Background
At the request of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), SEO Amsterdam Economics conducted the mid-term evaluation of the Climate and Energy Response Facility (CERF) between May and December 2024. Launched in November 2021, CERF aims to assist partner countries in their climate and energy transitions through climate diplomacy. Acting as an intermediary, CERF facilitates collaborations between Dutch Embassies, partner country stakeholders, and Dutch companies and knowledge institutions. CERF’s first phase is set to conclude in 2025.

The evaluation served both accountability and learning purposes. For accountability purposes, the evaluation team reviewed CERF activities and outcomes from November 2021 to September 2024 in order to determine to what extent the programme was on track to meet its objectives. For learning purposes, the evaluation team identified lessons learned and developed recommendations to further improve the programme.

Key findings

  1. Relevance: CERF was viewed as a valuable partner in climate diplomacy by Dutch Embassies, owing to its flexibility, technical expertise, and networks. Nevertheless, the selection of countries and niches requires deeper consideration of risks, opportunities, and country-specific conditions, such as renewable energy infrastructure, political commitments, and existing fossil fuel lobbies.
  2. Coherence: CERF’s programmatic approach was found to foster linkages within the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other RVO instruments such as ‘combi-tracks’. However, there was room to further improve external coordination with Dutch-funded programs, development finance institutions, climate funds and NGOs.
  3. Short-term effectiveness: CERF successfully raised awareness of climate issues within embassies and, to a lesser extent, partner governments. CERF also connected Dutch companies with partner countries for knowledge transfer and facilitating private sector innovation and investment. This fostered trade and investment opportunities for Dutch SMEs in niches like aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) in Japan, deforestation monitoring in Colombia, or waste-to-energy initiatives in Nigeria.
  4. Long-term Impact: CERF’s transformative impact was limited during its initial phase, due to its relatively small budget and the time required for substantial policy change. In some countries, such as Algeria and Colombia, CERF was found to have potential to generate transformative long-term climate impact. In other countries (such as South Africa and Indonesia) this is less likely, due to entrenched barriers for the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables.
  5. Gender Focus: while very few explicit gender-focused activities had taken place by the time of the evaluation, the CERF Gender Guide introduced in June 2024 put more emphasis on gender in CERF activities, and gender objectives started to become part of project intake forms by the end of 2024. Going forward, there is scope for CERF to further promote gender mainstreaming, conduct targeted gender analyses, and offer capacity-building for women in male-dominated sectors.

Key recommendations

  1. Update Monitoring and Impact Framework: broaden CERF’s Theory of Change to include adaptation, biodiversity, and sustainability goals. Set realistic medium-term targets aligned with the program’s scale and objectives.
  2. Adapt strategies for immediate outcomes: in the short term, focus resources on countries with high opportunities, local commitment, and strong Embassy-CERF advisor relationships. Reassess some existing niches or countries with limited prospects.
  3. Leverage success stories of the Dutch private sector and knowledge institutes: build upon demonstrated successes to position Dutch expertise globally. For instance, successful innovative Dutch energy niches such as developed for Japan, Colombia, and Nigeria could be scaled up to other countries with similar needs.
  4. Focus on more achievable short-term outcomes at policy level. Examples of achievable short-term outcomes are the establishment of platforms, working groups, and the appointment of partner government representatives for certain niches such as wind, solar, circular economy, or ATES.
  5. Enhance investor engagement: Develop a strategy to engage international financial institutions and climate finance partners. Appoint a climate finance staff member to strengthen collaboration with organisations such as Invest International, FMO (Dutch development bank), and GIZ (German institute for development cooperation).
  6. Strategic long-term focus: Create a coherent strategy for country, niche, and investor engagement, based on opportunities, risks, and Dutch Embassy capacities. This may involve reassessing progress periodically and concentrating resources on promising areas.

Methods
The evaluation applied a triangulated approach, incorporating multiple methods:

  1. Desk Review of CERF documents.
  2. Survey among 31 Dutch Embassy staff across 21 CERF countries.
  3. Interviews with RVO staff and key CERF stakeholders.
  4. Case Studies: in-depth assessments of CERF activities in Algeria, Colombia, Indonesia, and South Africa, using contribution analysis to evaluate outcomes and transformative potential.
  5. Workshops: the evaluation team conducted a “Theory of Change” workshop to further operationalise CERF’s theories of change at country level, and a Validation Workshop to validate evaluation findings and develop recommendations into an action plan with CERF advisors and management.