Monitoring, evaluation and learning to build better climate services

The document argues that effective climate services require an intentional MEL design based on outcome mapping to foster collaboration and adaptive management. It details the use of boundary partners, outcome challenges, and progress markers to track behavioral changes rather than just direct development impacts. The briefing recommends specific tools like the 'most significant change' technique and outcome harvesting to capture complex, non-linear results. An illustrative example from the FRACTAL project in Windhoek, Namibia, demonstrates how these elements are applied to different stakeholder groups, including city officials and climate service providers.

• The Tandem framework utilizes a co-design approach to create climate services that are tailored to specific contexts, aiming to support disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation through seven iterative steps.
• Outcome mapping is proposed as a foundation for MEL within Tandem because it focuses on behavioral changes among 'boundary partners'—the individuals and organizations the program interacts with directly—rather than immediate development impacts.
• Intentional MEL design requires the formulation of 'outcome challenges' for each stakeholder group, which describe the expected change in behavior, and 'progress markers' that track evolution from simple progress to transformative outcomes.
• The 'sphere of influence' concept helps project designers ensure realism by distinguishing between the 'sphere of control' (direct boundary partners), the 'sphere of influence' (broader reachable networks), and the 'sphere of interest' (the wider group of climate-vulnerable beneficiaries).
• Two recommended tools for gathering qualitative information on outcomes are the 'most significant change' technique, which uses story-based dialogue to identify valued outcomes, and 'outcome harvesting', which verifies outcomes from reports and interviews.
• A robust MEL framework supports adaptive management by allowing climate services to remain flexible and recalibrate based on iterative learning and unanticipated outcomes, which is essential given the uncertainty of climate change.
• The FRACTAL project in Windhoek, Namibia, applied these principles by setting specific markers for different partners; for example, for the City of Windhoek Department of Water, Infrastructure and Technical Services, progress ranged from including capacity development in the CCSAP to the actual implementation of capacity strengthening actions.

APA

Salamanca, A., & Biskupska, N. (2021). Monitoring, evaluation and learning to build better climate services. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/sei-discussion-brief-monitoring-of-tandem-framework-2021.pdf

Chicago

Salamanca, Albert, and Natalia Biskupska. Monitoring, evaluation and learning to build better climate services. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2021. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/sei-discussion-brief-monitoring-of-tandem-framework-2021.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Salamanca |first1=Albert |last2=Biskupska |first2=Natalia |title=Monitoring, evaluation and learning to build better climate services |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=February 2021 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/sei-discussion-brief-monitoring-of-tandem-framework-2021.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{salamanca2021monitoring, author = {Salamanca, Albert and Biskupska, Natalia}, title = {{Monitoring, evaluation and learning to build better climate services}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2021}, month = feb, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/sei-discussion-brief-monitoring-of-tandem-framework-2021.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }