A big challenge for a developing field like adaptation is gathering the information needed to know what is truly effective. While this entire Toolkit is a work in progress, this section is the least developed of all. Over the next year, we will be attempting some of our own analysis to generate new ideas on this topic, as well as looking for the works of others. The following is a good resource that provides guidance on monitoring and evaluation of climate adaptation programs and projects to get you started.

Learning to ADAPT: Monitoring and Evaluation Approaches in Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction – Challenges, Gaps, and Ways Forward This working paper provides an analysis of monitoring and evaluation of climate adaptation and presents a set of ADAPT principles (Adaptive, Dynamic, Active, Participatory, and Thorough) for development of monitoring and evaluation approaches. Summary recommendations in the working paper are to:

1. Support further research to study both the individual and community processes of change in current adaptation on interventions;
2. Design a monitoring and evaluation learning tool that supports the generation of evidence-based knowledge about the decision-making processes that lead to adaptation. This needs to be dynamic, flexible, and adaptive to local contexts and constantly changing circumstances and concerns of stakeholders;
3. Use of the ADAPT principles which identifies key guiding principles for the future development of adaptation monitoring and evaluation indicators and frameworks;
4. Engage with adaptation and development practitioners to develop a comprehensive basket of integrated process-based indicators that account for wider operational environmental household dynamics and perceptions and underlying causes of poverty and vulnerability;
5. Develop ADAPT indicators – Adaptive, Dynamic, Active, Participatory, Thorough – in order to ensure that the complexities and dynamics involved in a constantly changing environment are captured;
6. Establish monitoring and evaluations systems that go beyond program/project timelines and that facilitate and promote organizational learning, and
7. Engage with monitoring and evaluations methodologies that promote and emphasize learning such as utilization-focused and developmental evaluation.