Individual project evaluations of the International Climate Initiative (IKI)

Climate and biodiversity protection are among the core interests of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU). Since 2008, the BMU's International Climate Initiative (IKI) has been financing projects in these priority areas in developing, emerging and transition countries. The IKI is one of the main German climate financing instruments, operating within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Since its establishment, it has funded more than 750 projects worldwide with a budget of over 4.5 billion euros (as of December 2020). IKI projects focus on four main areas of financing: Reduction of greenhouse gases, adaptation to the impacts of climate change, conservation of natural carbon sinks (with a focus on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+)) and the protection of biodiversity. These are conducted by various implementing organisations, such as the Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), KfW Entwicklungsbank, multilateral organisations such as the United Nations (UN), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), research institutes, foundations or private companies. Initially auction revenues from emissions trading facilitated funding for the IKI, while later additional energy and climate funds and special means provided support for financing.

In order to guarantee a transparent performance assessment of the financing instrument and in order to steer the IKI, BMU-independent evaluations of IKI projects were carried out as part of monitoring and reporting. The aim of the evaluations was, on the one hand, to provide accountability to the German Bundestag and, on the other hand, to support and improve an effective, operational and strategic programme management and to highlight the working mechanisms of the IKI including the operational success drivers. The evaluation process consisted of two evaluation cycles. An initial evaluation of 115 IKI projects was conducted from January 2011 to December 2012 to assess the results and impacts of these projects. A second evaluation phase took place from April 2019 until the end of July 2021. In this phase, several contractors were evaluating a number of additional projects, completed until the end of 2019, in order to systematically investigate far-reaching effects.

adelphi was one of the contractors for the second evaluation phase, conducting around 50 of the 175 evaluations assigned to our consortium. Furthermore, adelphi and Arepo Consult formed the project steering consortium. The entire evaluation was carried out in cooperation with GOPA Worldwide Consultants, Arepo Consult, Center for Evaluation (CEval) and FAKT Consult for Management, Training and Technologies. The individual projects were systematically evaluated based on the OECD-DAC criteria as well as other programme-specific criteria. An evaluation was carried out either through a desk evaluation using documents and interviews or an on-site evaluation. Lessons learned from the evaluation project contribute to better programme planning and management of the BMU and the IKI Secretariat (ZUG).