The Department for International Development’s (DFID) country office in Tanzania aspired to enhance its approach to climate change, both in terms of mainstreaming the issue in ongoing and future programmes, and in terms of measurement of climate change related results.
This needed to be done in line with emerging thinking regarding measurement of results for the International Climate Fund (ICF). The ICF is a cross-departmental funding mechanism of the British Government, which is the source of the vast majority of UK funded climate change work. In mid-2012 we won a competitive bid to assist DFID Tanzania with this process, a good complement to our ongoing work with the Strategic Climate Institutions Programme (SCIP) in Ethiopia.
Our approach
In June, an Itad team started working with the office in Dar es Salaam to help mainstream climate change through the entire portfolio (education to water interventions, health, to food security programmes), and finesse the climate change portfolio itself. The latter is a small set of three projects, worth a total of £10 million, less than 2% of the country office budget.
Monitoring systems were our entry point to ensure that climate change was adequately considered within programmes, and and that it was measureable. We worked closely with advisers across the office to ensure that changes were acceptable within ongoing programmes. In addition, we provided guidance on measuring Value for Money in the context of climate change. The Itad team of 4 worked closely with the DFID Climate Change adviser to ensure that the work fulfilled expectations.
Outputs
Having worked in the office for two weeks, we provided a presentation on our findings, stimulating a debate among a set of internal staff. On our return to the UK, discussions with staff in headquarters in London further informed our thinking, both in terms of progress with the ICF, but also in relation to overarching trends in government thinking regarding climate change more generally.
The final products of the assignment included specific guidance and suggestions for individual programmes, reinforced by a set of documents on climate change mainstreaming for DFID Tanzania, and measuring Value for Money of climate change initiatives.
Contact Philippa Tadele (philippa.tadele@itad.com) if you would like to discuss this project.
© Photo: Tanzania_Highlands