The Technical Evaluation Reference Group of the Adaptation Fund (AF-TERG) is an independent evaluation advisory group, accountable to the Board, established to ensure the independent implementation of the Fund’s Evaluation Policy.

Specifically, the AF-TERG functions include the following:

1. Generation of evaluations – the AF-TERG will facilitate the generation of quality, useful evaluations via three responsibilities:

  • Management responsibility: Independently manage, commission, and/or conduct evaluations in the Board-approved work programme at the Fund and strategic levels. It will also report to the Board on lessons, findings, conclusions, and recommendations from relevant evaluation reports.
  • Advisory responsibility: Develop draft guidance, templates, and other evaluation resources for Board approval to support and operationalize this EP and upholds a reliable, timely, and useful evaluation function that contributes to the Fund’s mission and vision. It will also conduct evaluation capacity development to support evaluation and learning across the Fund.
  • Oversight responsibility: Provide quality assurance over the evaluation function at the Fund, and track implementation of Board decisions related to evaluation recommendations. This includes advising the Board in its efforts to incorporate evaluation findings and recommendations into policies, strategies, and procedures.

2. Evaluation utilization – the AF-TERG will support relevant knowledge management functions of the Fund to ensure that evaluative evidence is available and encouraged across the Fund. In addition to sharing insights from individual evaluations, the AF-TERG will synthesize and present to the Board any key lessons from strategic evaluations and targeted evaluation syntheses for the improvement of the Fund’s performance and the CCA capacities of its partners. It will also report to the Board on incorporation of lessons and recommendations from strategic-level evaluations as they relate to the AF-TERG’s functions.

3. Evaluation capacity development – the AF-TERG is responsible for continuously updating the Fund’s evaluation knowledge, capacity development, any utilization to position the Fund at the forefront of evaluation innovation and adaptation practice. Such positioning is to optimize the Fund’s effectiveness via continuous improvement in learning and reinforce the Fund’s reputation and relevance as a thought leader in global climate adaptation efforts. The AF-TERG will consult with the secretariat and IEs to develop Fund evaluation guidance that is relevant and user-friendly, and pursue local institution-building, decision-making, learning, and accountability. The AF-TERG is responsible for ensuring evaluation guidance options for IEs’ continuous adaptive management learning via near RTE, through to long-term project and operational learning demands. It is responsible for nurturing networks and opportunities for South-South evaluation sharing of evaluation outcomes and evaluation techniques, and evaluation capacity exchange with other organizations with CCA interests. To realize its responsibilities under this policy and its terms of reference, the AF-TERG will develop and submit to the Board its revised workplans and budgets, including options to appropriately resource the AF-TERG secretariat.

The AF-TERG will commission and oversee independent evaluations and relevant tasks on behalf of the Board and its Committees according to the evaluation policy, with support from the AF-TERG Secretariat. As part of its advisory responsibility the AF-TERG aims to develop guidance notes, synthesis reports, recommendation papers or any relevant document for consideration by the Board.

More information on the AF-TERG can be found in the revised terms of reference (Decision B.42/47).

 

Completed work

The AF-TERG strategy and work programme was approved by the Board in June 2020 and takes a longer-term planning perspective covering FY21 to FY23 for the work items, and FY21 to FY22 budget-wise. The three-year planning timeframe of the work programme will allow the AF-TERG to consolidate its work approaches and modalities towards the intended intermediate and long-term outcomes outlined. It is also responding to the requests from the Board to review the Evaluation Framework of the Adaptation Fund and to carry out a mid-term and final evaluation of the Medium-Term Strategy of the Fund.

Three studies were commissioned in October 2019 and completed by May 2020.

  1. Evaluability assessment: This study assessed the evaluability of Adaptation Fund approved proposals and more precisely their performance and impact evaluability using different criteria and best practices in the field.
  2. Ex-post evaluation study: A mapping of ex-post practices in the evaluation field informed the development of a Fund specific approach to conduct ex-post evaluations, three to five years after project closure, focusing both on the human and natural systems.
  3. Innovative monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) for adaptation study: The aim of this study was to identify and assess innovative MEL practices in the climate adaptation space, using a rapid scan, search and appraise method, with the final step analyzing opportunities for using these MEL innovations in the Adaptation Fund environment.

The findings of the studies informed the multi-year strategy and work programme, as did consultations with the AFB Secretariat, Board, Board Committees, (N)IE key stakeholders and civil society, among others. The study reports will inform ongoing work and a synthesis of the studies’ findings is posted on the AF-TERG publications page.

An overview of completed work part of the implementation of the AF-TERG work programme is presented below:

  • Mid-term Review of the Medium-Term Strategy of the Adaptation Fund: The Mid-term Review focused on the Medium-Term Strategy and its Implementation Plan with the aim to (1) assess progress in the implementation, (2) inform adaptive management and (3) feed into the development of a future strategy. Click here for more information.

 

Ongoing work

An overview of ongoing and developing work part of the implementation of the AF-TERG work programme is presented below:

  • Continued consultations: Consultations with Board members, Implementing Entities, Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat staff and other key Fund stakeholders will continue to take place to get keep abreast of their needs and to inform the implementation of the work programme;
  • Review and Revision of the Adaptation Fund Evaluation Framework: The objectives of the review and revision are to (1) identify and propose necessary revisions to the Fund’s Evaluation Framework; and (2) produce a draft Evaluation Framework for the Adaptation Fund to be presented to and discussed with the Ethics and Finance Committee (EFC) of the Board for its consideration with a view to its subsequent approval by the Board;
  • Thematic evaluation on innovation: The topic of innovation was selected as one of three thematic evaluation topics. More will be added here in due course;
  • Thematic evaluation on accreditation and readiness: The topics of accreditation and readiness were selected as one of three thematic evaluation topics. More will be added here in due course;
  • Thematic evaluation on knowledge management and learning: The topics of knowledge management and learning were selected as one of three thematic evaluation topics. More will be added here in due course;
  • Foundational documents and processes: AF-TERG internal processes will be further clarified and streamlined, and the foundational documents that will guide our work, like the AF-TERG theory of change and work principles, will be reviewed and finalized as ‘living documents’.

More work elements will be added as the implementation of the work programme progresses, and outreach will take place through the AF-TERG social media channels..