Developing a MEL framework for energy transition partnerships in emerging markets

In February 2022, the Australian Government announced it was exploring ways to build and deepen partnerships with emerging trade partners in Asia, including in Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) markets. The then government was developing a new strategy to boost trade and partnerships within the gas sector to support the global energy transition towards low-carbon energy sources. We supported the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR) to establish a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) framework to evaluate the new strategy’s progress over the next decade. 

Challenges

Gas plays an important role in the energy sector in many countries. It can be used to replace more polluting fuels such as coal in the power sector, or petrol and diesel in the transport sector as part of a wider energy transition to low-carbon energy sources.

Australia is developing its gas basins to serve domestic, established, and new export markets.  LNG markets are underwritten by long-term contracts that require long-term partnerships. With demand from Asia for reliable sources of gas expected to continue, DISR was looking to develop new and enhanced partnerships with emerging markets in Asia to support the energy transition across the region.

We worked with DISR to develop a MEL framework for building and sustaining partnerships and relationships to facilitate the development and access to new LNG markets for Australia. 

This included collaborating with the department to think through:

• how to build relationships with new (or first time) LNG trade partners
• how to monitor and evaluate the ‘depth’ and ‘strengthening’ in relationships over time
• how to select metrics appropriate to measue and evaluate outcomes

Our approach

Using a participatory approach, we facilitated interactive workshops and structured discussions with the team at DISR to support decision-making and build their longer-term capacity and understanding of designing and using MEL systems and approaches. This is being supplemented with desk-based literature reviews and key informant discussions to capture the latest good practices in designing, monitoring and evaluating partnership-based programmes in the gas sector. We also supported with case studies of equivalent government-to-government partnerships that highlighted international best practice.

Expected outcomes

At the end of the project, DISR will have a relevant and measurable theory of change for how to support partnerships in the gas sector between Australia and emerging markets in Asia. This will allow them to further design and deliver specific projects and initiatives as well as evaluate and learn from the results.

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