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Environmental Program Evaluation

But I’m not a climate scientist!: Evaluators responding to the emergent and urgent demands of climate change

Saturday, October 14, 2023
9:15 AM - 10:15 AM ET
Location: Room 201

Location: Room 201

Abstract Information: As climate change continues to threaten human wellbeing, a movement is growing to mainstream climate change considerations across public health programming. Evaluators can play a crucial role by encouraging program planners to imagine how a changing environmental context could affect and potentially disrupt the implementation and, ultimately, the success of their initiatives. The intensifying climate impacts may require program implementers and evaluators to quickly expand their climate knowledge and ability to communicate about these issues with diverse partners. What role should evaluators play in expanding climate consciousness in the program development phase? How do evaluators become confident enough to facilitate these difficult conversations and what role could stories play? How should considerations for the common good be built into evaluation as a matter of practice? This Think Tank will provide participants the opportunity to explore these questions with their colleagues and identify new ways forward for unprecedented times.

Relevance Statement: Climate change is one of the biggest existential threats we face as a society. The impacts of climate change are already seen across all sectors and are expected to intensify. Climate change is already altering the social, economic, and environmental context in which programs operate, affecting their outcomes and sustainability. Additionally, climate change is exacerbating existing challenges faced by programs and the populations intended to benefit, such as widening inequality, displacement, and scarcity of essential resources. Accordingly, climate change has been labeled a “threat multiplier,” because effects interact with and exacerbate pre-existing threats to stability and security.1 This can happen on a macro- or micro-level (e.g., how projects and programs are implemented and the success they achieve). For example, a health service delivery program, like asthma home visits, may not achieve the same success as families are displaced, homes are damaged by extreme weather and flooding, and air pollution increases due to rising temperatures. Increasingly, implementers and evaluators must consider the potential impacts of climate change on programs and intentionally incorporate strategies to enhance program sustainability and climate resilience, implying an ability to “bounce forward” from inevitable disruptions, shocks, and challenges by “responding or reorganizing in ways that maintain essential function, identity and structure” while “also maintaining the capacity for adaptation, learning and transformation.”2 Evaluators may be tasked with identifying potential impacts of climate change on programs and their outcomes, identifying ways the program could adapt, and incorporating climate-related indicators. Further, evaluators can also think broadly in time and space to identify potential maladaptation, when a program or an action worsens climate vulnerability by increasing people’s exposure and/or sensitivity to climate impacts. These are massive professional challenges that will not be solved overnight. Fortunately, the evaluation field has evolved to incorporate new tools and techniques, like coaching, sense-making, reflective practice and communities of practice, that may spur these dialogues, understanding, and potentially new evaluation practices and standards. This Think Tank session will use the world café method to generate discussion and learn from peers who have already been engaging in these issues. We propose to ask participants the following questions: • How can evaluators learn about relevant climate-related issues that may affect programs? What role should evaluators play in expanding climate consciousness in the program development phase? How do evaluators build capacity to facilitate these difficult conversations? • What role could stories play in bring a climate consciousness to program planning and evaluation? • How concerned should we be about maladaptation? How should considerations for the common good be built into evaluation as a matter of practice? How does this look in practice? The World Café method will provide participants the opportunity to explore these questions with their colleagues, cross-pollinate, encourage deeper insight, and identify new ways forward for unprecedented times. 1. Center for Climate Security (2023). https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/38-CCThreatMultiplier.pdf 2. United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2014). Climate Change 2014 Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability.