Strategies for Successful Implementation:
Guidance for Addressing Technical Climate-SRHR MEL Challenges

No two climate-SRHR projects are alike, and each will have a MEL plan adapted to its unique activities, context, and resources of the implementing organization. Similarly, no two climate-SRHR portfolios are alike, as each is tailored to the funder’s specific priorities and goals. 

I am a funder who wants to build a MEL plan for a portfolio.

I am looking for detailed guidance to ensure my MEL approach is technically sound.

I want to read through everything. 

This section focuses on developing and implementing a MEL plan for climate-SRHR projects (if you are a grantee or implementing organization) and portfolios (if you are a funder). It will help you:

  • Identify strategies for selecting and refining indicators 

  • Build a clear implementation strategy 

  • Put your evidence to work through a range of learning, documentation, and share-out approaches

I am an implementer who wants to build a MEL plan for a project.

I am looking for examples and case studies of how to use this framework and successful climate-SRHR MEL strategies.

Strategic Guidance for Developing Climate-SRHR MEL Plans at the Portfolio Level

A portfolio’s scope and goals influence indicator selection.

As you begin developing a MEL plan for your portfolio, take time to reflect on the scope and goals of your portfolio.
What does your portfolio invest in? What is excluded? Why?

If the portfolio is explicitly focused on climate change and SRHR, you can require grantees to use indicators specific to climate change and SRHR across their activities. This will help ensure project data can be aggregated to generate the portfolio metrics you need. 

If the portfolio is specifically focused on a particular approach or SRHR outcome, such as policy action, menstrual health, supply chain strengthening, etc. you can choose more narrow portfolio indicators that reflect your focus. 

If the portfolio focuses on pilots, proof-of-concept, and early-stage innovations, you should prioritize output indicators which can be measured effectively in the short-term and suggest the potential for future impact. 

As you think about the goals of your portfolio, take time to also reflect on how you intend to use the data you gather.
What data do you need to demonstrate the portfolio’s success and accelerate change?
Who are you trying to reach with this data?

If your target audience is SRHR-focused actors, you may need to focus on selecting indicators that will generate evidence regarding the impacts of climate change on SRH outcomes, and the positive benefits of climate-responsiveness for SRH outcomes.

If your target audience values numbers and statistics, you may wish to prioritize quantitative data and rigorous pre-/post-evaluations.

The indicators that you select for your portfolio will likely include both 1) indicators that are aggregated up from project-level indicators and 2) indicators which are monitored at the national or portfolio level.

Aggregated project-level indicators allow a portfolio to demonstrate the success generated directly through its investments. When developing MEL guidance for grantees, be sure to include any requirements or specification around project-level indicators that are necessary to generate your desired aggregate indicators. You may need to refine indicator definitions and guidance on measurement approaches and frequency to reflect the needs and goals of your portfolio and its grantees. You may also wish to explicitly integrate opportunities for participatory and community-led MEL approaches within this guidance.

If the portfolio is focused on SRHR investments generally, which may or may not include climate, you may wish the institute a minimum requirement for climate considerations across all investments and/or institute specific requirements for the sub-set of investments which are focused on climate. This will support consistency across all investments.

If the portfolio includes a broad range of climate-SRHR actions, it may be more advantageous to prioritize broader portfolio indicators which can readily reflect the types of work you implement. 

Climate SRHR-MEL must be well-resourced - but it’s a worthwhile investment.

Climate-SRHR investments may require additional resources for MEL, both because they require unique technical capacity and because they require monitoring additional contextual factors which are not tracked in standard SRHR investments, such as exposure to extreme weather or the status of climate policies. 

There are also a few additional factors specific to climate-SRHR portfolios that funders should consider when resourcing MEL in their portfolios:

  • Grassroots organizations: Small grassroots organizations may lack the technical capacity to develop and implement rigorous, mixed-methods MEL plans. For these organizations, technical support with MEL budgeting as well as indicator selection, MEL plan refinement, and reporting.

  • Climate crises: When a climate crisis or extreme weather event occurs during implementation, it can be a valuable opportunity to document how a project may contribute to climate resilience and/or how climate change is impacting SRHR action. However, gathering data and impact stories during such events requires time, money, and human capacity. 

  • Innovation and adaptation: Some organizations may struggle to recognize what is truly innovative or adaptive about their project’s approach. Others may fail to recognize maladaptation - that is, adaptive behaviors that come with a high cost or negative consequences. However, effectively identifying these adaptations and translating lessons learned into opportunities for future adaptation is a critical component of ensuring that climate-SRHR programing effectively contributes to greater climate resilience. Technical support, close collaboration, and outside reviewers can support perspective shifts. 

