Joint Nordic Organisational Assessment of the Nordic Development Fund (NDF)

A decade ago, the Nordic Development Fund (NDF) received a new mandate: climate financing. The fund and its program activities have now been evaluated, upon request and with financial contributions from five Nordic evaluation units, including from Danida’s Evaluation and Research Department. The Swedish Expert Group for Aid Studies (EBA) has coordinated and published the evaluation.

Overall, NDF as a multilateral development finance institution is well-functioning. Despite its relative anonymity NDF adds value internationally within the climate change finance architecture. However, in order to give grounds for a necessary re-financing, it needs to undertake a number of reforms.

Some key conclusions from the evaluation:

• The NDF is well-functioning and has good future potential, though, the owners need to contribute more capital if programs are to continue.

• The focus on climate adaptation provides a clear value added, as do the flexible and rapid working methods. The cooperation with multilateral development banks is established and a clear advantage.

• To preserve and develop the strengths of the NDF, a theory of change that provides a clear strategic orientation to the activities needs to be developed as soon as possible.

• The specific challenge fund, the ‘Nordic Climate Facility’ (NCF), needs to be better integrated into the NDF.

• NDF needs to improve its system for monitoring, evaluation and learning. Knowledge about effects from its investments is currently much too weak.

Further information at https://eba.se/en/rapporter/joint-nordic-organisational-assessment-of-the-nordic-development-fund-ndf/11350/