Guidance

International Climate Finance TA KPI 3: number of climate policies informed by ICF technical assistance

Published 1 March 2024

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 Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). 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 international-climate finance to learn more about UK International Climate Finance and its results and read case studies.

Rationale

Technical assistance (TA) forms an important part of UK Government International Climate Finance (ICF) programming, both through specific TA programmes, such as UKPACT (Partnering for Accelerated Climate Transitions), and as one component of broader programmes alongside financial policy support, capital investment or other interventions, for example FCDO’s Results Based Financing for Low Carbon Energy Access.

Most monitoring and reporting approaches currently assume capital spending, either implicitly or explicitly, and so are not well suited for tracking the activities and performance of TA programmes. Additionally, ICF TA is often provided alongside other support such as capital investment from UK Government or another development partner, TA support from other organisations, and national government financial and technical contributions. This makes it more challenging or even impossible to isolate results that are specifically attributable to ICF TA support. UK Government has therefore developed a series of new indicators to support the measurement of ICF TA’s contributions to results.^{[footnote 1]}

This indicator measures the contribution of ICF TA programmes to national and international climate policy legislation in supported countries.

Summary table

Units	Absolute number of policies
Headline data to be reported	Number of climate policies supported by ICF TA
Disaggregations	sector; type of TA ; mitigation or adaptation theme, or both; international, national or sub-national level
Revision history	January 2026: Added DSIT to relevant sections; Added a ‘both’ option for mitigation/adaptation theme; Clarified guidance on what counts as a climate policy; Added Inclusion Criteria guidance questions to strengthen guidance on what counts as a climate policy; Editorial changes to improve clarity, consistency and transparency. February 2023: Clarification on policies which are applicable under this methodology and closer alignment to the OECD DAC guidance. This includes policies that protect, restore and sustainably manage nature which support the mitigation and adaption to climate change; Additional disaggregation categories
Timing	When to report: ICF programmes will be required to report ICF results once each year in March. Consider how much time is needed to collect data required to report ICF results and plan accordingly. It is recommended the data is collected alongside the programmes annual review where possible. Reporting lags: Your programme may have produced results estimates earlier in the year, for example during your programme’s Annual Review. It is acceptable to provide these results as long as they were produced in the 12 months preceding the March results commission. In some cases, data required for producing results estimates will be available after the results were achieved. If results cannot be estimated until over a year away from when a results estimate will be produced, this should be noted in the results return.

Technical definition

ICF TA KPI 3 counts the number of climate policies informed by ICF TA programming. This indicator accounts for all forms of TA delivered, ranging from training workshops to knowledge products to feasibility studies. This is an output level indicator that does not aim to measure the success, effectiveness or impact of that TA support. These should be assessed through other indicators or evaluations.

Technical assistance

Technical assistance is a form of non-financial development assistance provided by specialists, which may be either local or international, and from the public sector, private sector, NGOs or academia. This assistance can be provided in many forms, including sharing information and expertise, providing training, sharing technical data, or providing access to data platforms, and consulting services. It contrasts with other forms of assistance such as capital investments or grants to support the ongoing operating costs of a programme or initiative. TA may be provided directly by ICF or through funding that allows beneficiaries to purchase TA services.

TA can be provided in many different ways and can serve many different purposes. TA services and products typically include:

• supporting individuals in gaining knowledge or capacity through training, workshops, conferences, etc
• sharing information and advice through knowledge products, support for project planning or policy development, providing data or climate information, etc
• sharing experience through knowledge shares and secondments, expert guidance, study tours, etc

See Annex B for full definitions of TA products and services and of the behavioural or organisational changes that ICF TA has typically aimed to support, based on a 2019 review of DESNZ’s portfolio of international TA support.

ICF support

ICF support refers to assistance provided by a UK Government ICF programme that has contributed to climate action in a specific country. It does not include a qualification based on the volume of funding provided by ICF or whether UK Government is the sole provider of support.

Climate policies

For the purposes of this indicator, ‘climate policies’ may include a range of public-sector actions at the national or sub-national levels – subject to these policies having climate action as an intentional (primary or secondary) goal^{[footnote 2]}.

Government policies

A course or principle of action adopted or proposed by government, both on the national and sub-national level, is considered a policy. Announced or draft legislation or executive action are policies. Policies should have the following features:

1. They should constitute measures that are expected to be legislated and/or implemented.

2. They are authoritative declarations prepared and approved by the body that has the power to do so (for example, the government that has the legislative or executive right).

