Guidance

ICF KPI 1 methodology: number of people supported to better adapt to the effects of climate change

Published 26 September 2025

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Purpose of the document

International Climate Finance (ICF) is Official Development Assistance (ODA) from the UK to support developing countries to reduce poverty and respond to the causes and impacts of climate change. These investments help developing countries to:

  • adapt and build resilience to the current and future effects of climate change
  • pursue low-carbon economic growth and development
  • protect, restore and sustainably manage nature
  • accelerate the clean energy transition

ICF is spent by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). This methodology note explains how to calculate one of the key performance indicators (KPI) that we use to measure the achievements of UK ICF. The intended audience is ICF programme teams, results leads, climate analysts and our programme implementing partners. Visit the International Climate Finance GOV.UK webpage to learn more about UK International Climate Finance, its results and read case studies.

Rationale

ICF KPI 1 is an output indicator that measures the reach of UK ICF climate change adaptation programmes. It counts the number of people whom ICF programmes have supported to prepare for and deal with the effects of climate change, including long-term changes in weather patterns and the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events. This indicator does not measure the success, effectiveness, or impact of ICF support.

ICF KPI 1 directly relates to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13: take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. It particularly targets SDG 13.1: strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries.

Multilateral climate programmes commonly include the number of adaptation beneficiaries as an indicator in their monitoring frameworks:

Summary table

Table 1: ICF KPI 1 summary

Units Number of people
Headline data to be reported Number of people supported to better adapt to the effects of climate change as a result of ICF: total direct beneficiaries and total indirect beneficiaries
Disaggregations Direct beneficiaries should be disaggregated by: Sex, Age, Disability and Geography
Revision history February 2023: attribution guidance changed to include results from leveraged finance; improved readability, conciseness, relevance and ordering of information; example changed; font changed to Arial 12.

November 2018: adjusted KPI title to clarify ICF KPI 1 is a reach indicator about climate change adaptation; refined definitions of key terms and concepts to align with international standards of practice and UK commitments on climate adaptation; included comparability and synergies with other external indicators in Annex 1
Timing ICF programme teams will be commissioned to report ICF results in spring, according to department-specific processes. Report results for the most recent complete programming year. If reporting lags mean that results are only available more than a year after they were delivered, enter them under the relevant earlier year.
Links across the ICF KPI portfolio ICF KPI 2 complements ICF KPI 1 by providing a beneficiary count for ICF mitigation programmes. These indicators will not usually be applied in the same programme.

ICF KPI 4 links to ICF KPI 1 by counting those with improved resilience outcomes from adaptation programmes. All programmes which measure ICF KPI 4 at the outcome level should also be able to include ICF KPI 1 at the output level. The result for ICF KPI 1 will always be greater than or equal to the result for ICF KPI 4.

ICF TA KPI 2 counts direct beneficiaries from ICF technical assistance programmes, and is a more suitable indicator where ICF programmes are doing something other than capital investment to achieve adaptation results

Technical definition

ICF KPI 1 counts the number of direct and indirect beneficiaries in ICF adaptation programmes.

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines climate change adaptation as: ‘The process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects. In human systems, adaptation seeks to moderate or avoid harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In some natural systems, human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects’[footnote 1]. Various types of adaptation can be distinguished, including anticipatory and reactive adaptation, private and public adaptation, and autonomous and planned adaptation.

Adaptation activities give people resources, tools or skills to better cope with changing, unpredictable and extreme weather. Examples include supporting farmers to grow crops that can adapt to changing weather conditions; improving irrigation systems and preserving water catchments in areas facing increased drought risk; strengthening defences against floods and storms; and ensuring that social protection mechanisms are in place to enable people to quickly recover from weather-related shocks. Key concepts and technical terms used in this and other ICF KPI Methodology Notes are defined in Methodology step 4 and Annex 2.

Methodological summary

Programmes report the number of people supported to better adapt to the effects of climate change, according to the following steps, which are described in more detail in the next section:

  1. Consider whether all or part of the programme counts as ‘climate change adaptation’ according to the rationale and definitions presented in this methodology note.
  2. Review the inclusion and exclusion criteria to determine how much of the population supported by the programme should be counted towards ICF KPI 1.
  3. Obtain beneficiary data from programme monitoring.
  4. Categorise adaptation beneficiaries by whether or not they are ‘targeted’, and their ‘intensity of support’, to identify who is a direct beneficiary, who is an indirect beneficiary, and who should not be counted towards ICF KPI 1.
  5. If necessary, convert household data into total number of people.
  6. If necessary, adjust for additionality.
  7. For jointly funded programmes, calculate the UK attribution of results in proportion to funding share.
  8. Report disaggregated results.

