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Chapter 1
How This Handbook Can Help
This handbook is intended for practitioners: people who are or expect to be involved in developing and implementing NSDSs or other multi-sectoral national strategies. Its aim is to help them improve and build on existing strategies or start one if none exist. Its advice is based on an analysis of past and current practice, drawing directly from the experience of practitioners of many strategic approaches.
The handbook does not suggest conformation to a single model: each strategy should be designed and run by the government and citizens of the country concerned.
The handbook is not an instruction manual. Users are recommended to study it and reflect on its implications for their own circumstances, and then to design an approach suitable for local purposes, conditions and available resources. We strongly encourage implementation of existing multi-sectoral strategies. They may be narrower in scope and less ambitious than an NSDS, but any improvements needed can be introduced concurrently with implementation.
Purpose of the handbook
This handbook is intended for practitioners ā people in governments, citizensā and community groups, educational institutions, businesses and international organizations ā who are or could be involved in developing and implementing a multi-sectoral strategy on environment and development at the national or provincial level.
The handbook describes how to use multisectoral strategies to integrate environmental, economic and social concerns in national development processes. It aims to help improve the usefulness and effectiveness of all such strategies: national sustainable development strategies (NSDSs), national conservation strategies (NCSs), national environmental action plans (NEAPs), and others.
The handbook suggests ways of developing and implementing an NSDS, either by building on an existing strategy or, if none exist, from scratch. Difficulties have been encountered with existing strategies because their scope is broad and they involve many different sectors and interests. Strategies are complex processes, and managing them is logistically demanding. Although similar to existing strategies in many ways, NSDS processes are likely to be even more challenging. Their scope is wider, and their task of combining economic, environmental and social concerns will increase their technical complexity, the extent of participation required, and hence their political profile.
At the same time, the development and implementation of strategies whose focus is largely environmental ā such as most NCSs and NEAPs ā will continue to be important. The handbookās discussion of how to organize and manage strategies applies to these strategies as well as to the more ambitious NSDSs.
The handbook is based on an analysis of past and current practice, drawing directly from the experience of practitioners of many strategic approaches. It is a distillation of Ā¦lessons learned from more than 60 national and provincial conservation strategies, environmental action plans, development plans and other multi-sectoral strategies in 50 upper- and lower-income countries since 1980. Case studies of some of these strategies have been published in IUCNās series of Regional Reviews of Strategies for Sustainability.
Many practitioners have contributed to the handbook by sharing their experience in workshops in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe. In so doing, they have helped develop the concept of strategies, raise standards, and propose ways of expanding their scope towards strategies for sustainable development.
Many of the methods described have been used successfully in current strategies. However, experience with strategies is evolving rapidly, and appropriate methods for some strategy elements have yet to be fully developed or tested. Some practices ā for example, participatory inquiry ā have been used successfully in other contexts and seem to hold promise for strategies as well. Other methods ā for example, certain techniques of monitoring and evaluation ā have not been tested, but are intended to meet needs recognized by a wide range of practitioners. Every strategy is to some extent experimental, and needs to be accompanied by research and monitoring.
Each countryās strategy will be very different and will need to suit the nationās individual set of geographical, ecological, sociocultural, economic and political conditions. Any form of straitjacket imposed by external agencies or conditions is inappropriate. This handbook does not suggest conformation to a single model: each strategy should be designed and run by the government and citizens of the country concerned.
How to use the handbook
The handbook presents principles and ideas on process and methods, and suggests how they can be used. It is not an instruction manual for a āmodelā strategy for constant reference during the strategy process. Users are recommended to study the handbook, to consider its relevance and implications for their own circumstances, and then to design an approach suitable for local purposes, conditions and available resources.
We recommend reading every chapter in sequence for users who have not yet been involved in developing a strategy, are in the early stages of preparing a new strategy, or are considering revising an existing strategy to cover a more ambitious remit (for example, an NSDS). Other users may wish to concentrate on particular elements of the strategy process.
The handbook describes the main kinds of multi-sectoral national strategies. It suggests how to start a new strategy, as well as different ways to build on an existing strategy. It sets out essential conditions for an effective multi-sectoral strategy, ways of developing the required conditions, and alternative approaches if conditions remain unfavourable.
The handbook then provides guidance on the design and management of the strategy process, and on its main elements: participation, information assembly and analysis, policy formulation, action planning, implementation and capacity-building, communication, and monitoring and evaluation. This is the heart of the handbook, and should be useful for anyone who is actively engaged in planning, managing, or reviewing a national strategy process.
We strongly encourage implementation of existing multi-sectoral strategies. They may be narrower in scope and less ambitious than an NSDS, but any improvements needed can be introduced concurrently with implementation. It would be a mistake to postpone implementation by starting another process or preparing another document. The intention of this handbook is not to undermine any existing strategic process, but to show ways in which it can be strengthened and made more effective.
