Independent Evaluation of the Green Climate Fund’s Readiness and Preparatory Support Programme (PRSP)

The Readiness and Preparatory Support Programme (RPSP), created in 2014 by the GCF, has a mandate to provide three levels of readiness and preparatory support. First, it supports the preparation of country programmes providing for low‐emission, climate‐resilient development strategies or plans. Second, the RPSP supports and strengthens in‐country, GCF‐related institutional capacities. Finally, it supports implementing entities and intermediaries to meet the GCF’s fiduciary principles and standards. Universalia conducted an evaluation that assessed the effectiveness of the RPSP. The evaluation explored the extent to which the programme’s processes were fulfilling the intended objectives of the RPSP and reviewed implementation approaches to guide recommendations for improved alignment with the objectives of the programme; and recommended gains in effectiveness, efficiency, country ownership and sustained impact. The evaluation team adopted a utilization-focused approach and framework, whose main objective is to be useful to its intended users in terms of providing learning, informing decision-making, and improving performance overall. The approach adopted for this work was Theory Based Evaluation (TBE), which consisted of reconstructing and testing the Theory of Change (ToC) of the RPSP and examining how casual links corresponded to major learning needs. Additionally, the team conducted a meta-analysis to benchmark the RPSP against similar activities being undertaken by other initiatives.