If the portfolio focuses on scaling, institutionalization, and long-term investments, you should integrate impact measures and longer term outcome measures that can be documented through rigorous evaluations to document change generated.

If the target audience is climate-focused actors or other stakeholders, you may wish to prioritize climate indicators which are already familiar to the climate community. It may be beneficial to link the impacts of climate change on SRH to broader impacts related to gender equity, economy, education, etc. 

If your target audience values stories and human impact, you may wish to promote qualitative data and multi-media storytelling, such as photography, video, and audio.

Indicators should reflect your needs - and set grantees up for success.

Indicators monitored at the national or portfolio level allow a portfolio to demonstrate its long-term impact and its successes beyond the projects it invests in. When selecting these indicators, be sure to ensure that you have the appropriate level of staffing necessary to monitor these indicators on an ongoing basis. 

Investment and programming at the intersection of climate change and SRHR is nascent: funders, implementers, and researchers are all working to generate evidence, identify best practices, and determine the most effective approaches. Given the urgency of the issue, it is critical that we take action now and learn as we go. Doing so, however, requires all stakeholders to openly share both successes and challenges. Fostering strong relationships with your grantees, where success is about not only outcomes but also clear documentation of challenges, barriers, and ineffective approaches, is critical to ensuring that we, as a global community, can learn together and allocate limited resources effectively. 

  • Research: Organizations who want to conduct action research throughout their programming may face additional expenses, particularly related to ethical approvals, research staffing, data analysis, and publication costs. However, research is an important component of building the climate-SRHR evidence base and ensuring programmatic learnings are documented in a way that is accessible and impactful. Offering supplemental research grants can support this form of evidence generation and dissemination. 

  • Storytelling: Grantees may not have internal resources for photography, videography, podcast/radio recording, graphic design, social media outreach, or other aspects of effective storytelling. Offering supplemental storytelling grants, setting requirements in calls for proposals, and/or having technical capacity available to support can all enhance storytelling across these projects. 

  • Long-term impact: Change takes time - even more so when projects engage with challenging issues like SRHR and climate change. For many projects, the true impact of their work may not be visible for years to come. Portfolios can play an important role by resourcing post-project evaluations, tracking national trends, and monitoring uptake and scaling of activities from previous investments. Portfolios should also consider duration of investments and timing of activities when developing programmatic and portfolio targets. 

Setting budgetary minimums and providing supplemental technical capacity can go a long way in ensuring a portfolio’s climate-SRHR investments generate the evidence needed to effectively respond to challenges and ensure successful implementation.

Use data to adjust your approach and identify “best bets.”

Many of the indicators proposed in Indicators for Climate-SRHR Action focus on tracking implementation progress, project design and resourcing, portfolio reach, and progress towards impact. These data can provide valuable insights into what strategies are effective and what opportunities exist for refining your approach. This could look like:

  • Scaling up effective activities to new regions

  • Adjusting implementation approaches to promote inclusivity or integrate best practices 

  • Instituting portfolio-wide processes for reporting, technical support, dissemination, etc. 

  • Establishing quality standards or documentation protocols for consistent reporting

  • Resourcing new investments to close critical data gaps or track longer-term impact

Tool: Using data to inform portfolio strategy

The Measure and Adjust section of our climate-SRHR strategy guidance provides information on how pilot evidence can be used to inform future investments, while the Refine Portfolio Strategy section provides guidance on how evidence from previous and current investments can be used to strengthen the portfolio’s overall investment approach.

When it comes to identifying effective practices suitable for scaling, SRHR impact is the most important element of determining if something is a scalable concept or “best bet.” This means that:

  • Clear evidence was generated about the positive impact of this project on SRHR

  • That evidence was used to inform guidelines and norms 

In practice, this means that the project had a positive impact on people reached and there is additional information that advocates can use to hold governments accountable. Strong causal pathways and evidence for SRHR impact is the minimum bar for funding a project.

Once that evidence has been established, several other factors are also important: 

  • Readiness to scale and sustainability: Scale can look different in different contexts. It can include many different aspects of getting health systems climate resilient. Sustainability can include engagement of local stakeholders, fostering collaboration with local governments (ideally aligned with national priorities and integrated into national health systems), or adoption by systems, such as piloting, proof of concept, or adoption by the government.

  • Strong partnerships: Evidence of partners’ strong relationships and ability to link to and leverage other funding sources is critical. When activities strengthen organizational and leadership capacity, implementers can be strong in their sector and go-to leaders. This can look like other organizations coming to them for insights, the Ministry of Health relying on them for data or evidence, etc. 

