Evaluating Environment in International Development

This book provides novel and in-depth perspectives on evaluating environment and sustainability issues in developing countries. Evaluating Environment in International Development focuses on the approaches and experiences of leading international organizations, not-for-profits, and multilateral and bilateral aid agencies to illustrate how systematic evaluation is an essential tool for providing evidence for decision-makers. Moving beyond projects and programmes, it explores normative work on the environment as well as environmental consequences of economic and social development efforts. This new edition reflects on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goals and considers how they have influenced efforts in a wide range of countries and what the implications are for evaluation. It also explores ways in which Big Data and geospatial approaches might be utilized. Significantly updated throughout to reflect recent developments in climate change research, and on the implications of the 2020 pandemic, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of environment studies, development studies, international relations, sustainable development and evaluation, as well as practitioners in international organizations and development and environmental NGOs. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003094821, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction and Conceptual Background 1. Evaluating Environment in International Development 2. A Global Public Goods Perspective on Environment and Poverty 3. Evaluation at the Nexus 4. Poverty, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Part 2: Approaches and Challenges in Evaluating Environment and Sustainable Development 5. Using Big Data and Geospatial Approaches in Evaluating Environmental Interventions 6. Multiple Actors and Confounding Factors 7. Assessing Progress Towards Impact in Environmental Programmes 8. Meta-Assessment of Climate Mitigation Evaluations 9. A Programme Theory Approach to Evaluating Normative Environmental Interventions 10. From Evaluation of Joint programmes to Joint Evaluation of SDGs-ready Interventions 11. Evaluating the Poverty-Environment Nexus in Africa 12. Small Grants, Big Impacts: Aggregation Challenges 13. Green Economy Performance of Environmental Initiatives in Latin-America and the Caribbean 14. Evaluating International Support to Transboundary Aquifer Management Programmes 15. Disaster Risk Management in the SDG Era 16. The CGIAR Approach to Evaluation of Climate Change, Environment, and Natural Resources Management

About the Author :
Juha I. Uitto is a leading thinker and practitioner in environmental evaluation. Since 2014, he has been director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Prior to coming to his current position, he worked for more than two decades on evaluation and research on environment and development, most recently in the UNDP Independent Evaluation Office.

Review :
"This updated edition of Evaluating Environment in International Development builds on the key message put forward by its editor, Juha Uitto: "Evaluation must up its game". This makes the book a great contribution to long-term and current events thinking on evaluation, environment and development." -- Jean-Marc Coicaud, Distinguished Professor of Law and Global Affairs, Rutgers School of Law, State University of New Jersey, USA "This book could not be more timely. Evaluating Environment in International Development in its first edition was already a seminal book and a reference to the community of evaluators and researchers working on international development. The second edition addresses spot on the challenges of identifying the intended and unintended consequences of development interventions on the environment, particularly those driven by the search of growth. It calls for a truly systemic view of the interaction between natural and human systems. It provides innovative interpretative frameworks and examples of evaluations that contribute to environmentally sound sustainable development. A must read as countries redouble efforts to recover from the COVID-19 crisis with the aim of building forward better." -- Oscar A. Garcia, Director, Independent Evaluation Office, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) "For thinkers and practitioners alike, this volume is an excellent compendium of papers that bring together state of the art thinking in evaluation related to environment, while combining it with real-world experiences and lessons on the ground. The scholarship and wisdom of this volume is illustrated by the range of topics it covers in environmental evaluation that cover for instance, the challenges of examining trans-boundary problems on the one hand and precisely defined disaster risk reduction on the other. I recommend this collection highly." -- Jyotsna Puri, Director of the Environment, Climate, Gender and Social Inclusion Division, at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)