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IEU NEWSLETTER, Issue 11

IN THIS ISSUE
  • IEU at B.27
  • Learning and Evidence
  • IEU Evaluations
  • Capacity Building
  • Communications and Uptake
  • Blogs and Articles
  • Coming Up
 
 Dear IEU friends,

My name is Andreas Reumann, and I am the Principal Evaluation Officer at the IEU. As announced in our previous letter, Dr. Jyotsna Puri  (Jo) has now formally resigned as the Head of IEU to take up a new career challenge at the International Fund for Agricultural Development. For this reason, I am stepping in to greet you all and to give you a short introduction to this edition of the IEU newsletter.

During her time at the IEU, Jo would often say she is standing on the shoulders of giants in delivering state of the art, data-driven evaluations that could help make the GCF faster, smarter and better. The IEU has evaluation officers and specialists with extensive climate change experience, an impressive range of evaluation skills and impressive publications records. Enabling and supporting the IEU evaluations is a team of dedicated data specialists who work in data collection, quantitative and qualitative data analysis, geographic information systems and behavioural science analysis. We are also very well supported by a proactive communications and uptake workstream skilled in a range of tools to ensure that the IEU’s key messages reach and inform GCF stakeholders and policymakers. Then there are colleagues working assiduously to keep the team operating – those who handle administration, organize meetings, keep the broader team informed and handle procurement.

Together, the IEU has performed at its most productive level ever despite the various external and internal challenges this year, and I am deeply thankful for all IEU members’ hard work and dedication that made this possible.

With the recent Board’s approval of the IEU’s 2021 work plan at B.27, the IEU team is eager and fully ready to deliver another productive year in 2021. The IEU thanks the Board members, the Secretariat, representatives from accredited entities and civil society and private sector organizations who recognize the need for strengthening the GCF’s accountability and learning function.

Fulfilling all your expectations and delivering on the IEU mandate will continue to be our highest priority in 2021. On behalf of the IEU team, I wish you a safe and a less climate variable 2021!

Thank you.

Andreas Reumann,
Principal Evaluation Officer, IEU

IEU at B.27
                   Dr. Archi Rastogi presents the IEU's Annual Workplan and Budget for 2021 at the virtual B.27.

As with B.26, the twenty-seventh meeting of the GCF Board was conducted virtually. The Board noted the report on the IEU's activities and approved the IEU's proposed 2021 Work Plan and Budget and Update of its Three-year Objectives and Work Plan. A video of the IEU's presentation is available on the Board section of the GCF website.
 
IEU Virtual Side Events for B.27

The first side event looked at the key role data plays in enabling and supporting IEU evaluations. The IEU DataLab discussed their work relating to the Independent Evaluation of the Relevance and Effectiveness of the Green Climate Fund's Investments in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and the way the IEU has adapted to conducting evaluations during the COVID-19 pandemic (video).

The second side event featured IEU's SIDS Evaluation team members as well as GCF's Asia-Pacific Regional Manager Diane McFadzien and Dr. Alexandre Magnan, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI). It explored the challenges the SIDS face alongside the key findings and recommendations of the abovementioned SIDS Evaluation (video).

LEARNING AND EVIDENCE
NEW: Behavioural Science Learning Paper 

Authored by Cornelius Krüger and Dr. Jyotsna Puri, the paper makes the case for incorporating behavioural science analysis and interventions in project design. Portfolio-level data and 11 case studies of GCF projects provide the basis for the paper’s analysis and recommendations. Click here to read!

The IEU and the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval) jointly produced a new evidence review, Evidence Gap and Intervention Heat Maps of Climate Change Adaptation. The review analyses evidence on the effectiveness of adaptation measures and offers a thematic overview of global evidence. Read the full report here and check out the interactive evidence gap map here!

Upcoming evidence reviews include: 

IEU EVALUATIONS
Independent Evaluation of the Relevance and Effectiveness of the Green Climate Fund's Investments in Small Island Developing States (SIDS)
 
This evaluation, submitted at B.27, examines how relevant and effective the GCF' s investments in the SIDS are. The recommendations include improving the GCF’s readiness programme’s assistance to regional entities for SIDS; improving the project cycle, especially the simplified approval process (SAP), and giving the Secretariat more authority to make approvals. Visit the SIDS Evaluation webpage for the full report, the executive summary and our other knowledge products.
 
 Upcoming:

CAPACITY BUILDING
LORTA Virtual Design Workshop
 
The IEU's Learning Oriented Real-Time Impact Assessment (LORTA) team recently concluded its 9-week long virtual workshop for selected GCF projects. It supported accredited entities and project managers in measuring the impact of their GCF-funded projects. The course of 8 modules and webinars attracted more than 80 participants. Of the three online courses currently available on the GCF’s iLearn Online training platform, only the LORTA course was produced completely in-house. With its recorded lectures, slideshows, readings and quizzes, course participants rated their learning experience highly.

COMMUNICATIONS AND UPTAKE
The IEU's Communications Officer, Yeonji Kim, presents a video on the IEU's ESS evaluation.
 
The IEU has produced 10 videos since September including videos explaining the outcomes of the Independent Evaluation of the GCF’s Environmental and Social Safeguards, the Independent Synthesis of the GCF’s Accreditation Function, and the Independent Assessment of the GCF’s Simplified Approval Process (SAP). The full suite of IEU videos is available via the IEU’s new microsite and YouTube channel.
 
New Partnership
In November 2020, the IEU signed an MoU with the King Climate Action Initiative (K-CAI) at Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) a competitive research and scaling initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that funds proposals to design, pilot, evaluate, and scale evidenced-informed innovations at the nexus of climate change and poverty. The objective of the MoU is to build a strategic knowledge partnership on climate change adaptation, in particular. 
Media Engagement
In November, the IEU’s Andreas Reumann appeared on  Arirang TV where he discussed COVID-19 and climate change, including protecting ourselves from illness while saving the environment and handling the waste that accompanies the pandemic.

RECENT BLOGS AND ARTICLES 
 The IEU's blogs are published on the IEU's microsite and Medium. The most recent include: And the IEU’s Dr. Martin Prowse contributed to The Development Impacts of COVID-19 at Home and Abroad: Politics and Implications of Government Action, a paper freely available through Springer publications.

 

COMING UP
The upcoming activities of the IEU include the following:
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