  • Climate adaptation benefits and co-benefits: For projects focused on responding to climate hazards, it is also important to demonstrate clear benefits for climate adaptation. Even projects focused specifically on SRHR can demonstrate co-benefits for climate adaptation through their work. This may look like generating evidence about adaptive behaviors, improved policy, strengthened infrastructure, knowledge gained, or advances made in other sectors, such as gender equity, agriculture, education, etc. 

  • Demonstrated demand: It is important to know who is going to pay for the concept in the long run (e.g., a customer or a public pathway to scale). “Best bet” activities should be relevant to government priorities and have a path towards budgetary allocations. Signals of this include government cooperation towards evidence generation/early scaling, and documentation of if this area of impact is an explicit part of government priorities. 


Other factors, like competitive advantage, opportunities for leverage, and cost efficiency may factor in later on in the pathway to scaling.

Strategic Guidance for Developing Climate-SRHR MEL Plans at the Project Level

Be as clear and specific as possible in your MEL plan. 

A strong and effective MEL can serve as a resource for you throughout project implementation. Developing a MEL plan is also a valuable opportunity to work with the entire project implementation team to ensure everyone is aligned on the specifics of what the project will entail. 

Your MEL plan should include:

  • Project goals and objectives

  • Output, outcome, and impact indicators used to track progress towards project goals

  • Clear definitions of indicators

  • A description of the tools, methods, and data sources used to track indicators

  • The frequency of data collection

  • Who will be responsible for data collection

  • Who will be responsible for reporting

  • Community accountability mechanisms

  • Reporting and data sharing outputs, including format, timing of share-out, and recipients 

  • Resources for MEL plan implementation, including time, staffing, and budget

Think strategically about how you can demonstrate impact.

Many climate-SRHR projects aim to contribute to large-scale, societal shifts in health outcomes and climate resilience. Short-term projects may find it challenging to document their contribution to these types of changes, because such impacts often take time to generate. However, documenting impact is a critical part of generating evidence about effective practices and creating a strong pathway to scaling those practices.

Start by focusing on a few key questions that can be used to indicate your project’s impact - whether it is a small pilot or a multi-country program: 

  • Why does it matter?
    What change occurred, or is expected to occur, because of this project? How will that change - directly or indirectly - contribute to improved SRHR or climate resilience? 

  • Who benefits?
    What groups of people does the project focus on, and why? Are the people who are reached through this project groups who would be otherwise unserved or vulnerable? How did the project reach vulnerable populations, such as youth, women, people with disabilities, people living in poverty, people with limited education, etc.? If multiple groups were reached through similar activities, also document whether certain groups benefitted more from those activities than others, and why. 

Diverse approaches can help you to understand a project from multiple perspectives.

There is no one “right way” to do MEL for climate-SRHR projects. Using diverse MEL approaches can ensure that you are able to gather data that meets needs of the project, funder, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders. 

Both quantitative and qualitative methods can be powerful tools for storytelling, advocacy, and evidence generation. While quantitative data can provide powerful evidence of measurable change generated by a project’s activities, qualitative data plays a powerful role in contextualizing that evidence and understanding why specific trends were observed. 

Practical decisions around implementation processes and project management can also be strong factors in a project’s success. Careful documentation of implementation processes, as well as regular learning sessions, can help to identify these factors. This could include things like making childcare available to participants, choosing to use more expensive temperature dataloggers that have a longer battery life, considering gender of staff when conducting outreach, specific team skills or capacity building activities, etc. 

Finally, community-centered MEL approaches can ensure that project data reflects local knowledge and values. This may look like hosting focus groups with participants when building a MEL framework to understand what factors would make them feel more resilient to climate change, so that way those elements are appropriately integrated into project activities and indicators. It could also look like using participatory MEL approaches, instituting community accountability mechanisms, and engaging in regular share-back sessions.

Tool: Participatory and inclusive MEL approaches

CGIAR’s Gender and Inclusion Toolbox: Participatory Research in Climate Change and Agriculture is a valuable resource for identifying participatory, gender-responsive activities appropriate for rural communities facing climate change. The toolbox also includes logistics and planning resources. The Equality Fund’s report Feminist Approaches to Monitoring, Evaluation, & Learning: Overview of Current Practicesalso provides practical examples of a range of participatory, feminist MEL approaches. CDKN’s Advancing Gender Equality and Climate Action: A practical guide to setting targets and monitoring action also provides a range of inclusive strategies, recommendations, and case studies.

