signals of change – Just Transition Initiative

Summary

Itad, a nongovernmental organization focused on inclusive development, conducted an independent evaluation of the Climate Investment Funds’ (CIF) portfolio. The CIF’s portfolio represents a variety of sectors and projects in different contexts and stages of implementation. This brief explains the challenge of identifying transformational change and presents the frameworks that were developed to assess transformational change using “signals.”

Signals are system characteristics that demonstrate progress towards transformation. They can be identified at the early, interim, and advanced stages of each of the four dimensions of transformational change: relevance, systemic change, scaling, and sustainability. Some signals are universal to all types of development programs but many are specific to one sector. For this reason, Itad developed frameworks, including illustrative examples, for each of the CIF’s four thematic programs: clean technology, scaling renewable energy, climate resilience, and sustainable forests.

Summary

The Climate Investment Funds (CIF) supports transformational change toward low-carbon, climate-resilient development in the areas of mitigation, resilience, and forests through four thematic programs. This report summarizes the work of the Transformational Change Learning Partnership, which was established to understand and evaluate the CIF’s success in supporting transformational change.

This summary document presents the four requirements, or dimensions, of transformational change: relevance, systemic change, scale, and sustainability. It then evaluates each of the four thematic programs for early, interim, and advanced signals of transformational change according to this framework.