Methodology

1. Consider whether all or part of the programme counts as ‘climate change adaptation’ according to the Rationale and Technical definition in this methodology note.

A programme or component can count as ‘climate change adaptation’ if its scope meets the IPCC definition; and its activities are expected to reduce people’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change.

2. Review the inclusion and exclusion criteria to determine how much of the population supported by the programme should be counted towards ICF KPI 1.

Inclusion criteria:

Count all individuals supported to better adapt to the effects of climate change from programme components which meet the IPCC definition[footnote 1].

Where climate change adaptation is integrated into a broader development programme, use professional judgement to limit reported results to better reflect the relative importance of climate change adaptation aims and other development benefits. For example, a social protection programme delivering cash transfers in a humanitarian context where climate hazards are only part of a complex picture of instability and insecurity might count only 10% of beneficiaries, due to these other factors being more important in driving the need for social protection.

Exclusion criteria:

  • Do not count beneficiaries for parts of the programme unrelated to climate change adaptation. If the programme includes both adaptation and mitigation components, exclude those who only benefit from mitigation measures.
  • Do not count beneficiaries who are classified as both ‘not targeted’ and ‘low intensity’ in Methodology step 4 below.
  • Do not count any individual more than once: A person receiving support in different ways, such as training in both community-level climate disaster preparedness skills and climate-smart agriculture techniques, is only counted once. A person benefiting from both indirect and direct interventions is only counted once, as a direct beneficiary (see Methodology step 4 below). A person supported over 2 or more years of a programme is only counted once, in their first year of support. Individuals supported by multiple ICF programmes should only be counted once. Please flag possible overlaps to results leads.

3. Obtain beneficiary data from programme monitoring

Data on direct beneficiaries will come from partner management information systems.

Where interventions are implemented at the household-level, ask partners to collect individual-level data on household members to allow for disaggregation by sex, age and disability.

Data on indirect beneficiaries will come from population surveys.

Where programmes do not directly interact with a population, such as climate-resilience institutional strengthening or a climate-modelled early warning system, it will not be feasible to collect detailed beneficiary data. It also may not be feasible to collect beneficiary data in contexts of violent conflict or population displacement. In these cases, use the best available data source to estimate beneficiary numbers.

4. Categorise adaptation beneficiaries by whether or not they are ‘targeted’, and their ‘intensity of support’, to identify who is a direct beneficiary, who is an indirect beneficiary, and who should not be counted towards ICF KPI 1.

Targeted beneficiaries:

  • can be identified as receiving direct support
  • can be counted individually
  • are aware that they are receiving support in some form.

Targeted support implies a high degree of attribution to the programme.

Intensity of support describes the level of effort provided per beneficiary. Use professional judgement to determine which intensity category is appropriate based on the examples below:

  • Low intensity includes people falling within the administrative area of a local authority receiving climate adaptation capacity building support, or people within a catchment area of a river basin subject to a water resources management plan.
  • Medium intensity includes people receiving information services such as extreme weather forecasts by text, or people within a catchment area with structural flood defences.
  • High intensity includes adaptive housing raised on plinths, cash transfers, trainees (not ‘demonstration’) supported by agricultural extension services, or community members trained to develop climate risk management plans.

Direct beneficiaries are defined as both targeted and high intensity. Disaggregate direct beneficiaries by sex, age, disability, and geography (see methodology step 8).

Indirect beneficiaries are defined as either:

  • Targeted, and medium or low intensity; or
  • Not targeted, and high or medium intensity.

Those who are classified as not targeted and low intensity do not count towards ICF KPI 1. See Table 2 below:

Table 2 Cross-tabulation showing whether beneficiaries are direct or indirect for different combinations of targeting and intensity

Targeted Not targeted
Low intensity Indirect beneficiary Not counted for ICF KPI 1
Medium intensity Indirect beneficiary Indirect beneficiary
High intensity Direct beneficiary Indirect beneficiary

5. If necessary, convert household data into total number of people

For household-level interventions, collect age, sex and disability data on the individuals within each household. If this is not feasible, then estimate the total number of beneficiaries based on typical household size in the target area, and do not infer disaggregations. If local data are not available, then national-level data on household size can be used.

