Adapting to Climate Change: Assessing the World Bank Group ...

CHAPTER 5CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONSgoals. Box 5-1 lists, as examples, some issues where rapid shared feedback coulddirectly improve effectiveness in pursuing adaptation and development goals. TheBank Group could develop this knowledge in part by piloting approaches tointegrating impact evaluation into selected projects with potential adaptationbenefits. Experience in the human development sector shows that an offer offunding for impact evaluations finds takers and generates useful knowledge. To bemost effective, monitoring protocols should be integrated with project monitoringand evaluation from the start, and should include provisions for comparison orcontrol groups. Rigorous ex ante assessment, along with attention to intermediateoutputs, should be used for activities whose impacts are not readily observable inthe near term, such as those aimed at reducing vulnerabilities to long-term climatechange or to low-probability catastrophic events.5.23 Recommendation 4: Support countries to improve hydromet services andencourage the use and sharing of hydromet information within and betweencountries. Prioritize Sub-Saharan Africa and other low-income countries andregions with poor system coverage and low use of services. Support countries topilot policy reforms and financing models that promote long-term maintenance anda greater array of hydromet products that are accessible and valuable to end users.5.24 Recommendation 5: Promote attention to anticipatory adaptation to longrunclimate change. Specifically,i) Where coastal zone management, estuaries and deltas, cities exposed to climaterisks, regional agricultural development, and national biodiversity strategies are afocus:a) in the context of country assistance/partnership strategies, signal the need forattention to patterns of spatial development that are resilient to long-run climatechangeb) in the context of large-scale projects and programs, include assessment of thefeasibility, costs, and benefits of alternative policy instruments for shaping long-runclimate-resilient patterns of spatial developmentii) Promote learning on policy instruments for shaping long-run climate-resilientpatterns of spatial development, including through small-scale pilot projects,assessment of ongoing projects, and other analytic activities.5.25 In addition to these recommendations, IEG suggests attention to thefollowing areas.92