Two weeks on the beach in Cancun ought to be enough to banish winter blues – but is unlikely to next week for Connie Hedegaard and the other EU climate negotiators. Never mind that there probably won’t be time for them to feel the sand between their toes.

Evaluation can provide the perfect platform for an evolving aid policy agenda. In making further improvements, the key task is to see the wood for the trees – about overall political policy-making, about the commitment to multilateralism, and about the capacities of aid agencies in the future.