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

CHAPTER 2ADAPTATION AT THE BANK GROUP2.8 The new results framework does not fully rise to these challenges. Table C1(Appendix C) assesses proposed indicators against the criteria of relevance, utility, andfeasibility. Many of the national-level indicators have low relevance; they are not closelyrelated to measures of capacity or outcomes. Exceptions include measures of policy orinstitutional preparedness. The project-level indicators tend to focus on inputs oroutputs rather than outcomes, are specific to particular adaptation issues, and aresometimes not well-specified. None of the results are disaggregated by gender 5 .TRACKING PROJECTS WITH CLIMATE ADAPTATION BENEFITS: NEITHER AN INPUT, NOR AN OUTPUT, INDICATOR2.9 The Bank Group’s results framework for climate change will track aggregatespending on activities with adaptation co-benefits, following an InternationalDevelopment Association (IDA) 16 mandate 6 and elaborating the Rio Markers of theOrganization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)-DevelopmentAssistance Committee (DAC). While IFC’s approach is still under development, theBank has developed and piloted a system which will be introduced in FY13. Thissystem is activity-based. It classifies a project subcomponent as providing adaptation cobenefits“if it reduces the vulnerability of human or natural systems to the impacts ofclimate change and climate variability related risks by maintaining or increasingadaptive capacity and resilience.” Task team leaders are provided with an illustrativetypology of activities with potential adaptation co-benefits, but are instructed to tag anactivity only if benefits are direct and only “if they explicitly include climate adaptationreasoning and directly address vulnerability or impact from climate variability andchange.” 7 In contrast, OECD-DAC’s 2009 guidance on tracking is objectives-based. Itmarks the project as having adaptation as a principal objective if “the activity would nothave been funded but for that objective.” Adaptation is recorded as a significantobjective if the project was “formulated or adjusted to help meet climate concerns”(OECD 2011).2.10 The Bank’s system tracks spending on activities that include some explicit attention toadaptation benefits. This provides a potentially useful indication of the extent to whichclimate change risks, and climate change benefits, are being actively considered inproject design. With little additional effort, the tracking system could be enhanced topromote learning about adaptation. As currently designed the system doesn’t recordwhich criteria were used to designate the activity as adaptive. If that information wererecorded, the system could be used to build up an indexed database of activities withpotential adaptation benefits. These activities could then be systematically tracked andcompared. For instance, it would be possible to identify and compare the results ofparticular types of agroforestry or weather index insurance projects.2.11 However it is important to recognize that tracked financing, using the Bank’ssystem, does not represent spending on adaptation and cannot be used as a proxy for14