Impact and Learning
Understanding what difference the IKI is making
The mere launch of climate and biodiversity protection projects does not by default translate into reduced greenhouse gases, floods being prevented or ecosystems flourishing after years of degradation. Rather, what matters is that these measures planned are implemented in a way that will actually bring about these positive outcomes.
In order to make sense of the progress made by individual projects and the IKI as a whole, and to gain a clearer understanding of effective approaches, the IKI repeatedly puts itself to the test. To achieve this, it deploys various monitoring and evaluation questions and tools. The reflections triggered and insights thus gained are fed into IKI-wide learning and exchange with other organisations, thereby ensuring effective climate and biodiversity protection projects.
For more information on the IKI’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Knowledge Management.
The Standard Indicators - an overview
The IKI uses a set of Standard Indicators (SIs) to record selected results across the entire funding programme. For each project, the SIs are a supplement to their individual, project-specific objectives and indicators. However, unlike project-specific indicators, the SIs are not usually used to assess the success of individual projects.
The IKI introduced the SIs in 2015 and comprehensively revised them in 2022. Currently, IKI projects that submitted an interim report before 2022 can continue to use the three old SIs in their reports or voluntarily switch to the new indicators. All projects that started more recently report exclusively on the new SIs.
The new indicators better reflect the diversity of IKI contributions while providing answers to questions such as “How much area and which ecosystems have IKI projects been able to protect so far?” and “How much private capital has been leveraged directly or indirectly through IKI projects?”
The current Standard Indicators:
- S1 - Mitigation: Greenhouse gas emissions reduced or carbon stocks enhanced directly or indirectly by project measures
- S2 - Ecosystems: Area of ecosystems with improved conservation and sustainable use due to project measures
- S3 - Adaptation: Number of people supported by projects to better adapt to the effects of climate change
- S4 - Capacity People: Number of people directly supported by IKI projects through networking and training to address climate change and/or conserve biodiversity
- S5 - Leveraged Finance: Volume of private and/or public finance leveraged for climate action or biodiversity purposes in EUR
The IKI-SI Helpdesk at ZUG has been analysing all available data on the SIs annually since 2021. Through this standardised reporting and analysis the IKI can track and compare its results over time.
Limitations
The level of the SI figures reported here should not be equated with the overall effectiveness of the IKI. The IKI only uses the SIs to record selected data that can be summarised into easy-to-understand key figures.
Furthermore, the Standard Indicators use narrow definitions for what they should measure in order to collect plausible, reliable and, above all, realistic and conservative figures. Results are counted only if they are directly attributable to project work, ideally occurring during the project’s implementation and being adequately documented by the project itself. It can be assumed that the actual impacts of the IKI are higher.
For example, the IKI supports a large number of projects that aim to ensure the improvement of regulatory or social framework conditions for the implementation of ambitious climate and biodiversity policies and reduce corresponding investment constraints. These projects make a contribution to future large-scale and sustainable changes. For instance, IKI projects may advise political partners, authorities and the private sector on the development of specific strategies and action plans or legislation at all levels of government, from a single village to metropolitan areas and multilateral contexts. Only once these plans are actually implemented do quantifiable impacts arise that could be assigned to the five Standard Indicators. However, since implementation of these frameworks typically only occurs after the end of the project, they are not captured by the analysis of SI results. They also depend on a variety of factors - such as political efforts and priorities in the country, support from a large number of actors and sufficient resources - which cannot be influenced or predicted by IKI projects. This makes it difficult to attribute them to specific projects or provide realistic quantitative forecasts during project implementation.
Furthermore, the overall impacts of the IKI are far more diverse than can be captured by the Standard Indicators. For example, the Standard Indicators do not take into account results in the field of species protection or the strengthening of the multilateral climate and biodiversity regimes, although they are often the consequence of IKI project work.
Data quality
The data quality supplied by the projects varies significantly. For this reason, the IKI-SI Helpdesk at ZUG checks the data submitted for completeness and plausibility. It attempts to clarify open questions with the projects. Only data that has been approved by the SI Helpdesk is included in the analysis.
In order to improve the data quality of the Standard Indicators, the SI Helpdesk is continuously developing further forms of support for projects and offers individual consultation for projects. For SI 1, for example, the SI Helpdesk held online seminars on greenhouse gas mitigation in the energy, transport, buildings and AFOLU (agriculture/forestry and other land use) sectors. It also prepared guidance documents on sector-specific calculation methods, including calculation examples, and offered FAQ sessions for projects (recordings and guidance documents available here).
Reporting of the Standard Indicators 2015-2022
Find out more about the impact of the IKI in the years 2015 to 2022.
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