Fisher, Susannah; (2024) Much ado about nothing? Why adaptation measurement matters. Climate and Development , 16 (2) pp. 161-167. 10.1080/17565529.2023.2204070.

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Abstract

Measuring the effectiveness of adaptation and tracking collective progress has received increasing attention across the domains of policy, finance and research. This is linked to the need to monitor and evaluate bilateral and multilateral adaptation finance as well as a commitment in the Paris Agreement to a collective global goal on adaptation and assessing the adequacy and effectiveness of adaptation in the global stocktake. In this viewpoint I argue that this focus on defining and measuring adaptation progress has underplayed the importance of how measurement might influence action. Engaging with diverse scholarship on knowledge practices and measurement opens up new perspectives on how measurement might play a role in governing adaptation across scales and the role of experts and forms of knowledge in shaping implementation. These also open up new policy-relevant questions around how metrics can best be designed to be support transformative adaptation action through mechanisms such as incentives, norms and framing. This viewpoint outlines the empirical context and policy space of internationally-financed adaptation efforts, drawing in relevant scholarship applied in similar domains to define an emerging research agenda on the measurement of adaptation as a social and political process that shapes policy, finance and implementation across multiple scales.

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