Institution Background
The Adaptation Fund was established through decisions by the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. At the COP24 in 2018, the Parties to the Paris Agreement decided that the Adaptation Fund shall also serve the Paris Agreement.
Since 2010, the Adaptation Fund has committed more than US$ 1.2 billion for climate change adaptation and resilience projects and programmes, including more than 176 concrete, localized projects in the most vulnerable communities of developing countries around the world with 45 million total beneficiaries. It also pioneered Direct Access, empowering countries to access funding and develop projects directly through accredited national implementing entities.
The Adaptation Fund is supervised and managed by the Adaptation Fund Board (AFB). The Board is composed of 16 members and 16 alternates and holds periodic meetings throughout the year.
An Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat (AFB Secretariat) provides support to the Board through a team of dedicated officials and manages the day-to-day operations of the Adaptation Fund such as research, advisory, and administrative services.
Evaluation Function
The Technical Evaluation Reference Group of the Adaptation Fund (AF-TERG) is an independent evaluation advisory group accountable to the Board, established in 2018 to ensure the independent implementation of the Fund’s Evaluation Framework. Since October 2023 onwards, the AF-TERG is responsible for the implementation of the new Evaluation Policy of the Adaptation Fund.
Structure
The group is comprised of five part-time independent experts in evaluation, called the AF-TERG members, and the Manager of the AFB Secretariat as an ex officio member. One of the members heads the group as the Chair of the AF-TERG. The AF-TERG members serve in their personal capacities only and may not represent their employers, governments or Fund’s entities.
A small AF-TERG Secretariat led by a Coordinator/Senior Evaluation Officer provides support to the AF-TERG, in particular with regards to the implementation of the evaluation work programme. The AF-TERG Secretariat consists of two staff members and is supported by consultants as approved in the AF-TERG annual workplan and budget.
AF-TERG Functions
The AF-TERG provides an evaluative advisory role through performing generation of evaluations, evaluation utilization and evaluation capacity building functions.
- Generation of evaluations
The AF-TERG facilitates 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 also reports 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 the evaluation policy and upholds a reliable, timely, and useful evaluation function that contributes to the Fund’s mission and vision. It also conducts 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.
- Evaluation utilization
The AF-TERG supports 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 synthesizes and presents to the Board key lessons from strategic evaluations and targeted evaluation syntheses for the improvement of the Fund’s performance and the climate change adaptation capacities of its partners. It also reports to the Board on incorporation of lessons and recommendations from strategic-level evaluations as they relate to the AF-TERG’s functions.
- Evaluation capacity development
The AF-TERG is responsible for continuously updating the Fund’s evaluation knowledge, capacity development, and evauation 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 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.
