CIFF is an independent, philanthropic organization aimed to demonstrably improve the lives of children in developing countries by achieving large-scale, sustainable impact. Prior to the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC, which is taking place in December 2015, CIFF’s grantees aimed at using political momentum around 2015 to drive existing programme objectives through: (i) leveraging CIFF’s funded investments, (ii) building a Global Political and Communications Hub, (iii) delivering the Deep Decarbonisation Pathways Project (DDPP) to prepare nationally credible, transparent and methodologically consistent emission reduction pathways to 2050 for thirteen key countries accounting for over 75% of global emissions, and (iv) evaluating national offers.
CIFF is committed to working with its grantees to design a fit-for-purpose evaluation framework that spans the duration of the investment. This consolidated framework, encompassing all four workstreams described above, examines and answers key questions on the campaign’s performance, the context and environment in which it operates.
Our approach
The evaluation work, led by Itad, was carried out by a team of international and national consultants, researchers, climate experts and evaluators between November 2014 and June 2016. Our approach employed a mixed methodology and consisted of two separate but closely connected stages.
During the first year, Itad elaborated the Theory of Change for CIFF’s 2015 climate negotiations strategy, developing a programme-level baseline with CIFF and partners and producing a grantee routine results reporting template for periodic reporting by implementing partners to CIFF. These outputs informed the ongoing monitoring of CIFF’s individual investments and the design of the reflective evaluation.
Our second-year evaluation activities were summative in nature and included an independent assessment and review of the results and deliverables under the 2015 Initiative. To assess causal inference through a single-case research design and to gather evidence that link an intervention with outcome-level change, we applied both top-down and bottom-up assessments. Our theory-based approach was informed by state of the art methodologies applied in process tracing, outcome mapping, case-based and contribution analysis. Our evaluation design consisted of several components, starting with an analysis of the outcome of the Paris COP, synthesis and analysis of the reports and case studies, and a process of triangulation through interviews and further desk reviews. Sectors covered include: Climate Change, Governance, and Research Uptake and Communications.
Image © Cusco, market on market Avenida Garcilaso. Photo Credit: Julia Manzerova (CC BY-ND 2.0)
