Lessons from Taking Stock of 12 Years of Swiss International Cooperation on Climate Change

Abstract

A stronger focus on results achieved in international cooperation on climate change has become common in the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC (www.eda.admin.ch/sdc) and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO (www.seco.admin.ch). In 2014 these agencies have commissioned an assessment on the effectiveness of more than 400 of their climate change interventions over the timeframe of 12 years (2000–2012). This paper presents the methodological approach of the assessment and its results. In a second step and most importantly, it summaries the challenges and lessons learnt of commissioning and conducting such a stock-taking exercise in the field of climate change. These lessons are addressed to evaluators, practitioners and policy makers. In general, the paper concludes that preparing such a report on the effectiveness of the international cooperation in climate change is indeed a very challenging exercise. More specifically, the paper argues that firstly many more efforts are needed from evaluators to identify best methodological practices in dealing with such a mass of information, the wide and highly diverse portfolio and a lack of good quantitative and qualitative data. Secondly, practitioners need to invest more in project design and in monitoring in order to provide accurate data as a basis for sound assessment. Finally, policy makers should be well aware of the significant investments needed for such assessments as an instrument of accountability. This paper thus contributes to the debate among interested stakeholders on the need for better results measurement and results reporting in international cooperation on climate change.