Document what you’ve learned, and share results widely. 

Climate-SRHR projects are the frontlines of action research. These projects generate much-needed evidence about what works, what doesn’t, and what’s still needed when it comes to addressing the impacts of climate change on SRHR. Yet without strong documentation, everything that is learned through a project can easily be lost.

  • Document key facts: Quick reference materials like project factsheets can make it easy for others to find key information about open and complete projects. Include basic information, like the timeline, funder, and beneficiaries reached, as well as any evidence around the change generated by the project, how data were used to inform project activities and future programming, and any lessons learned. Store all project data in a well-organized database so you can easily refer back to it in the future. 

  • Talk about your challenges: When it comes to climate change and SRHR, learning what doesn’t work is just as important as understanding what is effective. By speaking openly about programmatic challenges, implementation gaps, and strategies that didn’t yield the benefits you anticipated, you’re helping other organizations avoid similar pitfalls in the future.

  • Learn as you go: MEL is a continuous, iterative process. Ongoing learning sessions with staff are a valuable way to capture learnings during implementation, including process adaptations that might otherwise be missed. 

  • Is there a comparative?
    Have you analyzed your project’s impact against the counterfactual? Have you looked at the incremental impact achieved since baseline or compared to control groups? When this is not possible, it can be proxied by looking at how margins of improvement in implementation regions may compare to national / regional trends.

  • Is it durable?
    How much change is observed, and what is the durability of that impact? For example, this could mean looking at 12-month discontinuation rates for short acting methods of contraception, or looking at longer-term follow ups for initiatives that aim to improve learning or behavior change. 

  • How rigorous were the methods?
    When evaluating impact, were rigorous approaches used to draw conclusions? For example, consider sampling methods, sample size, measurement tools, statistical analysis approaches, etc. 

  • Build the evidence base: Though conducting formal research often comes with additional burdens - it can require additional technical expertise, incur more costs, and can be a slow process - it is also valuable for rigorous evaluation and documenting a project’s impact. Consider partnering with research institutions to augment your organization’s budget and technical capacity. 

  • Forward local voices and human stories: The data that you collect through a project’s MEL framework ultimately reflects the voices and experiences of the many participants in that project’s activities. Qualitative methods and multimedia storytelling can bring their experiences to the forefront, resulting in powerful stories that speak to the tangible impacts that beneficiaries of climate-SRHR projects experience.

Technical Guidance Monitoring, Evaluating, and Learning from Climate-SRHR Action

Climate-SRHR portfolios and projects pose unique MEL challenges. In this section, we provide technical guidance on how to address some of the biggest challenges that these projects face. You’ll find tools, examples, and other resources embedded throughout to support you as you learn.

What if my organization’s MEL resources are limited? 

In general, resource limitations can make MEL more challenging, including limitations around budget, time, and technical expertise. This is even more evident in climate-SRHR projects, which in some cases require different MEL approaches than traditional SRHR-focused programming. 

Each project’s MEL framework should be tailored to the project’s context, learning goals, budget, expertise, and donor requirements. Smaller, pilot projects will have different MEL needs than large, scaled-up programs. 

If your aim is to generate evidence that can be shared in peer-reviewed, academic journals, you may want to explore developing a partnership with researchers or an academic institution. External endline evaluation can also be a valuable part of gathering unbiased evidence about a project’s impact.

What if the Climate-SRHR indicator set doesn’t meet my needs?

Climate-SRHR projects are incredibly diverse. The indicators included in this indicator set are high-level and designed to provide coverage of common activities in a way that can readily be aggregated across projects. They cover many, but not all, potential indicators that your project may contribute to. You may need to customize or adapt these indicators for your specific needs. When doing so, remember that all indicators should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Customizing and adapting output indicators

You may need to include indicators specific to different SRHR outcomes, supply chains, contraceptive products, data and information systems, research, or other programmatic areas. If your project also includes activities that are focused on a sector beyond SRH, you will need to develop output indicators specific to those activities following best practices for those sectors. As you do so, try to consider if your indicator can be developed to align with or nest into an existing indicator in the dataset. 

You may also wish to track multiple related output indicators. For example, in addition to tracking the number of retrofitted health facilities, you may also wish to track the number of individuals receiving SRH services at retrofitted health facilities.  Similarly, in addition to tracking the number of preparedness plans developed, you may also wish to track the number of preparedness planning sessions and the number of  individuals participating in development of the preparedness plans (disaggregated by age and gender). Do not feel that you should exclusively draw from the Climate-SRHR indicator set or limit yourself to only one indicator per domain; include all of the indicators that you think are relevant to monitoring your project’s activities. 

