Chapter 3
Mainstreaming Impact Evidence in Climate
Change and Sustainable Development
Rob D. van den Berg
Abstract This chapter examines the demand for impact evidence and concludes
that this demand goes beyond the experimental evidence that is produced during the
lifetime of an intervention through “impact evaluations” as currently the term is
used by many in the evidence movement. The demand for evidence of longer term
impact at higher levels requires inspiration from an older tradition of impact
evaluation and rethinking how the full range of impact evidence can be uncovered
in evaluations. This is especially relevant for sustainable development which calls
for a balanced approach on societal, economic and environmental issues. Climate
change is a good example of this and a theory of change approach serves to identify
key questions over time, space and scale to ensure that impact evidence can be
found and reported throughout the lifetime of projects, programmes and policies
and beyond in ex post impact assessments. Such an approach leads to
mainstreaming of impact questions and related evaluation approaches throughout
project and policy cycles. This chapter will demonstrate that evidence can be
gathered throughout the lifetime of a project and beyond, in different geographic
locations from very local to global, at different levels from relatively simple one
dimensional interventions to multi-actor complex systems, up to global scales. It
will thus argue for mainstreaming impact considerations throughout interventions,
programmes and policies and for evaluations to gather evidence where it is available, rather than to focus the search for impact and its measurement on one or two
causal mechanisms that are chosen for verification through experimentation.
Keywords Impact • Evaluation • Sustainable development • Climate change •
Evidence
R.D. van den Berg (*)
King’s College London and International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS),
Leidschendam, The Netherlands
e-mail: rdwinterberg@gmail.com
© The Author(s) 2017
J.I. Uitto et al. (eds.), Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable
Development, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43702-6_3
37
Mainstreaming Impact Evidence in Climate
Change and Sustainable Development
Rob D. van den Berg
Abstract This chapter examines the demand for impact evidence and concludes
that this demand goes beyond the experimental evidence that is produced during the
lifetime of an intervention through “impact evaluations” as currently the term is
used by many in the evidence movement. The demand for evidence of longer term
impact at higher levels requires inspiration from an older tradition of impact
evaluation and rethinking how the full range of impact evidence can be uncovered
in evaluations. This is especially relevant for sustainable development which calls
for a balanced approach on societal, economic and environmental issues. Climate
change is a good example of this and a theory of change approach serves to identify
key questions over time, space and scale to ensure that impact evidence can be
found and reported throughout the lifetime of projects, programmes and policies
and beyond in ex post impact assessments. Such an approach leads to
mainstreaming of impact questions and related evaluation approaches throughout
project and policy cycles. This chapter will demonstrate that evidence can be
gathered throughout the lifetime of a project and beyond, in different geographic
locations from very local to global, at different levels from relatively simple one
dimensional interventions to multi-actor complex systems, up to global scales. It
will thus argue for mainstreaming impact considerations throughout interventions,
programmes and policies and for evaluations to gather evidence where it is available, rather than to focus the search for impact and its measurement on one or two
causal mechanisms that are chosen for verification through experimentation.
Keywords Impact • Evaluation • Sustainable development • Climate change •
Evidence
R.D. van den Berg (*)
King’s College London and International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS),
Leidschendam, The Netherlands
e-mail: rdwinterberg@gmail.com
© The Author(s) 2017
J.I. Uitto et al. (eds.), Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable
Development, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43702-6_3
37