3. They state and/or influence the actions of government, the private sector and/or individuals.

Government actions that constitute commitments or announcements that are not linked to concrete measures should not be counted. Examples where actions should not be counted under this methodology include:

• if a government announces a ‘climate change strategy’, ‘climate change action plan’ or an ‘action plan on nature-based solutions, these activities do not count towards the indicator. For example, an energy efficiency target that is not connected to any changes in legislation or funding should not be counted
• high-level items on a list of actions the government plans to undertake are not considered policies. If a general plan or framework is translated into concrete measures at a later stage, the climate policies should only be counted at that later stage. For example, this implies that while an NDC itself should not be counted as a policy, the domestically or internationally introduced policies that give effect to the NDC’s ambitions should be counted as policies
• statements by ministers or government officials that express opinions rather than an agreed government position should not be counted
• policies from organisations other than the public sector should not count as climate policies in this indicator. For example, policies from companies or NGOs should not be included

In summary, a policy can be counted when it is an authoritative, actionable measure that government intends to legislate or implement. High‑level plans, announcements, or intentions without concreate measures to implement or legislate do not count as policies.

Intentional climate policies

Reporting under this indicator should include policies that intend to directly increase either climate change mitigation and/or adaptation. For mitigation, the policy needs to set actions or legislation that is expected to directly reduce emissions compared to a baseline without the policy in place.

For adaptation (including resilience), the policy needs to set actions that strengthen the ability to anticipate, prepare for or respond to events related to climate change, or actions or legislation that are expected to directly reduce the exposure or vulnerability of a jurisdiction or group of people to climate change.

Policies that have intended co-benefits on adaptation or mitigation should also be counted towards this indicator, so long as those co-benefits are explicitly intended. This explicit intention should be referenced in government documentation associated with the policy.

For example, if a government implements a policy that primarily targets local air pollution but also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and this is noted as a desirable side effect, it should be counted towards this indicator.

However, if a country expands its gas network solely to increase energy security and the additional generation capacity replaced coal electricity and thus reduced emissions, but there is no recognition that this is an intended co-benefit, the policy should not be counted.

Policies that claim to contribute to mitigation and/or adaptation but do not justify the expectation of a positive impact should not be counted in this indicator. This may require value judgements from the programme evaluator.

Programmes are not required to evaluate if a climate policy has achieved its intended impact to include it in reporting under this indicator, as this may be too challenging and/or may not be possible until many years after the implementation of the policy.

Other considerations

Both new policies and updated existing policies can be counted towards the metric. However, an updated existing policy should only be included if it includes significant changes from the previous version (or previous update). For example, if a government grants new infrastructure funding annually and the new policy prioritises low-carbon infrastructure, it can be counted towards the metric.

Programmes are not required to make any assessment of the level of ‘ambition’ or improvement in any changed or updated policy, and a changed policy does not need to be more ambitious than the previous one to count towards this metric.

Inclusion Criteria – Guiding Questions

• Is it an authoritative government measure?
• Is it concrete and actionable (not just a plan or intention)?
• Is it expected to be implemented or legislated?
• Will it direct or influence actions of government, private sector, or individuals?
• Does it have an explicit mitigation or adaptation intent (primary or secondary)?
• Is any claimed climate benefit explicitly stated in government documentation?
• If it is an update, does it introduce a significant change?

Methodological summary

To determine the number of climate policies supported by ICF TA, reporters should follow the approach set out below:

1. Decide which climate policies can be classified as being informed by ICF TA.

2. Count the distinct climate policies that meet the inclusion criteria for each disaggregation category (where available).

3. Report the number of climate policies informed by ICF TA against appropriate disaggregation categories.

Methodology

To calculate the number of climate policies informed by ICF TA:

1. Decide which climate policies can be classified as being informed by ICF TA

Programmes should verify that the TA support provided can be classified as having informed those policies before quantifying the number of climate policies. Programmes should include cases where direct and targeted TA has been delivered to public sector organisations to support the policy development process.

