This Technology Transfer Advances Colombia's
- Nationally Determined Contribution to develop "a national system of adaptation indicators that allows the monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of adaptation measures" and "ensure that six priority sectors of the economy (transport, energy, agriculture, housing, health, and trade, tourism and industry) will include climate change consideration in their planning instruments".
Context
Colombia's Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development is in charge together with several stakeholders at the national level, to guide the country in adapting to climate change through mainstreaming it into territorial, sectoral and land planning. Finding concrete solutions and measures to implement at the local level will help reducing the vulnerahility of the country and population in addition to a sustainable development of the country. Some territories and sectors are currently developing vulnerability and impact assessments; however the country has found a constraint in homogenizing a methodology that can keep track of several implemented results of Plans and Projects in adaptation to climate change. Following the implementation of nearly 25 adaptation plans and projects in coastal and continental regions, coordinating entities of the National Adaptation Plan of Colombia identified the lack of a robust indicator system for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of adaptation actions as one of the main barriers to an integrated adaptation. Therefore, there is a need for assistance in the development of an evaluation and monitoring system that strengthen decision-maker processes about Climate Change strategies and plans at national level, as the evidence on the impact of such interventions appears limited. This system should include a portfolio of indicators that allow evaluating and monitoring of adaptation actions and identify vulnerable regions and monitoring changes in specific regions/cities of the country.
Technology Request
Colombia's Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development requested support to develop an evaluation and monitoring system including indicators that can be utilized to assess and improve the country's efforts in adapting to climate change. The effort was lead by lead by the Directorate of Climate Change of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MADS-DCC), in close coordination with the National Department of Planning (NPD), the Colombian Institute for Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) and the National Disaster Risk Management Unit (UNGR).
CTCN Response
The CTCN and partners, the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center and UNEP DTU Partnership, focused on the development of appropriate indicators based on reviews of existing indicators; a review of the actions to be monitored within the National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change (PNACC); and development of an integrated national monitoring system and protocol. The project was implemented in three phases:
- Recommendation of an institution to host and implement the monitoring system;
- Identification of existing good practice for monitoring of adaptation in Colombia and globally; and
- Development and validation of the monitoring system based on the good practice assessment, with protocols and
baselines established for indicators
For further details, please see Documents section below.
Relevant Technologies and Approaches
Expected Impact
Short term
- Support with reporting on adaptation outcomes and a practical platform for exchange and analysis of experiences with other countries, such as Costa Rica and Mexico. Colombia’s experience has
now led to similar initiatives in Costa Rica and Honduras.
Medium term
- Robust system to monitor and evaluate effectiveness and the progress
- Information to improve current programmes, plan further actions, and attract private and public funding
- Ability to evaluate regional vulnerability, and to incorporate climate change variables into a broad range of planning instruments
Long term
- Increased national capacity to capture the extent to which Colombia’s adaptation efforts lead to enhanced resilience to climate change, with a specific focus on agricultural, human health and transportation sectors. (In 2014, the agricultural sector had an estimated value of 3.6 billion USD).
- Improved decision-making will contribute to increasing the resilience of 53 million hectares of primary forest ecosystems and the life giving services they provide to climate change mitigation and adaptation
- Generation, verification and evaluation of the following:
- Vulnerability baseline in Colombia
- Level of compliance with Colombia's vulnerability and risk reduction goals
- Inputs for the National Communications and for the Biennnial Reports that Columbia must present to the UNFCCC as a part of its international committments.
- Comparative analysis between regional and sectorial projects
- Evaluation of the level of regional vulnerability, allowing to incorporate climate change variables into a wide set of environmental, territorial and sectorial planning instruments
- Evaluation the level of performance of adaptation projects that are being implemented, and assess the need to make amendements or reformulations etc.
