Evaluation Of The Project Integrating Agriculture Into National Adaptation Plans Nap Ag

The Integrating Agriculture into National Adaptation Plans (NAP-Ag) programme, jointly coordinated by UNDP and FAO, worked with eleven countries to identify and integrate climate adaptation measures into national planning and budgeting processes, in support of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (in particular SDG 2 - Zero Hunger; and SDG 13 - Climate Action) and the Paris Agreement. The evaluation assessed programme relevance and the achievement and sustainability of programme results among other dimensions. The evaluation found that NAP-Ag’s country-driven, multi-sector and multi-level approach allowed for ample engagement of stakeholders, contributed to establish coordination mechanisms and promoted ownership of results. The programme supported the development of institutional capacities; directly influenced the integration of agriculture adaptation options into countries’ plans, practices and policies, and supported countries in accessing climate finance. NAP-Ag also contributed to global climate change adaptation efforts by supporting countries to accomplish the work outlined by UNFCCC. NAP-Ag also influenced the inclusion of gender aspects adaptation options in many countries. FAO should continue promoting the adoption of programme outcomes in countries’ systems and further support countries to mobilize financial support to scale up lessons learned from NAP-Ag. Private sector involvement should be increased to guarantee the implementation of certain climate adaptation options. Strategic stakeholders should be engaged to support gender mainstreaming efforts in agriculture climate adaptation options.

This toolkit aims to help countries in selecting and analysing value chains for opportunities to improve climate change resilience and reduce gender inequalities. It intends to provide policy makers, planners, project developers, technical advisors and implementers at local, regional or national level with good practices of climate-resilient and gender-responsive value chain development. It aims to act as a repository of relevant tools and methodologies for identifying relevant stakeholders and engaging with them to collect data and analyse it to design interventions. Climate change threatens agricultural value chains, and having a gender-responsive value chain approach is useful in analysing the climate risks, as it looks at stages during and beyond production, while using a more systemic approach to risk management.

The Addressing agriculture, forestry and fisheries in National Adaptation Plans – Supplementary guidelines (NAP–Ag Guidelines) provide specific guidance for national adaptation planning in the agricultural sectors. They are intended to be used by national planners and decision–makers working on climate change issues in developing countries and authorities and experts within the agriculture sectors who are contributing to climate change adaptation and NAP formulation and implementation.

The 'Addressing forestry and agroforestry in National Adaptation Plans: Supplementary guidelines' provide specific guidance for national adaptation planning in the forestry sector. They are intended to be used by national planners and decision–makers working on climate change issues in developing countries and authorities and experts who are contributing to climate change adaptation and NAP formulation and implementation.

This report is a synthesis of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Office of Evaluation (OED) on evaluations completed from 2019 to 2021 on FAO’s work in the Africa region. It documents FAO’s contribution to results, identifies gaps and emerging issues and lessons learned. The synthesis is organized around the themes of sustainable production and value chain development, food security and nutrition, climate change and natural resources, resilience to threats and crises, and gender equality and empowerment of women. The synthesis used the Programme Priority Areas of the Strategic Framework 2022–2031 to analyse FAO’s contribution to results, finding many positive examples in the Africa region. However, the sustainability of results is a challenge for the region, due to several factors, including capacity constraints of government partners and limitations of FAO project designs. Gaps and emerging issues include the need for guidance on ‘accelerators’ of results, addressing youth as a key priority and new approaches to partnerships with civil society and the private sector. Lessons learned include the importance of good project design, suitably capacitated decentralized offices, effective knowledge management and strategic and inclusive partnerships to achieve results.

The importance of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of climate change adaptation has been highlighted at global level, including under the Paris Agreement. Simultaneously, adaptation M&E systems are beginning to emerge at the national level in the context of national planning and budgeting processes. This technical guidance note details how to develop M&E systems for adaptation planning in agriculture sectors.

This evaluation assesses the extent to which FAO adopted an effective, coherent and transformative approach to its work on climate action from 2015 to 2020, by contributing to the achievement of SDG 13 targets and the Paris Agreement. The methodology included portfolio analysis, quantitative content analysis of over 500 documents, participatory stakeholder workshops, desk reviews, interviews with 488 stakeholders, analysis of key FAO products, 3 global surveys, and 13 country case studies. The evaluation’s findings are (i) FAO’s Strategic Framework is aligned with SDG 13 and the Paris Agreement. However, FAO has not expressed a long-term vision on its leadership role in agriculture for climate action; nor does FAO governance yet reflect a clear and strategic focus on its mission on climate action; (ii) The 2017 Climate Change Strategy has effectively supported FAO’s work, but it is not fully integrated into corporate decision-making; (iii) FAO has made relevant contributions by supporting national capacity building for climate action; (iv) FAO’s contributions to SDG 13 and the uptake of products and tools are not systematically monitored and reported; (v) There is little alignment of portfolios between divisions and no systematic approach to trade-offs. Consequently, the root causes of climate change on agriculture are not being addressed in an integrated way; (vi) FAO has strong capacity, but the current business model results in uneven distribution of human and financial resources and in fragmented, short-term projects reach; (vii) FAO contributed to climate adaptation and mitigation by collaborating with Members and other partners, although it has engaged less in innovative partnerships with the private sector, financing institutions and civil society; (viii) FAO has progressed on the inclusion of gender-specific climate action initiatives. The recommendations of the evaluation include developing a corporate narrative on climate change and food systems; formulating a new Climate Change Strategy and action plan; improving the climate change labelling of its project portfolio; mainstreaming climate action into all offices, divisions and levels, and including coordination and guidance to embed procedures in the project cycle, quality assurance and learning mechanisms; adopting a climate action-focused programmatic approach; running an assessment to identify capacity gaps, needs and opportunities and, accordingly, strengthening the capacity of staffing, funding and inter-office communication; enhancing its partnerships and seeking out innovative partnerships; and mainstreaming the core “leave no one behind” by including women, youth, the extreme poor, indigenous peoples and other vulnerable groups.

This is the final evaluation report of a project that aimed to strengthen the agricultural and pastoral sectors’ climate change adaptation (CCA) capacities in the Niger. The project reached 21 142 direct beneficiaries (or 106 percent of the target), including 51 percent women. However, the project experienced shortcomings in terms of its management (from start-up to mid-term), its third expected result (integration of CCA into development policies and plans) and its mobilization/accounting of co-financing partners. The expected third result will be continued under the agro-pastoral field school-community listeners’ clubs (AFPS-CLC) component of the Climate-Smart Agriculture Support Project (PASEC). Despite project achievements, the evaluation concludes FAO must nevertheless improve certain project management and mobilization of co-financing mechanisms, strengthen the capacities of partners based on their needs-analysis, and recommends developing a long-term partnership with farmer organizations to strengthen their extension and advisory support capacities.