Developing country governments, their ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), international institutions, donor governments, Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and other development agencies and institutions are increasingly focusing their attention on climate change adaptation. With this comes a growing need for results frameworks that enable these stakeholders to assess the success of adaptation interventions. Such frameworks have emerged in the context of major climate funds such as the Adaptation Fund (AF) and the Pilot Programme on Climate Resilience (PPCR), and will be generated for the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

Results frameworks most often aim to assess the efficiency of adaptation funding and...

TAMD is intended to be a flexible framework for evaluating adaptation and adaptation-relevant development interventions in diverse situations. It can be modified for different contexts and types of adaptation. TAMD is a ‘twin-track’ framework that evaluates the extent and quality of climate risk management (CRM) processes and actions on the one hand (Track 1), and the associated development and adaptation outcomes (and their longer term impacts) ‘on the ground’ on the other (Track 2). The two tracks are illustrated graphically in Figure 1.

These two tracks represent the domains within which outputs, outcomes and impacts are evaluated. Causal relationships between...

In this paper we define outputs, outcomes and impacts as follows:

Outputs: goods or services delivered by an intervention (project or programme) and used by others.

Outcomes: short term changes in the population or system targeted by the intervention that result from delivering or using outputs.

Impacts: longer term changes that result from outputs and outcomes, either within or outside the population or system the intervention targets (e.g. the intervention may produce or influence wider societal changes).

Tracks 1 and 2 of the TAMD framework encompass a wide variety of interventions, processes, outputs, outcomes and impacts. Links between outputs, outcomes...

Tracks 1 and 2 of the TAMD framework provide a number of entry points for identifying indicators of successful adaptation, and adaptation-relevant, development interventions. In principle, we can define indicators at four levels for each track ― global, national, regional/municipal and local. Track 1 is associated with indicators that show the extent and efficacy of CRM systems, mechanisms and practices. Track 2 indicators relate to development and adaptation outcomes at different levels (Figure 4).

Table 2 identifies a number of indicators that might be used at different levels, for each of the two tracks.⁵ These are a combination of quantitative...

Tracking adaptation and development trends requires good baseline data—something that is often missing from evaluations of development outcomes. Even if there are baseline data for `standard’ development indicators, baselines for vulnerability and adaptive capacity are even less readily available.

Where using numeric indicators for development, vulnerability and adaptive capacity, it may be necessary to build a data gathering component into the initial phase of an intervention. While this may have significant resource implications, it might be the only way of tracking results with any confidence. Household surveys or participatory well-being rankings might be gathered from a representative sample of...

Wherever outputs, outcomes and impacts are located on the TAMD framework, attributing outcomes to outputs, and impacts to outcomes, is crucial in order to demonstrate whether or not adaptation and development interventions have achieved the intended results.

Theories of change (ToC) are playing an increasingly important role in programming and evaluating adaptation and development interventions. Put simply, a ToC is a “description of a sequence of events that is expected to lead to a particular desired outcome” (Davies, 2012), and is both “a process and a product” (Vogel, 2012, p.4). This description can be used to map the sequence of...

Where populations are known to have the same climate vulnerability characteristics and a similar range of adaptive capacity both within and outside the adaptation area (or the area for an adaptation-related development intervention), comparing them can help assess the interventions in quasi-experimental ways. Track 2 indicators can be generated for both populations. By comparing these over time, the intervention’s effects can be assessed. This is equivalent to ‘with and without treatment effects’ in experimental methods.

This way of applying TAMD can be extended to scenarios where more than one intervention is be carried out in the same region. Figure 6...

In order to evaluate an intervention, set of interventions or set of processes with TAMD, the following steps are needed.

1. Define the evaluation context and purpose.

Is the purpose to evaluate the success of a particular intervention or set of interventions, or to evaluate the efficacy of a system or set of processes (e.g. a national CRM system)?

2. Establish a theory of change (ToC) (or use the ToC employed when programming the intervention).

Identify the relevant outputs, outcomes and impacts to be evaluated

Identify assumptions about how activities undertaken during an intervention will lead to the desired outcomes (i.e. causal...

TAMD aims to deliver a framework (or multiple frameworks) that can be used in a wide variety of contexts and over a range of different scales to assess the effectiveness of adaptation interventions and compare different interventions and approaches. This paper has outlined the steps needed to apply TAMD and operationalise the concepts outlined in Climate Change Working Paper no. 1 (Brooks et al., 2011).

Using the twin tracks of climate risk management and adaptation and development outcomes, TAMD seeks to assess adaptation processes at multiple scales and through an evaluation of outputs, outcomes and impacts within and across the...