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Chapter 2
Ten Lessons and Features
for Success
In 1980, the World Conservation Strategy (WCS) (IUCN/UNEP/WWF 1980) recommended that countries undertake national and subnational conservation strategies. Since then, hundreds of countries and communities have developed and implemented strategies. Some have been inspired by the WCS, others by Our Common Future (WCED 1987), still others by Caring for the Earth (IUCN/UNEP/WWF1991) and Agenda 21 (UNCED 1992). Some have been motivated or assisted by international organizations, such as the World Bank, UNSO, UNDP, IIED, WRI and IUCN. Others have acted on their own initiative or relied entirely on their own resources.
Reflecting their different histories, the strategies go by various names: conservation strategy, environmental action plan, environmental management plan, environmental policy plan, sustainable development strategy, national Agenda 21, and so on. They are referred to here by the umbrella term of āstrategies for sustainabilityā Diverse though they are, the more successful strategies have common features, and lessons can be learned from them all. Here, ten lessons from fourteen years of experience with strategies for sustainability are summarized. We return to them regularly throught the handbook.
1. Strategies seek to improve and maintain the well-being of people and ecosystems
A strategy for sustainability is a process of:
2. The overall goal of strategies is, sustainable development
Most strategies for sustainability have focused on environmental objectives. A few, such as Bhutanās Seventh Five-Year Plan, have mainly development objectives. But in all cases the ultimate goal is to improve the condition of both people and the ecosystems of which they are a part. This goal is variously described as sustainable development, sustainable living or sustainable well-being. It means that strategies have an important role as integrators of socio-economic and ecological perspectives and of the policies, plans and programmes of interacting sectors and interest groups.
3. The choice of strategy objectives should be tactical
With a broad goal such as sustainable development, it is tempting to try to do everything. But strategies with too many objectives can get bogged down, break up into a mess of projects, or reduce the objectives to those that are top priority.
Strategies need objectives that are:
ā¢ few enough to be achievable;
ā¢ encompassing enough to ensure the support of participants and prevent the strategy being fragmented and losing coherence; and
ā¢ clearly defined and measurable enough to assess-progress.
4. The strategy process is adaptive and cyclical
A strategy is a process, not an isolated event. The process is adaptive; it develops as it goes along and responds to change. It is cyclical; over a period of several years, the main components are repeated. This means that a strategy need not and should not try to do everything at once. It can grow in scope, ambition and degree of participation as capacities to undertake the strategy are built. Pakistan, for example, started with a national conservation strategy and went on to develop provincial conservation strategies; Malaysia developed state strategies first and then a national strategy. Neither tried to develop national and subnational strategies at the same time.
5. The strategy should be as participatory as possible
Participation means sharing responsibility for the strategy and jointly undertaking it. The participants in a strategy should be those whose values, knowledge, technology or institutions need to change or be strengthened to achieve the objectives. The objectives determine the participants and the participants decide the objectives. Participants bring information to the strategy, ensuring that it is based on a common understanding of purpose, problems and solutions. Participation is the most effective way of communicating the information on which the strategy is based, its objectives, and the actions to be taken. People who participate in designing and deciding actions are more likely to understand their purpose and to implement them in full.
Participation should be expanded as the strategy develops. Usually, the nature and extent of participation will vary with the type of strategy and how far it has evolved. In many national strategies, for example, local involvement is at first selective and focused on representative communities.
6. Communication is the lifeblood of a strategy
Communication is the means by which:
ā¢ participants exchange information with each other about values, perceptions, interests, ecosystems, resources, the economy and society;
ā¢ participants reach agreement with each other on actions;
ā¢ values are changed or strengthened and knowledge is imparted; and
ā¢ participants inform others about the strategy.
Therefore, communication needs to be planned carefully as an integral part of the strategy.
7. Strategies are processes of planning and action
Planning is an important part of a strategy, but a strategy is much more than a plan. It is a process of developing a long-term vision or sense of direction; targeting the key things that can be done to move in that direction (priority issues, key influences on those issues, and the most effective ways of dealing with them); and engaging everyone concerned ā businesses, citizensā groups, communities, as well as governments ā to carry them out.
The main components of a strategy are:
ā¢ assessment, including diagnosis (survey, issue, identification and analysis at the start of a strategy) and monitoring and evaluation (during a strategy);
ā¢ designing the actions (planning); and
ā¢ taking the actions (implementation).
These components must continue together and reinforce one another. Most strategies have begun by working in sequence: diagnosis first; then planning; then implementation. But this need not be the case. It is better that implementation, for example, starts early; it does not have to wait for all planning to be completed. Once the strategy is underway, implementation and monitoring should be continuous. Evaluation and the planning of new actions should be repeated at intervals; for example, every three to five years.
Monitoring and evaluation are vital for success; keeping the strategy on course and enabling it t...