Finally, in some cases, it may be more feasible and accurate to track higher-level output indicators, such as number of advocacy campaigns or number of learning events, rather than number of people reached. We encourage implementers to track both wherever possible.

Customizing and adapting outcome and impact indicators 

Clear documentation of a project’s outcomes - that is, the changes that occurred as a result of project activities - is essential for understanding to what extent a project achieved its aims. These data are vital for validating a project’s theory of change and identifying effective and high-impact practices to replicate and scale. 

Climate-SRHR projects may have outcomes that are related to SRHR and to climate resilience, both separately and together. Key outcomes for climate-SRHR projects may include changes to:

  • Climate-sensitive SRH outcomes (e.g., rate of severe maternal morbidity)

  • Health system and health service resilience (e.g., percent of health facilities upgraded to include climate-resilient infrastructure)

  • Measures of vulnerability, exposure, and individual and community resilience (e.g., composite resilience measures, perceived readiness, or targeted domains of resilience) Knowledge, adaptation processes, and behaviors (e.g., level knowledge about climate-related risks to SRH and adoption of strategies to respond to these risks) 

    To measure the change that takes place across a project, you will need to conduct a baseline assessment. 

Impact - the broad societal change a particular project aims to contribute to - may not be visible over a project lifecycle. It may be more readily tracked at the portfolio level. For funders, it’s important to track how SRHR outcomes and climate resilience outcomes shift overall - beyond the scope of any one project. This allows funders to see the aggregate results of multiple investments across a region, as well as see changes that occur beyond a single project’s timespan. Existing global indicator sets are a valuable resource for identifying impact indicators and tracking progress towards portfolio goals over time. For more information on this, including examples of how project indicators can “ladder up” into global indicators, see How can global indicators can be used to track change in SRHR and climate resilience outcomes?

How can global indicators can be used to track changes in SRHR and climate resilience outcomes?

Many of the project-level indicators in this dataset align with and can be linked to global indicator sets. 

For example, a project might be working with health facilities to improve maternal health outcomes in a region where extreme heat and flooding contribute to maternal mortality. A core outcome indicator for this project would be indicator 1.8: maternal mortality rate in facilities benefiting from climate-responsive SRHR activities. A portfolio could track this across all projects targeting maternal health, or could track maternal mortality rate at the national level. This aligns with SDG indicator 3.1.1: maternal mortality ratio, which tracks progress towards sub-goal 3.1: By 2030, reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births.

Another project might be working with climate-affected communities to increase women’s access to voluntary family planning methods. A core outcome indicator for this project would be indicator 1.13: proportion of women of reproductive age (15-49) in communities benefiting from climate-responsive SRHR activities who have their need for family planning satisfied with modern methods. A portfolio could track this across all projects targeting access to modern contraception, or could track access to modern contraception at the national level. This aligns with SDG indicator 3.7.1: proportion of women of reproductive age (aged 15–49 years) who have their need for family planning satisfied with modern methods, which tracks progress towards sub-goal 3.7: By 2030, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes.

Tool: Global Indicator Sets for Tracking Changes in SRHR and Climate Resilience Outcomes

We recommend selecting national-level indicators that are part of global measurement frameworks for ease of comparison across countries. For SRHR indicators, we recommend drawing on Guttmacher’s SDG-aligned SRHR indicators and the FP2030 Indicators. For climate resilience indicators, we recommend drawing on the ND-GAIN Index and the World Bank indicator set, which includes both a subset of climate-related indicators as well as a broad range of socioeconomic indicators linked to climate resilience. Focus on the domains of SRH and climate resilience of greatest relevance to your portfolio. For additional indicator sets, visit our Climate-SRHR MEL Toolbox.

What if a climate hazard or emergency affects my implementation site? 

Climate change is having significant impacts on SRH outcomes and service delivery. When a project implementation region is affected by a climate hazard during implementation, this may influence the project’s results. In some cases, no change (or even a small negative trend) may be considered successful; for example, if a project’s activities are able to maintain the level of access to services in the face of climate change, or if a project is able reduce the degree of negative impact on SRH from a particular climate hazard, that could indicate that is effective. Unfortunately, this is a situation in which conventional pre-/post-assessments (baseline/endline assessments) may be more limited in their ability to demonstrate effectiveness. In these cases, it is helpful to use a case-control approach in evaluation, enabling comparison between the region(s) that benefited from project activities and those that did not.

