means keeping things running (maintenance); 3) Expect the unexpected (climate hazards); and 4) Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) today shapes learning tomorrow (data quality and availability).

The promise of direct access to climate finance: evidence and lessons from SIDS and LDCs
Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Two of the most important funds providing climate finance for LDCs and SIDS are the Adaptation Fund and Green Climate Fund. Both funds offer ‘direct access’ to climate finance, which allows countries to access funding using national organisations, bypassing multilateral agencies and banks, and thereby empowering countries and helping to foster greater climate justice. This paper explores the persisting challenge of unlocking direct access finance for LDCs and SIDS, and puts forward recommendations for reforms that might improve access for national-level entities to these two funds.

Authors:

Pia Treichel (IIED), Anaa Hassan (IIED), Rojy Joshi (IIED) and Clara Gallagher (IIED)