Programmes should only include cases where TA support has been both direct and targeted towards policy development:

• direct support refers to TA that is aimed at the policy development process. This implies that the policymakers involved in drafting the climate policy are the recipients of TA support. For example, the support of a policy planning unit counts as direct support; the support of a university information system that is then used to inform policy counts as indirect support. However, the directness of support does not require a certain proximity to final policy. For example, a scoping workshop that intends to initiate a climate policy should be included as direct support despite the distance from the implementation of any final policies and can be counted towards this metric. The key is that the activity being supported by TA must be clearly and intentionally linked to the policy development process itself, rather than support for an activity that is not clearly or intentionally linked to the process.
• targeted support refers to a TA product or service that is provided to the intended recipients/beneficiaries. It implies programmes should only include cases of policy development where the TA has been delivered to the intended recipients (to support climate policy development or implementation). For example, if UK Government supported the government of Malawi’s policy development project by providing a knowledge product on regional climate impacts data, and the government of Mozambique then adapts this knowledge product to support their own policy development, the policy in Malawi would count towards programme results while the policy from Mozambique would not.

Programmes should assess whether support is direct and targeted based on the business case and programme design documents, validated by details on how the TA support has been provided in practice within the programme. Reporting programmes should set out a coherent case for how the TA support informed the climate policy. The programme should provide evidence that TA provided by the programme has informed and supported the policy. Stronger supporting evidence is preferable. Possible types of supporting evidence for this impact include:

• stronger (preferable) evidence: Text provided by TA included in policy wording/legislation; data or analysis provided through TA reporting in policy or supporting documentation; official commentary on or recognition of ICF TA input from government representatives

• weaker (acceptable) evidence: Media reports of TA impact; feedback from TA events/workshops; unofficial/personal messages from TA beneficiaries (for example, government officers); commentary from recognised third party experts on role of ICF TA (for example, national policy experts, NGOs, academics)

The TA support provided does not have to show a certain minimum level of activity (for example, number individuals supported, number of workshops delivered) to be counted towards this metric. It is sufficient that the support constitutes one of the TA products and services and is targeted and direct.

Programmes should not include cases where policies have been informed through indirect or untargeted ICF TA. That is, TA that had a different or broader intention than supporting climate policies but resulted in climate policy development or execution should not be counted towards this metric.

For example, if a programme organises a workshop to support renewable energy developers and they successfully lobby the government on policy change, this policy should not be included in results under this indicator.

2. Count the distinct climate policies that meet the inclusion criteria for each disaggregation category (where available)

For all cases where climate policies have been supported by direct and targeted TA, programmes should count the number of climate policies that have been informed by this TA support.

Each climate policy that constitutes a distinct measure and works independently of other climate policies should be counted separately. For example, if a country passes a low-carbon transport package that includes an electric vehicle subsidy and a higher fuel tax, this should be counted as 2 distinct climate policies. In contrast, if a country introduces an emissions trading system which includes regulations on free allowances, this should count as one distinct climate policy.

If ICF TA has informed specific climate policies within a policy package, programme evaluators should go through the package, and identify the policies that (a) fulfil the criteria on distinct climate policies and (b) were informed by ICF TA.

3. Report the number of climate policies informed by ICF TA against appropriate disaggregation categories

Report the number of climate policies informed by ICF TA for each individual year to date and cumulatively.

Programmes should also provide evidence supporting their calculations in notes accompanying reported data, including:

• the name and year of the policy informed by ICF TA and the country in which the policy has been enacted. If the policy is part of a larger framework and does not have a given name, it can be the composition of the framework’s name and the policy’s content, for example, Mobility 2030 package – electric vehicle subsidy. Where the policy has been published online a link should be provided. Labels and a unique identifier can simplify data management across programmes to identify potential duplicates
• details on how the reported government activities constitute a policy, and on how programmes have determined that the reported policy constitutes a climate policy^{[footnote 3]}
• details on the support provided and supporting evidence on how the programme identified that TA supported the policy
• where multiple policies are reported for a given country, details on how the reported climate policies informed by ICF TA are distinct (that is, that they are not sub-components of a broader policy)
• unlike other TA indicators, this indicator should only count support provided to the public sector, and it is therefore not necessary for programmes to disaggregate according to the type of organisation supported (public sector, private sector, finance sector, academia, NGO/civil society)

Programmes should record data against the following disaggregation categories, where the data is available:

• sector
• type of TA
• mitigation or adaptation theme, or both
• international, national, or sub-national level

Further details on these disaggregation categories are available in Annex A: Data disaggregation.

Worked example

An ICF-funded programme in Thailand is supporting the government in the decarbonisation of road transport, with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and local air pollution and increasing mobility.

