Evaluating Climate Change: Pro-Poor Perspectives

As the number and diversity of climate change adaptation interventions (CCAI) increases, there is a growing need to evaluate their effectiveness. It is timely therefore to consider how pro-poor perspectives fit into emerging evaluation approaches. This article reviews the current state of evaluation of CCAI and identifies opportunities for evaluation processes to focus attention on the achievement of results, which benefit poor and vulnerable households. Both development and climate change adaptation communities urgently need to learn what helps to reduce poverty as efforts on adaptation are scaled up. Evaluation provides an established methodology for systematic assessment of aims and objectives and their achievement. The article reviews the main issues involved in evaluating CCAI. It examines what approaches and methods to adaptation evaluation have or could be used at different levels and considers where pro-poor perspectives fit in.