Climate change poses direct risks to the sustainability of global environmental benefits, making early adaptation initiatives essential to long-term resilience.

The Strategic Priority for Adaptation (SPA), established in 2003 as a $50 million GEF pilot, was the first program to support climate change adaptation across GEF focal areas. At the request of the GEF Council, the GEF Evaluation Office conducted an independent evaluation of the SPA from 2008 to 2010, drawing on a review of projects, interviews, field visits in Namibia, and a comparative analysis with non-SPA projects.

The evaluation finds that activities are relevant to the GEF mandate, link adaptation with biodiversity and land management, and support replication through capacity building and knowledge sharing. Yet adaptation measures are often broad and theoretical, and the requirement to demonstrate a “double increment”—showing how projects both generate global environmental benefits and enhance their resilience to climate change—proved difficult to apply in practice.

The report recommends strengthening incentives and tools for mainstreaming resilience, providing adequate resources for portfolio management and learning, and conducting follow-up evaluations to capture results and inform future adaptation programming.