For the past week we’ve welcomed participants to our 8th Adaptation Academy, in Oxford. As ever it’s a diverse group, with expertise ranging from downscaled climate modelling to community engagement and participation to national and international climate policy.
Our approach is rooted in complexity--navigating complex landscapes, making decisions when outcomes are unknown, learning from practice. A few years ago we pioneered an approach to M&E that extends our practice to managing project performance recognizing quite diverse contexts. John Colvin led our contribution on this them for a UNEP/GEF report, under the auspices of Anand Patwardhan (GEF STAP member). The synthesis paper will be out later this year. We also have an earlier booklet.
The approach recognizes different contexts: what you can learn depends on the context, as does what you monitor to support learning and future practice.
So, I enjoyed reading the report to the GEF Council that cites this work as one of the major contributions of STAP to changing the world (if we take that as the GEF mission). Kudos to all the contributors who shared insights and helped shape the way forward in a field that is both technical and contextual.
