26/6/2013: Senegalese CSOs have developed impact indicators to assess a project's capacity to serve vulnerable people. After meetings and dialogue with CSOs, the Adaptation Fund Board has decided to use the impact indicators to assess adaptation projects in Senegal.

Through an interactive dialogue with the Adaptation Fund Board for their adoption, impact indicators proposed by Senegalese CSOs were shared in a workshop with all the stakeholders and beneficiaries of the "Adaptation to Coastal Erosion in Vulnerable Areas of Senegal" project.

Senegal was one of the first countries in the world to benefit from the Adaptation Fund, and the Centre de Suivi Ecologic (CSE) became one of the first National Implementing Entities (NIE) accredited to manage the "Adaptation to Coastal Erosion in Vulnerable Areas of Senegal" project.

The accreditation meant that CSE became responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of projects funded through the Adaptation Fund and for ensuring that projects comply with all the administrative, financial and technical requirements.

CSE works in a participative way with government bodies as well as CSOs such as ENDA-Energie-Environnement Développement, Conseil des ONG d'Appui au Développement (CONGAD), Wetlands, WWF, and the Réseau Africain pour le Développement Intégré (RADI), as well as organisations involved in the implementation (e.g. GREEN Senegal and Dynamique Femme).

Improved participation in projects
Next to that work, some CSOs such as ENDA, Fundación Vida (Honduras) and Panos Caribbean (Jamaica) developed a project under the lead of GermanWatch (www.af.network.org) to improve their participation in Adaptation Fund projects

ENDA developed activities of watchdog, monitoring, capacity building and information for the communities, especially the main beneficiaries. ENDA developed a baseline mapping which allowed moving towards impact indicators going beyond the main performance indicators and assess the project's impact on populations.

During the interactive dialogue between the Adaptation Fund Board (AFB) and CSOs in December 2011, the AFB adopted the impact indicators developed by the CSOs on the basis of the Senegalese project for a better assessment of the project's impact on the populations, their economy and environment.

Indicators convince key stakeholders
In line with the adoption, the Senegalese CSOs were keen to materialize the ideas through an exercise of identification of impact indicators. After that exercise, ENDA published a study describing the impact assessment in the localities Joal, Saly and Rufisque.

The study has been presented during a national workshop, organized by ENDA in Joal from 14 to 15, February 2013 to exchange opinions on the progress of the project and the refining of indicators. It gathered key stakeholders such as the NIE, Government Representatives, Local Authorities, Executive Entities, CBOs and Entrepreneurs. The indicators were approved by the participants and may be used for the assessment of other Adaptation Fund projects.

 Study based on beneficiaries
Four categories of impact indicators have been focused on: Institutional, economic, environmental and social. Joal's table is the following:

Source: Enda Energie-Environnement-Développement