6. If necessary, adjust for additionality

Results are additional if they are beyond the results that would have occurred in the absence of the ICF-supported intervention (known as a business-as-usual counterfactual). Because the counterfactual is estimated, and the government or other donors may be operating similar programmes in the same area, there may be uncertainty around the extent to which UK results are additional. To avoid over-claiming, an adjustment factor can be applied. See supplementary guidance on additionality and attribution.

7. For jointly funded programmes, calculate the UK attribution of results in proportion to funding share

If the UK government is the sole investor in a programme, the full amount of results is attributed to the UK.

If the UK government is one donor among a number of development partners providing funding for a programme, claim results only in proportion to the UK donor share of public co-financing.

In instances where an ICF programme leverages public or private finance that helps to deliver programme results, the share of results associated with any leveraged finance should be attributed to the ICF. Count the leveraged public finance under ICF KPI 11 and the leveraged private finance under ICF KPI 12.

Some funds have multiple investment levels which allow investment both at the fund level and at the individual project level. This means that the initial UK investment in the overall fund blends with project-specific sources of finance further down the delivery chain. For these programmes, attribute results to the UK project by project, then sum these to give the total UK results. Where insufficient information exists on project-level finance, UK attribution can be calculated at the fund level. See supplementary guidance on additionality and attribution.

8. Report disaggregated results

The UK government is committed to the principle that ‘every person counts and should be counted’. As a member in the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data we have prioritised four disaggregation axes – sex, age, disability, and geography – which programmes should report for direct beneficiaries. Disaggregation must be based on actual counts; not models or estimates.

To monitor progress on leaving no-one behind, it is important that we know how the different disaggregation categories intersect with each other. For this reason, our results management system, REX, receives data at the most granular level. We record how many disabled elderly women there are in rural areas, and so on; as opposed to just collecting summary disaggregations on number of disabled people, number of elders, number of women and number of people in rural areas, separately, where the detail of the intersections is lost.

Sex

Disaggregate direct beneficiary counts by sex using 2 categories: male and female.

We do not collect or publish sex-disaggregated data using more than 2 categories for safeguarding and data quality reasons. We wish to protect gender minorities from risk of harm in countries where they may experience persecution. Where a beneficiary’s transgender, intersex or non-binary status is known, classify according to their gender identity where a ‘male’ or ‘female’ designation fits with this. Otherwise leave blank.

Age

Disaggregate direct beneficiary counts by age using 4 categories: children (age 0- 14); youth (age 15-24); adults (age 25-64); and elders (age 65+).

Disability

Programmes should incorporate the Washington Group ‘short set’ of 6 disability questions to their beneficiary monitoring surveys. Anyone who answers ‘a lot of difficulty’ or ‘cannot do at all’ to 1 or more of the 6 questions counts as disabled. Anyone who answers ‘no difficulty’ or ‘some difficulty’ to all 6 questions counts as not-disabled.

Geography

Disaggregate direct and indirect beneficiary counts by geography wherever possible, using 2 categories: urban and rural.

In the absence of internationally agreed definitions of urban and rural, use the definition set by the national statistical office in the country where the programme is operating.

Report:

  • Number of direct beneficiaries, disaggregated by all possible combinations of sex, age, disability, and geography
  • Number of indirect beneficiaries disaggregated by geography only
  • Planned direct and indirect beneficiaries for future years (not disaggregated)
  • Planned total programme benefits for direct and indirect beneficiaries (not disaggregated). In programmes where new results continue to be achieved after programme closure, this figure will be greater than the sum of achieved results and planned results for the remaining years of the programme

Data quality

Portfolio ICF results are published annually in autumn in voluntary compliance with the UK statistics authority code of practice for official statistics. This means that we make efforts to maximise the trustworthiness, quality and value of the statistics.

To support ICF data quality, please:

  1. Review ICF KPI results provided by programme partners, ensuring that methodologies have been adhered to, and calculations are documented and correct.
  2. Ask a suitable analyst or climate adviser to quality assure ICF results before submission.
  3. Submit ICF results following the instructions specific to your department. Include supporting documentation of calculations and any concerns about data quality.
  4. A revision to historical results may be needed if programme monitoring systems or methodologies are improved, or historical data errors are found. Please update results for earlier years as necessary, and make a note in the return. ICF results are reported cumulatively, therefore it is important to make these corrections.

Questions about results reporting can be discussed with central ICF analysts, who undertake a further stage of quality assurance before publication.

Annex 1: Worked example

An integrated £50 million development programme in Zambia is building climate-resilient roads in rural areas. The programme team have badged the programme as 5% ICF, reflecting that 95% of the impacts of the programme are infrastructure-related, and 5% are climate-related. The population expected to benefit from the roads is estimated as half the population of Zambia. In the absence of UK intervention, it is possible that other donors would have stepped in and built the roads. Donor funding is from UK (60%), France (20%) and Ireland (20%).