Ultimately, most climate resilience measures are proxy measures; it is not always possible to collect data that can indicate whether a project’s activities made a meaningful difference in individual or community level capacity to survive and recover from climate and weather emergencies. Therefore, if an extreme climate or weather event occurs during implementation, this can serve as a valuable opportunity for documenting a project’s activities to climate resilience. 

In the immediate aftermath of a weather emergency, the focus is often on providing life-saving care. As communities move from the emergency response stage to the recovery stage, it may be possible to assess both shorter and longer term impacts on: 

  • Whether health facilities were able to ensure that SRH services remained available, disaggregated by facility type, SRH service type, and geography

  • Changes in ability to access SRH services, disaggregated by age, gender, and geography 

  • Changes in SRH outcomes, disaggregated by age, gender, and geography  

  • Changes in SRH behaviors and preferences, disaggregated by age, gender, and geography

These moments are vital opportunities for documenting how climate hazards impact SRH outcomes and service delivery, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of climate-adaptive programming activities that are intended to strengthen overall climate resilience. In order for projects to effectively evaluate whether a particular adaptation was effective, they need to 1) have a clear understanding of what their adaptation or innovative approach is (e.g., what are they doing that is different from before?) and how it will positively impact resilience to a particular climate hazard and 2) have a baseline to compare against. 

Given the shortage of data on connections between climate change and SRHR, if a project tracks both 1) the broad suite of SRH outcomes that they are tracking progress towards and 2) general exposure to climate hazards, then it is possible for those projects to retroactively examine connections between experiencing climate change and SRH outcomes. 

Ultimately, additional measurement requires additional resourcing, both in terms of funding and technical research capacity. Funders should consider allotting specific funding for such rapid post-disaster assessments. 

Tool: Monitoring SRH in Emergency Settings

Climate-related extreme weather can produce and exacerbate humanitarian crises and emergencies. The Inter-Agency Field Manual on Reproductive Health in Humanitarian Settings is a rich resource for MEL of SRH activities in climate- and extreme weather-affected settings. The Field Manual provides guidance specific to monitoring Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP) implementation, as well as broad MEL guidance for humanitarian settings. 

How can a project forward a rights-based approach when working on contraception access and climate change?

Across all activities - whether you are working on service delivery, policy change, capacity building, etc. - make sure to forward a rights-based approach and a range of SRH services.

Use of modern contraception is not a strategy for mitigating climate change, and it does not inherently signal increased resilience to climate change. Rather, access to health services and improved individual SRH outcomes are signals of overall increased health and thus, increased climate resilience. Avoid monitoring only the number of modern contraception users, and consider adding in other metrics of SRH service access and quality where feasible. 

For example, Indicator 2: Climate-responsive SRH services are accessible in climate-vulnerable regions tracks the number of individuals in climate-affected areas receiving SRH services. This includes the full breadth of SRH services, and not just access to and uptake of modern contraception. By embedding all SRH services within this indicator, the indicator serves to reinforce activities, measurement, and policy development around all domains of SRH, thus forwarding a more holistic and rights-based understanding of SRH and its contribution to climate resilience.

What SRH medications and commodities should a project track? 

SRH medications and supplies include a range of products required to ensure the standard of care is met for SRH services, including pregnancy and delivery, experiences of GBV, HIV/STIs, contraception, etc.; for comprehensive lists of products needed for common and essential procedures, see the IAWG/UNFPA Reproductive Health Kits Manual (6th edition) and the Reproductive Health Access Project’s Reproductive Health Procedures Equipment and Supplies Lists. In resource limited settings, or when drawing data from national-level datasets, note that  it may only be possible to monitor availability of contraceptive products and not other SRH products. 

Tool: Calculating what SRH supplies are needed

IAWG’s Reproductive Health Kit Calculator can be used to determine the quantity of supplies needed based on facility type and catchment area size.

What are extreme climate and weather events, and how should we measure and define them?

Extreme weather has many different definitions and can be measured in many different ways. It can include:  

  • Relative extremes: These measures compare present-day weather observations (such as daily temperature) with the historic climate in that geography (typically over a 30 year reference period). Extremes - also called anomalies - are often defined as those in the 90th or 95th percentile of observations. While they are more specific to each place and can provide insights into deviations from the historic local climate, they typically involve greater familiarity with climate data to calculate. 

  • Absolute extremes: These measures determine weather extremes based on whether or not present-day weather observations cross a set, pre-determined threshold. For example, an absolute extreme heat day may be defined as a day when the daily temperature exceeds 35 degrees Celsius. They may be time bound, such as the number of centimeters per rain during a 24 hour period. 

