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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 project aims to protect and restore Key Biodiversity Areas in the Upper Chindwin Basin, Myanmar, through the development of Community Action Plans (CAP) and integrated land and water management. It addresses threats such as commercial mining, logging, and overfishing that have led to the decline of endangered aquatic species and wetland habitats. The initiative focuses on creating environmentally-sensitive livelihoods, establishing conservation zones, and providing policy recommendations to upscale these community-led conservation efforts nationally.

The document assesses Thailand's air quality challenges, noting that while numerous Acts and Plans exist, enforcement is hampered by a siloed ministerial approach and a prioritization of economic growth over environmental health. It identifies key pollution sources including road transport, coal-fired power plants, industrial zones, and seasonal crop burning. The paper highlights successful past initiatives such as the phase-out of leaded gasoline and two-stroke motorcycles, and suggests the need for an overarching national agency to integrate air quality management across sectors.

The study identifies mining, logging, dam construction, and agriculture as the primary threats to biodiversity in the Chindwin River Basin. Using a GIS-based Multi-Criteria Decision Making approach and the InVEST model, the research found that 87% of Key Biodiversity Areas provide a high degree of ecosystem services, with the highest levels occurring in the forested northern region of the basin.

The project focuses on the Katari watershed in Bolivia, where high-altitude wetlands known as "bofedales" are critical for regulating water balance and supplying drinking water to La Paz and El Alto. These ecosystems are currently deteriorating due to climate change, glacier retreat, rapid urbanization, overgrazing, and mining-related groundwater extraction. To address this, the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) is using multi-temporal remote sensing data from 1984-2020 and the WEAP modelling platform to establish eco-hydrological baselines and evaluate potential conflicts between urban water demands and the preservation of these wetlands.

The document describes a methodological effort to integrate Robust Decision Support (RDS) into Bolivia's National Watershed Policy, specifically for the Rocha River Basin Master Plan. It aims to provide stakeholders with tools to analyze interactions between water management interventions, manage hydrologic risks, and mitigate conflicts across different sectors and regions in the face of climate-induced water scarcity.

The report argues that nature is central to both the emergence of and recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. It proposes a sustainability dashboard focused on the planetary boundaries of climate and nature loss, identifying the transformation of the global food system as a primary priority to strengthen planetary resilience against future pandemics.

The report explores how social protection can support adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and resilience against slow-onset climate events—such as sea-level rise and biodiversity loss—while noting that climate change itself may threaten the viability of these social protection systems.

The authors highlight a gap in the understanding of how soil microbiota influence peatland functioning and the recovery of ecosystem services. They propose a phased approach to research: short-term characterization of microbial communities, medium-term definition of 'target' microbiomes for carbon cycle services, and long-term application of this knowledge to restoration practices. The paper emphasizes that multidisciplinary collaboration and genetic characterization are essential to meeting climate targets and ensuring cost-effective ecosystem service delivery.

The study examines energy poverty in Malawi, finding that unconditional social cash transfers significantly increase the likelihood of ultra-poor households owning improved cookstoves and having a source of lighting.

The African green bond market is nascent and underdeveloped, with cumulative issuances of less than 1% of global volumes between 2012 and 2019. While South Africa, Morocco, and Nigeria lead the drive through national frameworks and issuances, the market faces significant barriers including a lack of technical capacity, insufficient supporting regulation, and a dearth of fiscal incentives. As of October 2019, 17 bonds totaling over US$2 billion had been issued across six states, with approximately 35% being climate certified. Opportunities for growth lie in greening infrastructure and sustainable urban development, provided that local conditions are reflected in guidelines and project pipelines are improved.

The BiH ESAP 2030+ is a strategic initiative supported by the Stockholm Environment Institute and funded by the Embassy of Sweden to align Bosnia and Herzegovina's environmental frameworks with European Union policies. The plan, developed between September 2019 and spring 2022, covers seven EU environmental policy areas and consists of four jurisdiction-specific strategies for the BiH level, the Federation of BiH, Republika Srpska, and Brčko District. The process employs a participatory approach involving 28 thematic working groups and two rounds of public consultations to define goals, targets, and measures to improve the environment and public health by 2032.