1. Consider whether all or part of the programme counts as ‘climate change adaptation’ according to the rationale and definitions presented in this methodology note

The programme is concerned with climate resilience, therefore it counts as climate change adaptation.

2. Review the inclusion and exclusion criteria to determine how much of the population supported by the programme should be counted towards ICF KPI 1

5% of programme impacts are climate-related, therefore the ICF KPI 1 result is limited to 5% of the total beneficiaries of the roads programme.

3. Obtain beneficiary data from programme monitoring

The programme does not interact directly with beneficiaries, therefore population estimates are used. From census data, we see that the population of Zambia is 20 million. The roads programme benefits half the population of Zambia. This is calculated as half of 20 million, which is 10 million. Adaptation beneficiaries are estimated as 5% of 10 million, which is 500,000.

4. Categorise adaptation beneficiaries by whether or not they are ‘targeted’, and their ‘intensity of support’, to identify who is a direct beneficiary, who is an indirect beneficiary, and who should not be counted towards ICF KPI 1

The adaptation beneficiaries are not targeted. They cannot be identified as receiving direct support, nor counted individually, nor are they aware that they are receiving support.

The programme team assesses the intensity of support as medium, because the beneficiaries live within an area where a new road is expected to benefit them.

Non-targeted medium intensity support means that ICF KPI 1 results should be reported as indirect beneficiaries.

5. If necessary, convert household data into total number of people

N/A

6. If necessary, adjust for additionality

There is uncertainty about what would have happened in the absence of UK intervention. The programme team use the available evidence (e.g. independent evaluation evidence) to estimate that likely 20% of the target population would have benefited from new roads from other sources in the absence of UK support. See supplementary guidance on additionality and attribution for further details. Results are adjusted downwards by 20%, meaning that only 80% of adaptation beneficiaries are counted.

There are 80% × 500,000 = 400,000 indirect beneficiaries, adjusted for additionality.

7. For jointly funded programmes, calculate the UK attribution of results in proportion to funding share

The UK funds 60% of this programme. Therefore UK-attributed results are 60% × 400,000 = 240,000 indirect beneficiaries.

8. Report disaggregated results

This programme targets rural areas, therefore the total value is reported as rural.

It is not appropriate to estimate disaggregations for characteristics such as sex, age or disability for indirect results.

UK ICF support to the roads programme in Zambia helps 240,000 people in rural areas to better adapt to the effects of climate change

Annex 2: Definitions

Additionality: Results are additional if they are beyond the results that would have occurred in the absence of the ICF-supported intervention under a ‘business as usual’ counterfactual (see definition below and supplementary guidance on additionality and attribution).

Attribution: Attribution refers to allocating responsibility for results among all actors that have played a causal role in their delivery. This is commonly done based on share of financial contributions. However, there are situations where greater nuance is needed, as with ICF KPI 11 and ICF KPI 12 on public and private finance mobilised, where a broader range of factors is considered. See supplementary guidance on additionality and attribution.

Climate change[footnote 2][footnote 3] : A change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere, and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.

Climate change adaptation[footnote 4] : The process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects. In human systems, adaptation seeks to moderate or avoid harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In some natural systems, human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects.

Coping capacity[footnote 5] : The ability of people, organisations, and systems, using available skills, resources, and opportunities, to address, manage, and overcome adverse conditions.

Counterfactual: The situation one might expect to have prevailed at the point in time in which a programme is providing results, under different conditions. Commonly, this is used to refer to a ‘business-as-usual’ counterfactual case that would have been observed had the ICF-supported intervention not taken place.

Effects of climate change: Effects of both observed climate variability and expected impacts of future climate change on lives, livelihoods, health, ecosystems, economies, societies, cultures, services, and infrastructure

  1. IPCC 2014: Annex II: Glossary [Mach, K.J., S. Planton and C. von Stechow (eds.)]. In: Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, p118. ↩ ↩2

  2. United Nations. (1992). United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, pp. 7. ↩

  3. UNFCCC Glossary, Article I, pp. 120 ↩

  4. IPCC, 2014: Annex II: Glossary [Mach, K.J., S. Planton and C. von Stechow (eds.)]. In: Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, pp. 118. ↩

  5. IPCC, 2014: Annex II: Glossary [Mach, K.J., S. Planton and C. von Stechow (eds.)]. In: Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, pp. 117-130. ↩

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