A monitoring, evaluation and reporting framework for adaptation performance by councils

Visit the tool’s website: How Well Are We Adapting?

Strategies, pathways and plans are often implemented with the intention of assisting climate change adaptation, but it needs to be asked whether we are doing things right or doing the right things. With the long timeframes and uncertainty of climate change impacts, not asking those questions can lead to maladaptation.

To address that danger, this project has produced a monitoring, evaluation and reporting (ME&R) framework and tool on adaptation performance by the WAGA councils and engaged internal council decision-makers by helping them understand and learn from the process of adapting to climate change. The framework monitors the performance of councils in improving adaptive capacity and implementing adaptation actions through a set of indicators and builds on emerging international research and practice around effective ME&R for climate change adaptation.

Councils are able to answer the question ‘How well are we adapting?’ and meaningfully report to external stakeholders and the community in order to strengthen partnerships and enhance our region’s responses over time.

The project is a regional-scale project because adaptation crosses multiple jurisdictions and organisational boundaries and the project leverages networks and partnerships that already exist within the region. WAGA anticipates that the framework will have broad applicability for other agencies and governments. We have successfully tested the practical implementation of the framework through a series of trials in the region.

In 2013, the WAGA councils received $200,000 from the Victorian Government to help commence the project. WAGA’s partners in developing ‘How Well Are We Adapting?’ were RMIT University’s Centre for Urban Research and Net Balance Foundation. In 2018, WAGA and RMIT continued their partnership to further develop and expand the project with additional funding from the Victorian Government and subscriptions from Victorian councils. In 2020, a third subscription period began. ‘How Well Are We Adapting?’ is now a foundational program of assistance to councils to embed climate change adaptation across their operations.