Aid Performance and Climate Change by Julian Caldecott is a fine book on the mechanics of evaluating the performance of development projects and programmes. It fails, however, to deliver on its promise to be ‘a necessary tool in training the next generation of aid professionals to respond to the causes and consequences of climate change’.
The book is organized into seven chapters, plus an introduction and a conclusion. Chapters 2 (Core evaluation criteria), 3 (Keeping human development going), 7 (Evaluating partnerships) and 8 (Evaluating transformations) discuss performance evaluation of development projects. Unfortunately, there is little there on climate change. For example, Chapter 2 discusses eight key criteria for evaluating aid performance (relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, sustainability, connectedness, coherence and replicability), followed by descriptions of other criteria (including donor development policies, partner satisfaction, crosscutting themes and mainstreaming, design quality, and performance of aid institutions). The author is clearly in his element. However, the discussion generally remains within the ambit of development project evaluation, failing to offer specific guidance on evaluating efforts designed to reduce the impacts of climate change, help build resilience to it, or in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It would have been helpful to outline the nature of development risks from climate change, some of the promising ways of dealing with such risks, and the specific challenges they pose for evaluation.
Chapter 3 begins promisingly on the purposes of aid given climate change, with examples of actions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and to enhance climate change adaptation. The discussion soon leaves climate change considerations for conventions on biodiversity and desertification and then on to changing priorities for terrorism and nationalism, and official development assistance eligibility, a bewildering array of topics. Nor are the solutions proposed always invigorating or breaking new ground. The discussion on terrorism, for example, ends disappointingly, ‘Various solutions are being tried, including military strikes, preventative security, counter-propaganda, and re-education, but these often address symptoms rather than root causes. In the absence of other ideas and without guarantees of success, we will just have to try to build equity and sustainability as widely as we can, while also trying to settle fairly, comprehensively, and in line with our values, as many of the underlying disputes as possible’.
Chapters 4–6, on climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation efforts, form the heart of the book. The author enlivens discussion through a number of examples of project evaluations. It becomes apparent that the projects cited are limited to those in which the author was personally involved. Hydropower, biogas, biofuels and tidal power, for example, are discussed as important renewable sources of energy. The most prominent renewable resource for a majority of developing countries, solar power, is, however, markedly absent. Description of the Norway–Indonesia REDD+ partnership is dated. Readers may be left unaware, for example, that the REDD+ agency (a key component of the Norway–Indonesia partnership) lost its independence in January 2015 to become part of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (to widespread dismay, both within Indonesia and internationally). The account on green finance is partial, with no mention of the groundbreaking work of the UN Environment Programme or the great strides of the Chinese government in operationalizing green finance. Furthermore, climate change impetus is not spelled out in several of the examples presented (organic farming, timber regulation, and investing in protected areas, for instance). Although the efforts may all be worthwhile, in what ways could climate change resiliency or mitigation be advanced in their design? In the absence of a framework, issues discussed in the chapter on adaptation seem arbitrary, from bioprospecting, the ASEAN regional biodiversity initiative, and grasslands and desertification, to water diplomacy, environmental monitoring and policy development. The chapter abounds with examples of evaluation from Costa Rica to Nepal, and Bolivia to Mongolia. The spatial diversity could have been enriched by methodological diversity as well, by drawing on the work of others. The last two substantive chapters of the book, on evaluating partnerships and transformations, cover much ground but are devoid of climate change considerations.
The absence of practical guidance to aid professionals on the challenges of climate change is the central weakness of this book. No attempt is made to unpack climate change or to inform readers on the diversity of climate risks and vulnerabilities, and hence responses, that are urgently required in the developing world. Professionals who pick up this book will get a sound overview of aid project evaluation metrics. However, those wishing to know how to design and implement development projects that successfully respond to the causes and consequences of climate change will be disappointed.
