Climate Learning Partnership

The Climate Learning Partnership was developed to support Irish Aid and partners to better integrate climate change into development programming and to link practical country experience with international policy frameworks.

Project
Archived
,
2016 - 2023
Contact: 
Karen Wong Pérez
,

Senior researcher (strengthening partnerships team), Climate Change research group

A woman farmer uses a hose to spray water on crops in a field, under a blue sky.

A woman farmer tends a tree nursery in northern Tanzania. IIED's work with Irish Aid included a focus on climate and gender in Tanzania (Photo: BCClimateChampions, via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED)

Established in 2016, the Climate Learning Partnership was developed by IIED with Irish Aid to provide support to the organisation and its missions.

This included capacity strengthening, evidence generation, shared learning processes, and knowledge and information exchange across the missions in Central America, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Palestine, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia.

The work developed from a previous Irish Aid Learning Platform, again developed in conjunction with IIED, launched two years earlier.

Under the partnership, knowledge from country programming, case studies, research, policy, guidance notes, best practice and lessons learned in climate, resilience, gender integration, and disaster risk reduction programming was shared to generate the evidence base to inform international policy engagements and future climate and development programming.

What did IIED do?

In collaboration with the Irish Aid Climate Unit, IIED provided technical support to enable integration across different sectors and in Irish Aid's key partner countries.

An online learning platform was established by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to host guidance, learning materials and resources to enable Irish Aid missions to effectively integrate climate into their strategy cycle processes. This included a library of documentation containing presentations, guidance and tools, and key information sheets to supplement the Department of Foreign Affairs’ intranet.

All these resources are now available below.

IIED also provided bespoke on-request support and technical assistance for missions on climate change and development programming. This support was co-designed with Irish Aid and missions, and responded to the needs and priorities of the missions.

This included a variety of approaches, such as providing technical inputs for climate integration into mission strategies and theories of change, developing climate integration guidelines, co-designing and delivering capacity strengthening sessions on climate integration, supporting gender and climate contextual analysis, conducting scoping studies for entry points for climate action, updating climate risk assessments, supporting how to scale-up and effectively track and report climate spending.

Effort was also made to create spaces for cross-learning between the organisations and missions, through informal meetings to share lessons and exchange experiences. The topics covered in the informal meetings responded to priorities identified by the missions, and included: climate proofing and marking, gender, youth and climate and voluntary carbon markets.

Outcomes

As a result of the work with the climate unit and the missions, priorities for knowledge and evidence for the integration of climate aspects into the strategies and processes of the missions at different points in the strategy cycle were addressed. 

Through periodic mission network calls, channels were opened for the sharing of challenges, experience, knowledge and lessons learned on issues of common interest, including gender and youth integration, voluntary carbon markets, and climate proofing and marking. 

As part of the technical support work pillar, some examples of products and processes accompanied include: 

  • Inputs to strengthen climate aspects in the theory of change of the Malawi mission strategy
  • Technical inputs for the preparation of the climate integration guideline in Tanzania, together with in-person capacity strengthening sessions on climate integration 
  • Methodology development and conduct of gender and climate context analysis in the Dodoma region, Tanzania 
  • A scoping study for entry points for climate action in Kenya and Somalia
  • Co-identification of entry points for climate action and stakeholder analysis in Zimbabwe
  • An updated country climate risk assessment review in Liberia
  • The identification of climate action programming options for the new strategy in Sierra Leone, and 
  • Support for the development of the accountability framework in Zambia. 

This page provides an archive for all resources and information previously contained on the Climate and Development Learning Platform website.

Additional resources

Water sector reform, climate change and climate-resilient planning in central Tanzania, Antonio Allegretti, Sam Greene (2022), Working paper

Understanding local climate priorities: applying a gender and generation focused planning tool in mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar, Sam Greene, David Paul Pertaub, Sarah McIvor , Emilie Beauchamp , Philippine Sutz (2020), Issue paper

Calibrating cooking for refugee camps and surrounding host communities in Tanzania, Kevin Johnstone, Nipunika Perera, Ben Garside (2019) Report

Women as Agents of Change: Towards a Climate and Gender Justice Approach, Michelle Winthrop, Tracy Kajumba (2018), Irish Aid policy brief

Ecosystem-based adaptation: Question-based guidance for assessing effectiveness, Hannah Reid, Nathalie Seddon, Edmund Barrow, Charlotte Hicks, Xiaoting Hou Jones, Ali Raza Rizvi, Dilys Roe, Sylvia Wicander (2017), Toolkit

Integrating Climate Action into National Development Planning – Coherent Implementation of the Paris Agreement and Agenda 2030, Tara Shine (2017) Sida

Growing sustainable agriculture in Mozambique, Laura Silici, Lila Buckley (2015), IIED Briefing

Presentation: Case study on approaches for supporting pastoralists groups facing climate change effects in Tanzania (2015)

Using wellbeing indicators and climate information to assess adaptation effectiveness, Nick Brooks (2014), IIED Briefing

Tracking Adaptation and Measuring Development through a gender lens, Susannah Fisher (2014), IIED Briefing

Evaluating institutional responses to climate change in different contexts, Neha Rai, Erin Nash (2014), IIED Briefing

Indicators for the monitoring and evaluation of adaptation, Nick Brooks (2014), IIED Briefing

An operational framework for Tracking Adaptation and Measuring Development (TAMD), Nick Brooks, Simon Anderson, Ian Burton, Susannah Fisher, Neha Rai, Ian Tellam (2013), Working paper

Pushed to the limit: Evidence of climate change-related loss and damage when people face constraints and limits to adaptation, Koko Warner, Kees van der Geest, Sönke Kreft (2013), United Nations University (UNU), Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS)

Local level climate justice? Adaptation finance and vulnerability reduction, Sam Barrett (2013), ScienceDirect, Global Environmental Change Volume 23, Issue 6

Partners

Donors