Part 2 of the EcoAdapt Monitoring and Evaluation of Adaptation Series
When
This session will be made up of three short presentations that will provide a variety of perspectives on Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E).
Global - Raising the Bar: Designing, Monitoring, and Evaluating Climate Resilience
Dr. McGinn will present aspects of ISET-International’s work on M&E of climate resilience policies and programs. She will discuss designing programs, M&E frameworks, and evaluations from a climate perspective. She will explore what distinguishes climate resilience as a distinct body of policy and praxis, and how to better harness it to advance a global evidence base on what constitutes effective climate action. Dr. McGinn will explore how to approach M&E for two distinct – but complementary – agendas: mainstreaming climate change into development programming, and the focused programs that aim towards transformational change within the climate arena. Her presentation will include program design for climate resilience; theories of change, logframes, and indicators; incorporating climate justice and rights-based approaches; evaluation research methods and implications for analysis of climate resilience; and harnessing utilizing evaluation research to advance learning.
Federal - Adaptation and Accountability: The Role of GAO's Disaster Resilience Framework in System-Wide Action
The accountability community consists of organizations that conduct performance audits and evaluations like the Government Accountability Office (GAO), federal inspectors general, and international, state, and local audit institutions. These organizations make recommendations designed to enhance government functions. The accountability community plays an important role in shaping government action to confront the challenges and impacts of a changing climate, because the recommendations made act as critical drivers of adaptation action for any and all climate-related disaster impacts.
In this presentation, Kathryn Godfrey from GAO will discuss the Disaster Resilience Framework which provides a foundation for considering how federal action might result in climate adaptation and hazard mitigation (through direct action or by exercising its influence). The Framework contains a set of broad principles organized into three areas—Information, Integration, and Incentives—where the federal government might create or leverage opportunities to drive risk reduction at all levels of government and outside of government. The Framework provides a series of questions decision makers, auditors, and evaluators can use when considering whether there are additional avenues of influence that would result in disaster risk reduction. The questions could also help nonfederal actors identify what they could and should be asking of their federal partners in shared efforts to maximize such opportunities. These principles can be used to assess the status of climate-related disasters in numerous contexts and to identify opportunities to enhance those efforts.
Local - Enabling Homeowners to Adapt to Coastal Flooding: The Case of Rockaway in New York City
Progress on adaptation to coastal flooding requires that coastal residents and communities invest in adaptations. However, flood adaptation planning remains the exception rather than the norm among coastal residents. Malgosia Madajewicz from Columbia University will discuss a project that has co-produced knowledge with community groups of coastal residents in the Rockaway region of New York City about current and future flood risk and benefits and costs of adaptation options in order to support informed decisions about adaptation actions that residents can take with their own resources. This project is evaluating if and how the co-production initiative has affected knowledge, attitudes, and adaptation behavior relative to less resource-intensive means of communicating information. The evaluation will examine how approaches to supporting adaptation actions should differ across socio-economic conditions represented in the study communities, which range from low to middle-income and from mainly white to highly diverse and to disadvantaged. Preliminary, qualitative results suggest that change in attitudes and behavior results from information that is specific to individual homes. More general information has limited impact. Challenges have included a reluctance to address flood risk stemming from the sense that individual homeowners do not have effective options and disillusionment with public sector efforts.
Presenters:
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Colleen McGinn, Senior Resilience Specialist, ISET International
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Kathryn Godfrey, Assistant Director, U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
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Malgosia Madajewicz, Associate Research Scientist, Columbia University
Moderator: Ned Gardiner, Engagement Manager, U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, NOAA