So far, the programme has delivered the following type of support:

• a workshop on the role of vehicle taxation to members of the Ministry of Transport
• the distribution of 1,000 posters in public spaces to advertise electric vehicle purchases
• the commission of a consultancy to model the impacts of a carbon tax on road transport presented to the Ministry of Transport
• a secondment to the Ministry of Transport to help review the current tax system to identify opportunities for changes
• conference for 200 civil servants on the municipal level on the role of city-level action for climate mitigation in transport

The government has passed the framework ‘Thailand on the Road 2030’, including the following components:

a. an environment tax of 5 THB/l on fuels used in transport based on their carbon content with the intention to reduce emissions by 2% each year

b. a subsidy programme for motorists who install a fine particulate filter in their vehicle

c. a target to build 1,500 public chargers for electric vehicles intended to reduce air pollution and GHG emissions

d. A city toll of 3 THB per day in Bangkok. The government mainly aims to address air pollution concerns but also expects a reduction in GHG emissions by 0.5 MtCO2 annually

e. The city toll includes a 50% rebate for owners of electric vehicles

f. An update of the existing vehicle registration tax. The previous tax had been a flat fee for each vehicle; the updated tax varies with emissions intensity per 100km

g. A programme to purchase 2,000 new buses across Thailand to increase mobility

h. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives commits to purchasing only electric vehicles from 2025 to reduce their carbon footprint

Of the 8 components, the following can be classified as climate policies:

a. the tax is a course of action that targets emissions reduction

d. the city toll is a course of action and has emissions reduction as an intended co-benefit

e. the rebate within the city toll is a course of action that targets emissions reductions

f. the change of vehicle registration tax is an update of an existing policy that targets emissions reductions

h. The purchase of electric vehicles is a course of action that targets emissions reductions

Of the 8 components, the following cannot be classified as climate policies:

b. The subsidy programme has neither the intention nor the expected effect to reduce GHG emissions

c. A target without linked actions does not classify as a policy

g. The purchase of new buses may decrease emissions by modal shifts or more efficient buses, but it is not the intention of the policy

1. Decide which climate policies can be classified as being informed by ICF TA

To report the number of climate policies informed, the programme needs to determine if the climate policies received direct and targeted ICF TA. Of the 5 climate policies, the following received direct and targeted support:

a. the environmental tax on fuels in transport has been informed by the modelling of a carbon tax in transport

d. the city toll has been informed by the conference on city-level action on climate mitigation in transport

e. the rebate on the city toll has been informed by the conference on city-level action on climate mitigation in transport

f. the change in the vehicle registration tax has been informed by the secondment

Of the 5 climate policies, the following did not receive direct and targeted support:

h. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives did not receive direct and targeted support. The poster campaign does not fulfil these criteria

2. Count the distinct climate policies that meet the inclusion criteria for each disaggregation category (where available)

The ‘Thailand on the Road 2030’ framework should not be counted as one policy. Instead, the distinct policies within the framework should be counted separately.

Policies A and F are distinct policies. They work independently of other climate policies.

Policy E is not a distinct policy. It is part of policy D and should not be counted separately.

In sum, the ICF programme informed 3 distinct climate policies.

3. Report number of climate policies informed by ICF TA against appropriate disaggregation categories

The programme should report the total number of climate policies informed by ICF TA: This ICF programme informed 3 climate policies.

The report should include evidence on the criteria necessary for this indicator as illustrated in the table below.

Name of Policy	Country	Classification of climate policy (How does this fit the criteria for a climate policy?)	Classification of distinct climate policy (How is this distinct from other climate policies?)	Support provided that informed the climate policy (What support did the TA provide?)	Evidence for recognition of support (What supporting evidence shows the link between the TA and the climate policy?)
Thailand on the Road 2030 – environmental fuel tax	Thailand	Credible action that intends to reduce emissions in transport	The policy is independent of the implementation of other policies reported under this indicator	The TA commissioned a study on carbon taxes in transport presented to the Ministry of Transport	The carbon tax study is referenced in the environmental fuel tax bill
Thailand on the Road 2030 – vehicle registration tax	Thailand	Credible action that intends to reduce emissions in transport	The policy is independent of the implementation of other policies reported under this indicator	The TA provided a secondment to the team at the Ministry of Transport responsible for existing transport taxation	The secondment is acknowledged on the government’s website together with the publication of the bill
Thailand on the Road 2030 – Bangkok city toll	Thailand	Credible action that intends to reduce emissions in transport	The policy is independent of the implementation of other policies reported under this indicator	The TA organised a conference for municipal civil servants on city-level climate action in transport	The municipality uses a framework presented at the conference in its supportive evidence for the city toll

Data quality

Some data will be available directly from programmes, for example from project-level monitoring. It is the responsibility of the recipients of ICF funding, or a third-party auditing entity, to collect data. This information will need to be kept up to date by liaising with programme managers.