  • Emergencies: Emergencies are often defined by not only the weather event itself but also its human impact. Emergencies may be defined by national disaster management authorities. The EM-DAT database defines emergencies based on number of fatalities, number of people affected, whether a state of emergency was declared, and whether there was an international call for assistance. 

  • Community-defined extremes: Community members may have their own criteria for recognizing extreme weather and weather-related emergencies. This is especially true for those who are highly dependent on the land, such as pastoralist and other traditional communities. 

Definitions for each of these terms may vary by country. These extremes can be tracked on various timescales, including daily, multi-day (e.g., heat waves or flooding events), or longer term (e.g., drought). The decision about how to define extremes and what types of extremes to monitor will depend on what data are available, how other stakeholders in the implementation region define these terms, and  the organization's technical capacity. 

When it comes to measurement, include all climate hazards that the project is explicitly trying to address as well as all other types of climate-related emergencies and weather extremes that may affect project functioning and the lives of beneficiaries. This can be done via: 

  • Installation of a weather station or temperature datalogger at each implementation site to enable collection of real-time weather data

  • Extracting weather-related emergency data from the EM-DAT database

  • Coordination with the national meteorological agency and national disaster management authority to ensure timely warning in advance of extreme weather and documentation of any national emergencies 

  • Global temperature and precipitation datasets, such as CHIRPS and CHIRTS

Choose a data source and hazard definition that is feasible for your organization’s expertise. Measuring relative extremes using global climate datasets is the most technically complex option, while measuring absolute extremes using weather stations or recording EM-DAT or nationally recognized emergencies are less technically complex options. 

What indicators and tools can be used for measuring climate adaptation, vulnerability, and resilience?

Measuring Climate Vulnerability

The ND-GAIN index offers globally comparable measures of climate vulnerability and readiness. However, this is a national-level measure. For some projects, it may be more valuable to focus on a localized quantitative measure of climate vulnerability. Some countries provide climate vulnerability ratings for specific districts or regions within the policy documents (e.g., NDC, NAP, HNAP, etc.). In other cases, there may be existing research from the region that provides this information. In cases where these data do not exist, project MEL teams can implement local measurement of climate vulnerability tailored to the specifics of the project. Visit Tools for Measuring Climate Vulnerability on our tools and resources page to learn more.

If you’re planning an endline evaluation that measures change in local climate vulnerability, changes in climate resilience, or changes in policy, you should also include contextual indicators that will be captured within your baseline and endline evaluation.

Indicators for Climate-Adaptive Behaviors 

The Clim-Eval Community of Practice’s Good Practice study provides the following examples of indicators for behavioral adaptation: 

  • General adaptive capacity: Percentage change in stakeholder behaviors utilizing adjusted processes, practices, or methods for managing climate change risks (UNDP 2007)

  • Agricultural adaptive capacity: Change in farmers adopting environmentally sustainable agricultural technologies and practices (supporting indicators: farmers practice compositing, multiple cropping, intercropping, rotations, biological control, integrated pest management) (World Bank 2005) 

  • Adaptive capacity related to awareness: Modification in behavior of targeted population (Adaptation Fund 2011, 2014)

  • Technological adaptive capacity: Percent of targeted groups adopting adaptation technologies by technology type and gender (GEF 2012)

Note that these indicators could also be adapted to reflect adaptation behaviors both within and beyond the health sector.

Tool: Measuring Climate Vulnerability, Climate Adaptation, and Climate Resilience 

Climate vulnerability, climate adaptation, and climate resilience are distinct, but related, topics. For more on these definitions, visit Key Terms under our SRHR, Climate Change, and MEL 101 page. Quantitative tools for measuring each of these are available in our Climate-SRHR MEL Toolbox. 


Tool: Measuring Climate Adaptation 

Many SRHR projects in climate-affected regions will also integrate multi-sectoral climate adaptation efforts. GIZ maintains a repository of climate adaptation indicators which includes a sub-set of indicators focused specifically on climate adaptation actions. The Good Practice Study from the Clim-Eval Community of Practice also outlines a range of climate adaptation indicator frameworks and example indicators for climate adaptation.

What’s the difference between different types of climate policies? 

When monitoring the policy context, it’s important to be familiar with the range of policy documents that shape and inform climate-SRHR action at the national level. There are three main types of climate policies to consider: Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and Health National Adaptation Plans (HNAPs). 

NDCs establish a country’s climate mitigation commitments under the 2016 Paris Agreement. While some NDCs include climate adaptation, this is not mandatory. Signatories to the Paris Agreement update these policies every five years. The UNFCCC secretariat oversees the NDC process.

