Mid-Term Evaluation of Resilient Cities Network's Energy Resilience Program

Resilient Cities Network (R-Cities) is the world’s leading urban resilience network, made up of over 100 member cities globally. It brings together global knowledge, practice, partnerships, and funding to empower its members to build safe and equitable cities for all. R-Cities' Urban Power program aims to improve cities' capacity to respond to shocks and stresses while managing the shift to an inclusive, low-carbon economy, which will be a powerful driver in creating green jobs, promoting social justice and eradicating poverty. The program is implemented in four cities in Africa and Latin America.

Nurai conducted a mid-term evaluation of the Urban Power program. We reviewed the MEL framework, systems and processes for the program, interviewed city officials, program staff and program partners, and provided actionable recommendations for improvement. The team used the mid-term evaluation to facilitate internal discussions to make program design improvements and to guide future scaling to additional cities within the network.

Nurai also assessed and recommended improvements to systems for tracking, analyzing, and reporting program activities and outcomes. This included supporting the recruitment and training of an MEL associate, and training and mentoring MEL staff to implement these recommendations effectively.

For R-Cities' MEL systems more broadly, Nurai helped developed new systems to operationalize the R-Cities MEL framework, training MEL staff on the use of appropriate software and data collection tools to enable the aggregation and analysis of data across the program portfolio.