There may be varying degrees of quality of data, from data generated by large UK Government projects with high quality, to data produced by multilateral partners where their origin may be from government partners’ data systems or directly from implementing organisations. In the latter case, data may be of lower quality and require further verification.

A key challenge for this indicator is to decide what constitutes a climate policy. This methodology note aims to give clear guidance for the programme evaluator. In practice, there might still be cases where there is some ambiguity. This will require some judgement, which is preferably performed by a third-party entity. For additional quality assurance, a single entity could check if the criteria have been applied consistently across programmes.

Portfolio ICF results are published following the UK statistics authority Code of Practice for Statistics. This means that we make efforts to maximise the trustworthiness, quality, and value of the statistics.

To support ICF data quality:

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. 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 A: Data disaggregation

It is recommended that the data is disaggregated by the following categories, where available.

Sector

Emissions reductions / avoided should be disaggregated by sector as defined by the UNFCCC Inventory Categories:

• energy supply
• industrial processes
• Business
• Public
• residential
• transport
• agriculture
• waste management
• fisheries and Aquaculture
• forestry
• land/sea-use and Land/sea-use change
• water

Type of TA support

The categories of TA support are based on a review of existing DESNZ TA and a sample of FCDO TA, classified by the goal the TA aims to support.

Capacity building:

• institutional capacity building: Building capacity by improving institutional processes within organisations or helping establish new institutions
• technical capacity building: Building capacity by improving technical expertise within organisations

Policy support and evidence:

• awareness raising: Bringing attention to a certain programme, project, cause, or issue
• national policy support: Assisting in the design, update, or operation of a national policy in a supported country
• international policy support: Assisting in the design, update, or operation of an international policy

Project and investment support

• project development support: providing assistance to develop projects more quickly or more effectively
• process/asset operation support: providing guidance to improve operational aspects of stakeholder
• financing support: providing assistance to developing financial offerings, financial instrument or arrange access to finance
• public-private co-ordination support: supporting collaboration between public and private actors for the development of climate-relevant investments

Mitigation or adaptation theme

Policies should be disaggregated according to the climate change theme supported by the policy:

• climate change adaptation
• climate change mitigation, or
• both

Definitions of climate change adaptation and mitigation should be based on those included in the ‘OECD DAC Rio Markers for Climate Handbook’^{[footnote 4]}.

Annex B: Common forms of technical assistance in ICF Programmes

Technical assistance is a broad term and includes a diverse set of means and aims of support. This annex defines the different types of TA products and services typically offered in ICF programmes (what is provided in practice) and common categories of TA support (what the TA aims to achieve).

Common TA products and services TA can be provided in many different ways and to serve many different purposes. TA services and products typically include:

• supporting individuals in gaining knowledge or capacity through training, workshops, conferences
• sharing information through knowledge products, supporting project planning or policy development, providing data or climate informatio
• sharing experience through knowledge shares and secondments, expert guidance, study tours

This table provides an indication of where different TA products and services are most useful across those 3 areas.

TA product or service	Description	Supporting individuals	Sharing information	Sharing experience
Workshops	Presentations or discussions among small- or medium-sized groups	x	x	x
Training events and courses	Events or courses aimed to build understanding or capacity, can be one-off or a course of training, conducted externally or in-house	x	x
Conferences, seminars or networking events	Larger forums to share information and/or foster relationships between different actors	x	x	x
Secondments	Providing personnel to augment capacity, including short- or longer- term placements	x		x
Specialist research	Traditional consultancy-type services that address specific, practical questions and provide recommendations, including market, policy, legal, regulatory and technology research briefs		x	x
Strategic organisational guidance	Operational plans and systems, for example, HR planning		x	x
Expert guidance and review	Ad-hoc expert input on different issues, including direct provision of guidance and recruitment or provision of longer-term expert staff		x	x
Product or technology demonstration	Demonstration of certain products or technologies to build understanding among users or policymakers		x	x
Study tours and roadshows	Educational or informational trips for beneficiaries to learn from others, including on technology use, technical and business practices and policy approaches		x	x
Public awareness campaigns	Engagement with civil society and/or the public to build awareness		x
High level delegations	Engagement on ministerial or equivalent level to build high-level political interest	x	x	x
Data, software, tools and models	An output that can be used to support decision-making, typically across multiple decisions		x
Research and development	Research and development (R&D) services, may include commercial or academic research		x

