Supporting climate negotiations: examining the evidence

This report examines the effectiveness of projects designed to support climate negotiators from the world's poorest and most vulnerable countries. It introduces a 'Drivers of Influence' framework to categorize support and provides principles for the design and delivery of future assistance to ensure it is demand-led, sustainable, and capable of enhancing the influence of beneficiary nations in international negotiations.

• Negotiations support projects are categorized by three 'drivers of influence': strengthening delegations (financial and technical skills), developing strategies (national positions), and shaping international negotiations (collective action and agenda setting).
• There has been a shift in the focus of support projects; early efforts primarily provided financial aid to enable attendance, while more recent projects emphasize the development of national positions on technical issues and the creation of alliances to increase power.
• Effective project design should be demand-led and flexible, as the needs of developing country negotiators evolve based on changing capacities and shifting international or national circumstances.
• Establishing trust and credibility between the delivery organization and the beneficiary is essential for success, often enhanced when recipient countries are given budgetary and project design responsibilities.
• Sustainability and impact are improved by engaging a broad range of stakeholders, including the media, civil society, and the private sector, to build domestic support for negotiation teams.
• Monitoring and evaluation of these projects are currently limited and often driven by contractual requirements, though 'outcome mapping' is being trialled by CDKN to identify changes beyond simple outputs.

APA

Mylvaganam, A., Dodwell, C., Sefton, J., Shaxson, L., Maxwell, S., Hamza-Goodacre, D., & Sura, K. (2013). Supporting climate negotiations: examining the evidence. Climate and Development Knowledge Network. http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/CDKN_Supporting_negotiators_final_revised_18-12-2013_hi-res-1.pdf

Chicago

Mylvaganam, Arani, Chris Dodwell, Justine Sefton, Louise Shaxson, Simon Maxwell, Dan Hamza-Goodacre, and Kiran Sura. Supporting climate negotiations: examining the evidence. Climate and Development Knowledge Network, 2013. http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/CDKN_Supporting_negotiators_final_revised_18-12-2013_hi-res-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{mylvaganam2013supporting, author = {Mylvaganam, Arani and Dodwell, Chris and Sefton, Justine and Shaxson, Louise and Maxwell, Simon and Hamza-Goodacre, Dan and Sura, Kiran}, title = {{Supporting climate negotiations: examining the evidence}}, institution = {Climate and Development Knowledge Network}, year = {2013}, month = nov, url = {http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/CDKN_Supporting_negotiators_final_revised_18-12-2013_hi-res-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }