Publications

Development funds are essential to finance climate change adaptation and are thus an important part of international climate policy. How ever, the absence of a common reporting practice makes it difficult to assess the amount and distribution of such funds. Research has questioned the credibility of reported figures, indicating that adaptation financing is in fact lower than published figures suggest. Projects claiming a greater relevance to climate change adaptation than they target are referred to as “overreported”. To estimate realistic rates of overreporting in large data sets over times, we propose an approach based on state-of-the-art text classification. Additionally, we propose a method that incorporates evidence of smaller, higher-quality data to correct predicted rates using Bayes’ theorem. This enables a comparison of different annotation schemes to estimate the degree of overreporting in climate change adaptation. 

• The article in ACL Anthology

• Borst, J., T. Wencker and A. Niekler (2023), "Constructing a Credible Estimation for Overreporting of Climate Adaptation Funds in the Creditor Reporting System", Proceedings of the 7th Joint SIGHUM Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Cultural Heritage, Social Sciences, Humanities and Literature, pp. 99–109, Dubrovnik, Croatia: Association for Computational Linguistics.

This paper presents a comprehensive river discharge analysis to estimate past and future hydrological extremes across Morocco. Hydrological simulations with historical forcing and climate change scenario inputs have been performed to better understand the change in magnitude and frequency of extreme discharge events that cause flooding. Simulations are applied to all major rivers of Morocco, including a total of 16 basins that cover the majority of the country. An ensemble of temperature and precipitation input parameter sets was generated to analyze input uncertainty, an approach that can be extended to other regions of the world, including data-sparse regions. Parameter uncertainty was also included in the analyses. Historical simulations comprise the period 1979–2021, while future simulations (2015–2100) were performed under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) 2–4.5 and SSP5–8.5. Clear patterns of changing flood extremes are projected; these changes are significant when considered as a proportion of the land area of the country. Two types of basins have been identified, based on their different behavior in climate change scenarios. In the Northern/Mediterranean basins we observe a decrease in the frequency and intensity of events by 2050 under both SSPs, whereas for the remaining catchments higher and more frequent high-flow events in the form of flash floods are detected. Our analysis revealed that this is a consequence of the reduction in rainfall accumulation and intensity in both SSPs for the first type of basins, while the opposite applies to the other type. More generally, we propose a methodology that does not rely on observed time series of discharge, so especially for regions where those do not exist or are not available, and that can be applied to undertake future flood projections in the most data-scarce regions. This method allows future hydrological hazards to be estimated for essentially any region of the world.

• External Link

• Giustarini, L.; Schumann, G.J.-P.; Kettner, A.J.; Smith, A.; Nawrotzki, R. Simulating Changes in Hydrological Extremes—Future Scenarios for Morocco. Water 2023, 15, 2722.

Populations living in rural sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) increasingly face negative climate change impacts on their nutrition and health status. For smallholder farming families, home gardens can serve as an adaptation strategy, by offsetting climate change-related harvest losses and diversifying households' diets. The present study aimed to identify perceptions and experiences among rural caregivers of children under five years and local stakeholders working in the fields of agriculture or nutrition with regard to home gardening in Siaya County, Kenya. Thirty in-depth interviews with caregivers of young children and 26 interviews with local stakeholders were conducted, using a semi-structured interview guide. The data were analysed employing inductive content analysis. Caregivers and local stakeholders perceived home gardens as beneficial for the households’ nutrition, finances, and women empowerment. However, they also pointed to five major challenges in the process of establishing and maintaining home gardens: 1) water scarcity, 2) limited financial capital, 3) demanding physical labour, 4) limited land availability/control, and 5) lack of knowledge and technical support. For the design of sustainable home gardens, we identified four components as essential at the implementation stage: 1) locally available material and resources, 2) strong community collaboration and co-design, 3) comprehensive capacity building, 4) and lasting local partnerships. In conclusion, the establishment and sustained management of home gardens in Siaya County require a holistic, participatory and multi-actor approach. This will facilitate the provision of essential inputs and activities to ensure a sense of ownership and responsibility.

• Hansen, L.-S., G. W. Kihagi, E. Agure et al. (2023): Sustainable home gardens in Western Kenya: A qualitative study for co-designing nutrition-sensitive interventions, in: Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 103, No. 103132. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2023.103132.

Fragile Staaten gelten als der anspruchsvollste Kontext für eine wirksame und nachhaltige Entwicklungszusammenarbeit (EZ). Vor diesem Hintergrund fasst dieser Themenschwerpunktbericht wesentliche Erkenntnisse DEval´s Evaluierungsarbeit zusammen, ergänzt um Beiträge von renommierten Entscheidungstragenden und Expert*innen aus Wissenschaft, Politik und Implementierungspraxis. Wir hoffen, dass diese Erkenntnisse und Erfahrungen von Nützlichkeit sind und einen Beitrag zu Verbesserungen in unserem Politikfeld leisten werden.

• Faust, J., A. Kocks, T. Wencker (Hrsg.) (2023), Unter erschwerten Bedingungen. Entwicklungszusammenarbeit in fragilen Staaten, Themenschwerpunktbericht, Deutsches Evaluierungsinstitut der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit (DEval), Bonn

German development cooperation is pursuing the objective of reducing negative social and environmental effects in global (textile) supply chains and thus, in the long term, contributing to designing them more sustainably. This evaluation examines, in particular, the interaction between various development cooperation instruments and measures to promote sustainable global supply chains in the textile sector.

• Executive Summary (PDF, 780 KB)
• Deutsche Zusammenfassung (PDF, 662 KB)
• To the BMZ response

• Heucher, A., J. Ihl, M. Kiefer, M. Kaplan, S. Schimko and K. Wolf (2023), The Promotion of Sustainable Supply Chains through German Development Cooperation Based on the Example of the Textile Sector, German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval), Bonn.