Annex C: Guidance on the use of this indicator methodology to support appraisals

The results from this indicator are not directly suitable for incorporation into a traditional cost-benefit analysis appraisal, as results – the number of climate policies informed – are not calculated in a monetised format and cannot easily be converted into monetary terms using typical appraisal techniques (such as willingness to pay analysis).

However, expected results could be used as an input to modified or alternative appraisal approaches, such as cost-effectiveness analysis (based on the unit cost of achieving results in informing policies) or multicriteria decision analysis.

To apply the methodology set out in this indicator to generate estimated results for the purposes of appraisal, users should:

• examine the programme design to identify where and how they expect each element of programme TA may inform the development of climate policies. Users should first consider all elements of TA included in the programme design separately, and consider how this TA product or service may provide support - for example by providing training to government officials or by providing climate intelligence or expert guidance on practical climate policy design challenges to a government department. In considering these instances, users should set out how they expect that the TA will inform climate policy development, based on their best judgement

  • for some programmes it may be challenging to identify whether any specific policies will be supported and of the number of policies that will be supported, particularly if programmes are designed to be demand-led and/or responsive to needs that emerge over time. In these cases, programmes may need to make assumptions around the number of policies that will be supported based on the level of reach that is feasible given the programme design and budget and based on previous experiences of uptake or usage of TA products and services
  • where programmes are uncertain about the scale of impact, they should be transparent about any assumptions made in estimating expected results (such as the assumed number of policies that may be supported by any individual TA product or service) to enable robust sensitivity analysis of calculations

• aggregate the instances of policies informed to obtain an overall estimate of programme expected results. Users should take account of any cases where different TA products offered within the same programme may support the same policy, to avoid double counting of potential support

Use of these results as inputs to cost-effectiveness analysis or multi-criteria analysis should be carefully considered and may require users to more clearly specify the expected outputs to ensure comparability across different programmes. Given the definition of climate policy is broad and encompasses many different types of activities, use of this indicator as the basis for decision making may risk prioritising programmes that have a broad reach (in terms of informing a large number of different policies) above those that deliver the largest impact, in terms of the quality of support for climate policies or any subsequent climate action delivered as a result of that support.

Acknowledgements

This document has been updated by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to reflect methodological changes following a pilot of the methodology produced by Vivid Economics with the assistance of the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, contracted through the EACDS Lot B service ‘Strengthening resilience and response to crises’, managed by DAI Europe Ltd. under contract to the UK Department for International Development. The original draft technical assistance methodology note is available from Devtracker.

This document builds on one of 5 draft Methodology Notes for new indicators for tracking results from technical assistance within ICF programmes, produced under the project Understanding Technical Assistance Options in International Climate Finance. The Vivid Economics project team includes Nick Kingsmill, Aurore Mallon, Fabian Knoedler-Thoma, John Ward and Dan Aylward-Mills. Following the pilot of these new indicators, 4 of these have been taken forwards for reporting across ICF programmes as part of the annual results reporting.

1. Non-TA ICF KPIs take an attribution approach to reporting results, where programmes identify that they have had a causal role supporting results and then attribute results across ICF and any other development partners that have also played a causal role, based on the value of support provided to a programme. As strict attribution is very challenging or impossible for TA support, these indicators take a contribution approach by measuring the total volume of results that ICF TA has contributed to delivering. Further details on attribution, additionality and contribution can be found in the supplementary guidance. ↩

2. The OECD DAC Rio Markers for Climate Handbook provides further guidance and examples to determine whether a policy has climate as a primary or secondary goal. ↩

3. 3 The OECD DAC Rio Markers for Climate Handbook provides further guidance and examples to determine whether a policy constitutes a climate policy. ↩

4. 4 OECD DAC Rio Markers for Climate Handbook ↩