21st virtual exchange session of the Community of Practice on Climate Policy Monitoring and Evaluation.

On Wednesday 7 July 2021, the 21st virtual exchange session of the Climate Policy Monitoring and Evaluation Community of Practice (M&E CoP) supported by FIIAPP in the Climate Governance component of EUROCLIMA+ with support from the LEDS LAC Platform took place. The session "Priorities for action and planning for a new work cycle" aimed to reconsider the functioning of this CoP M&E, and agree on how it will be operating and discuss with members the priorities of the planned thematic agenda.

General Context

Fernando Farías, senior consultant of the UNEP DTU Partnership, shared an overview of the current context on priorities for adaptation M&E. On the one hand, at the global level, there are expectations that COP26 negotiations will agree on methodological issues that establish the guidelines for reaching the 2023 “global stocktake”. These include adaptation elements, such as tabular reporting formats and considerations for the link between mitigation and adaptation, as well as the implementation of paragraphs 13 and 14 with the contents of the different reporting documents. While these issues are pending the outcome of the negotiations, some countries have already started to report on adaptation elements, for example, by incorporating content from their adaptation communications into their updated NDCs.

On the other hand, at the country level, it was highlighted that in the area of climate transparency, most of the available resources and funding are being allocated to building capacity to develop emissions inventories and indicators related to mitigation, with limited opportunities for accessing financial resources or tools for adaptation issues. The “Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency” (CBIT), administered by the GEF on behalf of the United Nations, which in the case of adaptation gathers requests from countries focused on building tools and systems to monitor and increase capacities at the sectoral and subnational levels. For its part, the “Initiative for Climate Action Transparency” (ICAT), supported by the governments of Germany, Italy and Denmark, although it does not have the amount of resources of CBIT, has greater accessibility and speed for the implementation of projects. To date ICAT has reached 30 countries globally, focusing on mitigation issues. However, the emphasis is on a version of the ICAT initiative, on adaptation issues, which is not as well known internationally and to date has five countries, including the Dominican Republic from LAC (and Panama soon to join). The focus of current projects is on the development of platforms for information gathering and sectoral capacity building (mainly agriculture, water and tourism) at national and sub-national levels.

The EUROCLIMA+ programme has a line of action on transparency issues that seeks to improve transparency and accountability of climate policy and the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and to support the development of information systems and the generation of climate scenarios.

Countries can access support targeted to their country needs through the Country Dialogue mechanism. For more information, please contact the programme focal points at: https://www.euroclima.org/mapas-2021

Finally, in terms of resources, the recently published report “Reporting Adaptation through the Biannual Transparency Reports” (in English), of the UNEP DTU Partnership was shared. It is hoped that it will serve as a reporting tool for countries to enable greater interaction in policy decision-making at national, sub-national and sectoral levels.

About the CoP M&E

The CoP M&E started its activities in 2018, in response to a demand identified in the Exchange Workshop "Monitoring and Evaluation of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Policies" held in Mexico. It was made up of a diverse group of representatives from environment, sectoral, planning and finance ministries as well as academia, cooperation agencies and consultants, all in one way or another involved in establishing climate policy monitoring and evaluation systems. To date, 20 virtual exchange sessions have been held, addressing a diversity of topics identified in a participatory manner, highlighting the implications of the Enhanced Transparency Framework, institutional arrangements, M&E systems and adaptation indicators, initial orientations for the follow-up of long-term strategies, among others. The activities in 2020, a challenging year due to the health crisis, focused on seven exchange sessions in which 12 country experiences were shared on the different topics addressed and a total participation of 116 people was reached (21 of whom attended three or more sessions), with a majority representation from the environmental sector and a 60% participation of women.

Reflection with the participants

 (selection of responses obtained from the exercise)

1. 1. What are your expectations for this COP for this new 2021-2022 cycle?

• Learning/Capacity building (methodologies, MRT, indicators)
  • Learning about new monitoring and evaluation methodologies and the Enhanced Transparency Framework.
  • Strengthening capacities to link project monitoring with public policy monitoring (methodologies and indicators).
  • Strengthening capacities for these monitoring systems.
  • Expanding knowledge on the subject of measurements.
  • Understand how to work with indicators of slow progress, such as ambition.
• Experience/learning exchanges among peers
  • Knowledge sharing between countries and addressing topical issues (e.g. ETF, adaptation).
  • Drawing on lessons learned and best practices from countries in relation to climate change adaptation monitoring. All countries are at different levels of approach, the space allows sharing what has worked and what has not, from those who have already applied them.
  • Learning about the experiences of countries in the region and identifying practices to apply in the country.
  • Learning about cases of monitoring and evaluation at company, climate action and/or public policy levels.
• Establishing working links with other participants
  • Interactions between participants and institutions.
  • Deepening working links with CoP participants beyond the meeting instances.

1. 2. What suggestions would you like to make for its functioning (content, interaction, procedures)?

• Contents and topics
  • Linkages between adaptation instruments and adaptation efficiency targets.
  • The way forward to find a standard for adaptation (such as CO2 eq).
  • Indicators for assessing the cost of adaptation.
  • Measuring adaptation in small sectors and localities
  • Institutional arrangements for obtaining necessary information.
  • Loss and damage indicators - what progress has been made in the region?
  • Production of indicators; idea that the UNSD (United Nations Statistics Division) can present the Global Set of Climate Change Indicators that is now in global consultation.
  • Other
    • The issue of Climate Services is an interesting topic proposed by the WMO some time ago, but it seems to have been timidly addressed, and confused with national meteorological services.
    • Climate Migrations in adaptation actions (in line with the South American Conference on Migration and the IOM).
  • Information and resources
    • Generation of a consolidated bibliography of all sessions, organised by topic rather than by session.
    • Including the development of case studies.
  • New activities
    • Very good proposal to generate joint positions/documents. Proposed themes for the documents:
      • What is the way forward for finding a standard for adaptation (equivalent to the way) in mitigation for CO2eq.
      • Case studies of adaptation indicators in agrosilvopastoral systems.
      • How to address the relationship of adaptation indicators with social impact.
    • Generate dissemination material on the progress of the CoP.

Relevant information on the CoP

Website open to the general public

• https://www.euroclima.org/recursos/comunidad-de-practicas-m-e
• https://ledslac.org/comunidades-de-practica/monitoreo-evaluacion/