GEI and CIF Build Capacity through Evaluative Research
In December 2024, a group of Climate Investment Fund (CIF) observers from around the world participated in a peer-to-peer webinar to strengthen their capacity to assess and evaluate climate finance interventions. CIF observers are representatives from civil society, the private sector, and Indigenous Peoples’ organizations who serve as observers to the CIF Governing Board, contributing to decisions on climate finance projects.
Led by the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI) and the Center for Learning on Evaluation and Results for Lusophone Africa and Brazil (CLEAR-LAB), the Evaluation Capacity Development (ECD) program— a partnership launched by CIF, GEI, and CLEAR-LAB in June 2023—aims to build evaluative capacity among climate stakeholders, equipping them with the tools to evaluate climate investments effectively. The ECD program includes two main components: 1) capacity-building training for all CIF observers, completed in June 2024, and 2) research grants for evaluative studies, awarded through a call for proposals, to be completed by June 2025, when the program concludes.
By supporting observer-led evaluations, GEI and CIF aim to bridge the gap between climate finance decisions and local realities. Five observer groups have received CIF-supported grants to apply the learning from the training and conduct their own rapid evaluations on key climate topics. These include just energy transition processes in Brazil and Indonesia, women's access to climate finance in Burkina Faso, the role of private sector observers in climate funds, and comparing funds providing climate financing directly to Indigenous Peoples. CLEAR-LAB delivers monthly mentoring sessions, with support from other CLEAR centers, to provide tailored support over 13 months based on the research topic and the observer’s level of experience conducting such studies.
By strengthening evaluation skills, CIF observers are better positioned to evaluate programs and ensure climate finance serves local communities effectively.
One of the five selected teams, the Climate Action Network Southeast Asia (CANSEA), is evaluating stakeholder engagement in Indonesia’s Just Energy Transition Partnership (JET-P). Launched in 2022 with a US$20 billion investment, JET-P aims to phase out coal while ensuring an equitable transition for workers and communities.
“It has been a real privilege to have the expertise and experience of CLEAR-LAB to ensure that our evaluation activity will meet its objectives to a very high standard. It will also help us contribute significantly to the body of knowledge on ongoing JET projects in Indonesia and beyond, especially regarding their stakeholder engagement processes, based on evidence,” said Nithi Nesadurai, a CIF observer from CANSEA.
CANSEA’s research examines whether inclusive, ongoing, and concerted stakeholder engagement, especially community engagement, is taking place at all levels of government, with a special focus on the inclusion of women, informal workers, and communities that will be affected by the transition. Their findings will help shape policy recommendations to improve stakeholder engagement in future JET-P processes to support a just coal transition.