1 Learning from Christian Aid Bolivia Impact assessment - climate change advocacy in Bolivia

What & Why? Climate Change Platform National advocacy network of INGOs, Bolivian NGOs & social movements Platform for civil society to engage with & influence climate change debates & policy Accountability – CA / DFID Latin America PPA (both climate change & learning) Learning – key theme for country strategy Good practice – organisational shift from reporting on process to outcomes & impact

Context & Challenges Advocacy objectives fluid; activities highly responsive, unpredictable (& unrecorded!) Results chain is complex (& hidden!) National policy change – no plausible control Multi-stakeholder process – attribution to any one actor?

4 Evaluation Design – Learning First Annual impact assessments to identify emerging changes & lessons, & feed them into updated plans Test theory of change by assessing changes & change processes at both: ■Partner level: focus on capacity ■Policy level: civil society and government policy discourse as well as public policy Ongoing process monitoring (blogs) to capture key moments & evolving dynamics

Methodology Focus on qualitative data Review of process monitoring records, policy documents etc to reconstruct timeline Semi-structured interviews with range of informants on: ■Changes at both levels (partner / platform & policy) ■Process of change / contribution of different factors Focus group with INGOs on contributions of different agencies to observed changes

Evaluation Design – Validity? Independent evaluation team Contribution rather than attribution Triangulation based on perspectives of multiple stakeholders: ■Government & civil society ■People’s movements & NGOs ■UK embassy & Bolivian govt / civil society ■Other INGOs as well as CA Iterative refinement of theory of change

Findings – partner level Organisational strengthening of members Coordinated mobilisation on climate change (& more collaboration btn INGOs) Increased visibility of civil society demands, nationally & internationally Platform now taking a leadership role in global climate change campaigns Institutional sustainability & grassroots protagonism – Platform now led by social movements with little support from INGOs

Findings – policy level Platform was the driving force in getting climate change on the government’s policy agenda Platform gained recognised place for civil society in climate change debates at national & international level – especially indigenous movements Stronger government attention to climate change in practice – e.g. cross-ministry resilience programme

Lessons More useful to assess contribution of individual actors rather than attribution Build plausibility through triangulation and iteration Regularly reconstruct process of change Focus on ‘good enough’ assessments that are directly useful to decision-makers Build habit of reflection on results Use of blogging for ongoing process record Policy change is easy to observe!

What next? ‘Designed-in’ focus on gender and … Perspectives of poor women & men – downward accountability Explicit attention to value for money – using triangulation approach Explore alternative ‘plausible counterfactual’ approaches & long-term post-intervention assessments Disseminate approach across CA … From habit to culture of reflective practice