The Kenya WASH sector features diverse stakeholders and platforms, but broad-based coordination forums like the Joint Sector Working Group are largely dormant or dysfunctional. While 'soft' accountability mechanisms such as strategic planning and performance reporting are common, they often lack follow-up and sanctions, leading to weak mutual accountability. The COVID-19 pandemic temporarily enhanced collaboration but exposed severe financial accountability gaps and corruption in public procurement. The Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) Mutual Accountability Mechanism (MAM) is being introduced to address these gaps, though its integration is hindered by the lack of active national forums.

The study finds that government accountability in Peru's WASH sector is still under construction, with a lack of integrated mechanisms despite existing legal frameworks like DL 1280. While various multi-stakeholder platforms exist, they are fragmented and lack formal coordination with the Ministry of Housing, Construction and Sanitation (MVCS). The COVID-19 pandemic did not significantly impact government-to-citizen accountability because such mechanisms were largely non-existent, though it did accelerate digital coordination. Additionally, there is low awareness among national experts regarding the SWA partnership and its Mutual Accountability Mechanism (MAM), with the government's commitments primarily tied to the National Sanitation Plan 2017-2021.

Thailand is promoting a bioeconomy centered on cassava and sugarcane to drive economic growth and social equity, though the industrial sector is more advanced than community-based efforts. While integrated into policies like Thailand 4.0 and the 20-year National Strategic Plan, the transition faces regulatory hurdles, such as the Cane and Sugar Act (1968), and environmental pressures including land and water scarcity. Social challenges include wage inequality for plantation workers and food security risks for farmers shifting from rice to sugarcane.

The 'Agua Sin Límites' initiative seeks to evolve water management beyond traditional Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), which the authors argue has failed to produce sustainable results. The initiative focuses on three pillars: analyzing water connections beyond the immediate basin, implementing multi-scale participatory approaches to address inequalities (including gender and poverty), and integrating ecosystem needs early in the planning process. These frameworks are being tested through pilot studies in the Mekong and Magdalena river basins, as well as reflecting on work in California.

The report evaluates how the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) bridges science and policy to induce sustainable development. It defines policy engagement as interactions leading to changes in agendas, capacities, and decisions. Through 18 case studies, SEI identifies key pathways to impact—such as developing scientific evidence, using decision-support tools (e.g., LEAP and WEAP), and building networks with 'champions'. The analysis categorizes outcomes into changes in awareness/attitudes (Agendas), institutional strengthening (Capacities), and actual policy shifts (Decisions). It concludes that long-term relationships and a focus on solutions are more effective than short-term, output-driven engagement.

The QGasSP project seeks to create a standardised, modular, and open-source tool to help national, regional, and local planning authorities quantify how spatial planning decisions affect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The methodology focuses on three primary sectors: building energy use, transportation and infrastructure, and land use change and forestry (LULUCF). To ensure pan-European applicability, the tool will employ a hierarchical data structure, allowing users to start with European averages and refine results with national or local data. The project integrates this quantification process into the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) framework to support evidence-based climate mitigation. The tool's effectiveness will be tested through four pilot case studies in Ireland (County Meath), Northern Ireland (Rathlin Island), Finland (Kymenlaakso region), and Scotland (Edinburgh).

Zimbabwe has increased its climate ambition by raising its 2030 emission reduction target from 33% to 40% per capita compared to a business-as-usual scenario. Unlike its first NDC, which focused only on energy, the revised version is economy-wide, covering Energy, Industrial Processes and Product Use (IPPU), Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU), and Waste. The document emphasizes that Zimbabwe is highly vulnerable to climate change, with 70% of its population reliant on rainfed agriculture, and identifies four priority adaptation areas: climate-smart agriculture, early warning systems, resilient infrastructure, and sustainable water management. Implementation of these goals is conditional on international financial support, with mitigation costs estimated at US$4,834.47 million.

The ENHANCE project (2017-2020) focused on integrating the EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) into regional policies to drive the transition to a circular economy. By collaborating across six European regions, the project identified 24 good practices and implemented 31 actions, primarily focusing on regulatory reliefs and promotional incentives. Key achievements include the reduction of financial guarantees for waste companies in Estonia, tax reductions for EMAS organizations in Catalonia, and the integration of EMAS as an award criterion in Austrian green public procurement. The project engaged 375 stakeholders and concluded that stakeholder involvement and clear financial incentives are critical for the successful implementation of environmental policy instruments.