A new paper “Defining metrics for monitoring and evaluating the impact of co-production in climate services” has just been published in the journal Climate Services. The paper was written by Emma Visman, Katharine Vincent, Anna Steynor, Irene Karani and Emmah Mwangi and draws on experiences in the Future Climate for Africa programme, and others.
Co-production has grown in popularity for developing decision-relevant climate services, but there has been less focus on the metrics or criteria for determining their success and impact. Drawing from literature and recent experiences from both operational- and research-focused climate resilience-building initiatives in Africa, the paper proposes a framework and consider various approaches for monitoring and evaluating both the process and outcomes of investments in climate services co-production, so that scientific excellence can be monitored alongside development impact. This framework combines principles- and process-based approaches to track changes amongst the various parties involved in co-producing climate services. The development and application of this framework raises fundamental questions regarding the metrics for measuring the impact of co production in climate services and the principles – including inclusivity, diversity and ensuring value for all partners in the process – on which these are based. The framework and its metrics contribute to the emerging field of monitoring and evaluation of climate services co-production, and will be of use in improving the robustness of the field going forwards.