External Review of WRI Technical Annexes

The document details an external review of WRI's 2018-2022 Strategic Plan, evaluating its seven global challenges and core functions. It employs a mixed-methods approach, including 'Outcome Harvesting' and a 'Traffic Light System' to measure progress. Preliminary findings indicate that the Forests program is the strongest performer (95.9% achievement), while the Governance Center is partially on track (44% achievement). The review also assesses WRI's growth, the impact of COVID-19, and the integration of gender and social equity across its global operations, including specific assessments of its offices in Africa, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the United States.

• The Forests program is the highest-performing program, achieving 95.9% of its targets as of October 2021, with full achievement in four of its five workstreams.
• The Governance Center is judged to be 'Partially on Track', having achieved only 44.0% of its targets as of October 2021, partly due to a high number of non-verifiable indicators.
• The Cities program achieved 58.6% of its targets, but this figure rises to 93.7% if 12 'non-Verifiable' indicators are excluded, highlighting gaps in planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning (PMEL) practices.
• The Climate program is 'Mostly on Track' with 63.6% achievement; while it succeeded in emissions measurement (facilitating tools in 69 countries), it struggled to turn Paris Agreement commitments into actual policy action in some target countries.
• The Energy program achieved 71.9% of its targets, with the 'Renewable Energy' workstream performing strongest, including contracting 42 GWh of renewable energy in the US via the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance.
• The Food program is 'On Track' with 76.8% achievement, notably influencing 35 of the world's 50 largest companies to adopt food loss and waste targets aligned with SDG 12.3.
• The Oceans program is 'On Track' with 77.0% achievement, driven largely by the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, which secured commitments from 14 Heads of State to sustainably manage 100% of their Exclusive Economic Zones by 2025.
• WRI's Africa office is 'Mostly on Track' with 62.7% achievement (rising to 84.8% excluding non-verifiable indicators), with significant success in expanding the Energy Access Explorer to Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Zambia.
• WRI's growth has been rapid, with annual spending increasing from US$110 million in FY18 to a projected US$174 million in FY21.
• The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) significantly outperformed expectations, with 1,878 companies adopting a science-based target compared to the initial goal of 300.
• Core funding from Sida, the Netherlands MFA, Danish MFA, and IrishAid (totaling US$ 44.6 million between FY18-FY21) is critical for incubating new work, such as the Food Loss and Waste Finance Facility in Africa.
• The review identifies a lack of central systems to track Gender and Social Equity (GSE) work across WRI's portfolio, though 17% of publications as of 2020 included GSE themes to a 'strong' degree.

APA

World Resources Institute (2021). External Review of WRI Technical Annexes. https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2022-02/2021-external-review-report-technical-annexes.pdf

Chicago

World Resources Institute. External Review of WRI Technical Annexes. 2021. https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2022-02/2021-external-review-report-technical-annexes.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=External Review of WRI Technical Annexes |date=13 December 2021 |url=https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2022-02/2021-external-review-report-technical-annexes.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitute2021external, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{External Review of WRI Technical Annexes}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2021}, month = dec, url = {https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2022-02/2021-external-review-report-technical-annexes.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }