Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance – MERL

A multi-sectoral partnership supporting communities to strengthen their climate resilience

The Program

2024-2027

Geographic scope: Albania, Bangladesh, Bolivia, El Salvador, Fiji, Germany, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Montenegro, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, Sudan, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Zimbabwe

Partners: Z Zurich Foundation, Concern Worldwide, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), London School of Economics (LSE) Grantham Institute, Mercy Corps, Plan International, Practical Action

Funder: Z Zurich Foundation

Monitoring, Evaluation + Learning (MEL)

Program Design + Implementation

Resilience Tools + Frameworks

Applied Research

Technical Consultancies

Overview

The Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance (Alliance) is a multi-sectoral partnership powered by the Z Zurich Foundation and focused on enhancing resilience to climate hazards in rural and urban communities. Our goal is that by 2035, we will positively impact 70 million people vulnerable to climate change. We aim to deliver impact at scale and unlock new pathways through which communities can thrive by implementing solutions, promoting good practice, influencing policy and facilitating systems change.

Achieving these goals requires not just well designed and impactful work, but innovative M&E that effectively documents the impact of the work. ISET has been the Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting, and Learning (MERL) lead for the Alliance since 2018. For the current program, launched in 2024, ISET is developing and implementing a cutting edge monitoring system combining progress reporting, Outcome Harvesting, and quantitative assessment of program impact.

What we deliver

ISET-International, as MERL lead:

Leads on monitoring and reporting, including the production of useful knowledge products that build the evidence base on building resilience and achieving systems change;
Uses M&E to share learning and facilitate peer-to-peer learning with the Alliance; and
Supports capacity development for Alliance country teams, particularly with respect to drawing out and packaging stories of impact and change.

Key outcomes/results

Developed the Alliance’s Global Theory of Change and associated indicators to track progress and impact;
Collaboratively established an approach to measuring the number of people impacted as a result of both community programming and advocacy successes to meet donor and program needs;
Developed a monitoring system with quantitative and qualitative reporting components to track progress, impact and learning for use by all 33 country and global teams;
Annually, synthesize the Alliance’s monitoring data into annual Alliance Progress and Learning reports highlighting successes, challenges, and lessons learned; and
Showcase learning on what works for building resilience.