Online Panel: Transformative Policy, Institutions, and Organizations

Promoting paradigm shifts towards a climate-resilient world: Lessons from evaluations of the Green Climate Fund
Genta Konci

Most multilateral development agencies aim for change that is ‘transformational’ or that shifts the ‘paradigm’. In many ways transformation has become the holy grail in development assistance, with most development and environmental aid agencies aspiring to deliver transformational change. How much progress has the world’s largest multilateral climate fund, the Green Climate Fund (GCF), made on its mandate to promote paradigm shifts towards low-emission and climate-resilient development pathways in developing countries? That is what the Second Period Review (SPR), conducted by the Independent Evaluation Unit (IEU) of the GCF, seeks to answer. This presentation will highlight selected findings from the SPR including how partnerships function at the GCF and what progress has been made towards its mandate. It will also draw from the IEU’s research on transformational change, and findings from evaluations on the relevance and effectiveness of the GCF’s investments in vulnerable countries, including Small Island and Developing States, Least Developed Countries, and African States. The findings highlighted in the report include: • Results and impact of GCF investments: There have been modest climate impacts but that results may be forthcoming; • Programming in response to country needs: Upstream programming is critical and best pathways are still being established • Accessing to the GCF: There is a diverse network of entities that access the GCF as Accredited Entities, and direct access to the Fund is growing but limited • Institutional architecture and performance: The Fund’s governance design brings legitimacy but compromises efficiency The IEU’s presentation aims to share insights, experiences, and lessons learnt from evaluations of the world’s largest multilateral climate fund to foster discussions amongst practitioners and policy makers on how to formulate transformative partnerships for a better climate-resilient world.Transforming the national security system: a new paradigm and new practices for partnering with people
Mariana ZafeirakopoulosGlobally, ‘national security’ (NS) is a system associated with militaries, defence, conflict and perhaps emergency management and peacekeeping. It is a term that is historically associated with relationships between countries. NS is no longer just about securing physical borders. In our interconnected world, NS involves Cybersecurity, food security, bio and human health, a healthy planet and waterways. For NS challenges like terrorism and gun-violence, a lack of community cohesion, fear, misinformation and distrust fuels these threats. At the core of these complex and inter-related issues are social factors. These are not just problems about securing the nation, they are experienced and felt a deeply local and human individual level. This oral presentation posits that human partnership, across diverse stakeholders, is key to shaping the NS system we need and want. Expert knowledge in the form of governance, policy and subject-matter expertise is useful to address familiar problems. However, expert knowledge is limited when it comes to complex, emerging and unknown futures. Experiential knowledge is a valuable contribution in helping to bridge the gap. Experiential knowledge is about harnessing the knowledge and understanding of lived experience. Validating a breadth of human experiences and diverse knowledge is a paradigm shift needed in national security. This presentation will introduce a methodological contribution and initial findings from research undertaken on participatory approaches to shape NS, focusing on the future of AI and Cybersecurity. It will introduce a new relational paradigm for NS which translates into new practices for NS advisers that recommend greater partnership with people to shape desirable and inclusive futures, for example empathising with under-represented voices to explore future unknown, consequences and opportunities. These findings support a call to transform our NS system into a more human-centred and generative system, away from one that is locked within frames of opposition and scarcity.

Enabling Mechanisms for Gender Research in the Agriculture, Aquaculture, and Natural Resources Sector in the Philippines and their Transformative Impact to the Sector
Glory Dee Romo

The Harmonized Gender and Development Guidelines tool has been used to assess the gender mainstreaming component of the proposed research projects for government funding. However, there are still very few researchers who are knowledgeable about gender mainstreaming and gender analyses and the relevant tools and frameworks. A total of 41 researchers from the three major groups of islands, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao were interviewed about their current research projects, research priorities in the Agriculture, Aquaculture, and Natural Resources (AANR) sector and the challenges in mainstreaming gender and including gender analyses in their proposed projects. The data were processed using the MAXQDA software. One way of influencing the academic institutions’ gender research agenda is through a funding agencies’ framework and agenda that would include, encourage, and capacitate both the experienced and the young faculty members to engage in these types of research. Funding agencies may also incentivize the academic institutions that provide opportunities for faculty members who have limited experience in research. Collaborative research partnerships facilitated by funding agencies between experienced researchers and faculty members with no or limited research experience from different universities may also help strengthen the gender research agenda in the sector. These partnerships will have to include a mentoring project component. Tools used in monitoring and evaluating the research project cycle will have to be customized depending on focused subsector. Lastly, creating communities across different universities that will encourage all genders to discuss and share their gender research in AANR sector may also have an enduring impact in the gender research landscape in the country.