The Global Environment Facility Evaluation Office has gathered substantial experience in evaluating climate change adaptation through three evaluations of major adaptation programs, the GEF Strategic Priority on Adaptation (SPA, $50 million), the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF, $415 million) and the Special Climate Change Fund ($180 million) as well as through further activities such as hosting a community of practice of climate evaluators (climate-eval). The Evaluation Office's presentation on adaptation at the AEA 2011 presented main lessons learned and experiences with the specific difficulties of evaluating adaptation, namely the uncertainty of threat as well as response resulting in a challenge to define success for adaptation activities. The presentation illustrated how the GEF Evaluation Office approached this challenge. It introduced six key success factors for adaptation programs that emerged from the evaluations and can serve as building blocks for future adaptation evaluation frameworks.
