Uganda conserve biodiversity for sustainable development (COBS) support project : project final evaluation

Associates in Rural Development (ARD) was the principal contractor. COBS achieved some remarkable results. It helped the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) adopt system-wide changes that over time will halt encroachment into protected areas (PAs), improve ecosystem health, and restore wildlife populations. COBS also engaged district, subcounty, and parish local government structures and involved council members and local populations in defining a state-of-the-art district environment action plans (DEAPs) approach that has been adopted as the national standard and emulated, with varying success, in non-COBS districts. The approach has also served as a model for planning in other sectors, and facilitated the incorporation of environmental concerns into a number of other annual sectoral plans. The participatory process involving local populations and subdistrict institutions has paved the way for the plans and type of partnerships envisioned under strategic objective (SO)7. COBS also provided support upon request to the Mission in achieving the COBS SO and integrating it with the economic growth SO. This provision was called on mostly to assist the nascent Environmental Conservation Trust of Uganda (ECOTRUST), which without COBS support might not have survived in its efforts to achieve long-term sustainability as a national environment, conservation, and sustainable development grant- making body. On the down side, in an attempt to enhance tangible impact, COBS concentrated its efforts geographically and emphasized transitioning from planning to plan implementation for both PAs and the surrounding rural landscapes. Plan implementation was limited and quite late. Beneficiaries would have profited more from an earlier start or more time for implementation. COBS was unable to achieve parallel accomplishments in institutionalizing environmental assessment, review, and management. From the outset, USAID's strategic refocusing of COBS meant that the project's original results module, directed to establishing environmental liaison units within national lead agencies, was dropped. Efforts at the national level failed to gain traction and were scaled back following a reduction in the project budget. Training, awareness, and capacity-building at the field level were well received, but accomplishments have not been securely institutionalized. Although the project had some success in training district officials and local populations, the country is still without systems of certification for practitioners, of audit and compliance, and of incorporation of environmental measures across multiple sectors. ARD's "landscape approach" and the intended synergies sought through geographic concentration were realized only to a limited degree, partly because UWA insisted that ARD's primary PA effort be directed to the outlying Murchison Falls National Park. Sustainability of outreach programs was not achieved due to lack of an institutional home beyond the project. The project achieved some success in developing innovative participatory approaches in its environmental awareness and management and in its public information and education campaigns, but the effect will be substantial only if the successes are institutionalized and replicated. In terms of impact and sustainability, the UWA has committed to perennially funding a fully staffed planning unit, which is already autonomously applying the general management planning system developed with COBS support. The system has been adopted for the country's entire PA system. As tourism and UWA revenues increase over time, the unit can be expected to achieve more independence from donor program support. Also with COBS support, UWA adopted system-wide use of annual operation plans. Through the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA), COBS engaged local government and its development and civil society partners to achieve comprehensive planning and, to a large extent, to mainstream environmental concerns in the target districts of southwestern Uganda. The human resources, both political and technical, within districts, subcounties, and parishes have embraced a participatory process that connects environment with the overall move toward decentralization. The financial resources available to the districts are significant and varied, and the integration of environment into the overall district development plans bodes well for sustained financing for program implementation even in the heavily populated portions of the region. The following lessons were learned: (1) Program coordination is critical to success. (2) Focusing on opportunities and not constraints contributed immensely to the project's level of success. In particular, vision-based planning led to rapid and widespread stakeholder buy-in. (3) Avoiding parallel structures helps transfer ownership and makes a real difference.