TRACKING OUTCOMES: OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT TRACKING
What? It is often not clear what outcomes are really desired by many conservation organisations in large scale conservation and development interventions. It is certainly difficult to reach agreement amongst all stakeholders as to what is wanted. The outcome assessment approach is based upon negotiations amongst all stakeholders on what they want to achieve. Then indicators have to be selected that will tell us the progress we are making in achieving these outcomes. Indicators of changes in the capital assets (natural, built, human, social and financial capitals) give us a holistic view of the efficacy of our interventions.
Why? This approach is useful in situations where we are dealing with a landscape mosaic, when we need to know how much forest is needed for conservation, how much land for agriculture etc. It should be used early in the process of project formulation in order to make project outcomes transparent and easily measurable.
What’s the time investment? The indicator sets can be developed in a few days during a multi-stakeholder meeting. A technical level person, or small team, will then have to be allocated the task of conducting the first, baseline assessment. This may require extensive field surveys and depending upon the complexity of the situation and the availability of data, may take several months. The process will have to be repeated every year to track progress – so an annual meeting will be needed to review progress and adapt management as needed.
An example of tracking outcomes, e-Files:
PDF Complete file :
Benoue National Park
(French, size 418 Kb)