NAPs outline a country’s climate adaptation strategies. Also referred to as the “NAP Process,” this country-driven process identifies climate risks and engages with diverse stakeholders to develop medium- and long-term options for addressing those risks. NAPs were introduced in the 2010 Cancun Agreement and initially focused on Least Developed Countries (LDCs), though were expanded to all countries under the Paris Agreement. Each country oversees their own NAP process, with support from the NAP Global Network, UNEP, UNDP, and others under the UNFCCC.

HNAPs - like NAPs - consist of both a process and plan. HNAPs outline a country’s health sector climate adaptation strategies. They also serve as a mechanism for ensuring that the health sector is represented in the NAP process. Each country’s Ministry of Health leads their own HNAP process, with technical support from WHO and other stakeholders. 

Ideally, a country’s NDC, NAP, and HNAP will all be aligned. In practice, each policy process may have slightly different priorities and timelines depending on which stakeholders are involved and how engagement is coordinated across sectors and policy processes. 

There are also other important national and sector-specific policies and strategies which may include (or impact) different domains of climate and SRHR, including those related to health, environment, water, gender, disaster management and emergency response, and economic development.

Tool: Understanding NDC, NAP, and HNAP Processes 

The NDC Partnership includes a range of resources on NDC and NAP development, including this overview of how NDCs and NAPs align and interact. NAP Global Network provides a list of frequently asked questions about NAP processes. WHO also provides guidance for HNAPs in Quality Criteria for Health National Adaptation Plans.

Tool: Gender and SRHR in Climate Policies

The Gender Climate Tracker analyses the robustness of gender integration in climate policies like NDCs. A database of country-level data on SRH integration in climate policies is available as a companion to our report Sexual and Reproductive Health  and Rights in National Adaptation Plans & Health National Adaptation Plans: A Global Review

Should climate-responsive projects take steps to reduce their own emissions?

This framework does not focus on climate mitigation; It focuses on building gender-responsive climate adaptation and resilience to climate change.

However, climate adaptation will be less costly and less difficult if climate mitigation measures are successfully taken at a global scale. Given the importance of collective action to reduce carbon emissions as part of mitigating climate change, we consider internal efforts to reduce a funder or implementer’s carbon emissions part of the “gold standard” for climate-responsive design. Doing so also demonstrates credibility, commitment, and leadership.

Organizations delivering or funding health programs and services can take steps to reduce their own carbon emissions and environmental footprint, in addition to making efforts to adapt to climate change. This can include avoiding and reducing waste; transitioning to renewable energy; reducing travel via telework and remote meetings; purchasing carbon offsets for transportation; choosing lower emissions transportation routes; prioritizing locally procured goods; or prioritizing recyclable, compostable, and/or biodegradable goods during procurement. For example, after Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) committed to reducing their net emissions by 50% by 2030, teams in Kyrgyzstan and Mozambique piloted an initiative to replace single-use face masks with reusable face masks. They’re also signatories to the Climate and Environment Charter for Humanitarian Organizations and issued an Environmental Pact outlining their organizational climate and environment commitments.

Ultimately, it is critical to center accountability and justice in discussions about climate change mitigation. Healthcare programs in low- and middle-income countries are not the major contributors to climate change. Moreover, these organizations are already overburdened with responding to the effects of a climate crisis that they did not create, often with insufficient financial resources.

Climate-responsive projects or programs should never aim to increase uptake of family planning as a mechanism for emissions reduction. Doing so undermines a rights-based and justice-centered approach, treating women’s bodies as tools for climate mitigation. This risks incentivizing coercive practices. It misplaces responsibility for climate change onto women and girls - particularly women and girls of color in low- and middle-income countries - instead of on corporations, governments, and individuals in high-income regions that are the greatest contributors to climate change. For more on this topic, see How can a project forward a rights-based approach when working on contraception access and climate change?

Examples and Case Studies of Climate-SRHR MEL

The purpose of these case studies is to demonstrate how the Climate-SRHR MEL framework, including the Climate-SRHR indicator set, can be applied to strengthen the MEL approaches for different types of climate-SRHR projects. 

This section features three fictional projects as they develop a theory of change, select indicators, and outline a high-level MEL plan, including: 

Case Study 01: A project addressing heat risks to pregnancy at maternity hospitals

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Case Study 02: A project conducting advocacy to integrate SRHR into a country’s HNAP

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Case Study 03: A project aimed at improving access to SRH commodities during floods

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This section also highlights real-world organizations working on similar projects, so you can learn more about how projects like these are actually implemented.