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A strategy is more likely to be successfully implemented if it concentrates on a few priority issues. These issues should be central to maintaining or improving the well-being of people and ecosystems and to achieving agreed economic objectives. They should be sufficiently high profile or be able to be tackled effectively to generate political support for the strategy. And the strategy should be able to make a clear difference in the way the existing decision-making system deals with the issues.

A few broad but well-defined and measurable objectives are necessary for each issue, to enable monitoring and evaluation of the strategy and ensure it gets results. Participants analyze the issues to reach agreement on the objectives, and the policies and actions required to achieve them. This includes preparing a policy framework as well as specific cross-sectoral and sectoral policies. The policy framework should clearly relate the strategy policy to the other policies of government (and of other participants in the strategy), identifying which policies may override it and the circumstances when they may do so, and which policies are subordinate. The last of the basic elements in planning a strategy is clearly defining the actions needed to put the policies into effect.

The start-up phase discussed in Chapter 6 should have left the strategy team with a number of strong assets to begin in earnest their work on strategy design. The basic management structure should be in place, with the steering committee and secretariat fulfilling their respective roles and answering to an authority, possibly a cabinet committee. This structure should have firm political backing and credibility among the key participants. Core funding, adequate for three to five years, should have been identified and a firm inter-active relationship established with any donors involved, including, even at this early stage, a mechanism for donor coordination. The setting should have been reviewed thoroughly for the potential to build on past or current strategies and to forge close working relations with those that have ongoing activities or structures which could reinforce the NSDS process. Finally, a range of initial thoughts should have been written down and discussed in sufficient detail for the decisions to be made to progress to a fully fledged strategy process. This documentation may have included a project proposal or prospectus which made an early attempt, with limited external input, to define the issues, purpose and strategy process.

The strategy team will now be in a position to enlarge the process into a broader range of interlocking activities. This chapter is about the planning or design of a strategy, from the definition action planning. Yet it is particularly important at this point to begin implementation in fields which have already been defined and endorsed by government, possibly through other strategy processes. For example, if an NCS, TFAP, NEAP or Biodiversity Action Plan has established a framework for action for particular policies that would fall within the broader scope of an NSDS, then the strategy team should work with the appropriate agencies in nurturing their selective implementation.

It might be that the government has decided to retain and expand an existing strategy process, such as an NCS, which has come the full cycle and requires thorough policy review and revision. In that case, an implementation programme would be underway and would feed the updating process. The earlier that implementation begins, the better. This message is repeated often in this handbook and spelled out in Chapter 8.

How the detailed planning for a strategy proceeds will have a considerable influence on the level of commitment that the many interest groups or ‘stakeholders’ are likely to bring to implementation.

Strategies may be designed in a variety of ways but there are five generic elements which reflect the lessons of experience:

Long preparation efforts can exhaust participants and produce policies and plans that are overtaken by events as soon as (or sometimes before) they are adopted. Preparation should be in proportion to what can be implemented. It is important to target only a few issues, within a coherent strategic framework, and approach them successfully.

It is axiomatic that a strategy is selective. The most comprehensive development strategies pay little attention to biodiversity or ecological processes. And the most ambitious conservation strategies devote much more time to environment and resources than to health or social issues. Even so, many multi-sectoral strategies have started out trying to cover more than is practical. Usually, their scope has narrowed sharply once their policies have been adopted and their implementation is due. The Pakistan NCS, for example, reduced its core programmes from 14 to 8, which still may be too many for the resources available.

The Netherlands began by limiting the scope of its National Environmental Policy Plan to eight themes, consisting of interconnected issues with common environmental or economic causes (Box 15). The issues are crucial elements of the environment development problems faced by the Netherlands, and are few enough to be manageable.

Strategies that do not deliberately limit their scope waste time, money and effort on subjects they will end up doing little about. At best, this delays the point when the strategy tackles the priority issues. At worst, it increases the risk of the strategy losing political support and being dismissed as an unrealistic document.

Concentration on a few priority issues helps forge a unity of purpose among participants, gives focus to the strategy, and prevents it from becoming bogged down by trying to be too comprehensive. It is also easier to monitor and evaluate the strategy, and hence to keep it on track and ensure results.

The steering committee could help participants to reach agreement on priority issues by adopting criteria for deciding priorities. A priority issue might be one that meets the following criteria:

Box 15: Objectives and indicators: an example from the Netherlands

The ambitious goal of the Netherlands’ National Environmental Policy Plan (NEPP) is to achieve sustainable development within one generation. The NEPP does not address the well-being of people and ecosystems directly but focuses instead on selected people–ecosystem interactions or ‘themes’ and the ‘target groups’ or sectors that are involved most directly in the interactions.

The themes are: climate change; depletion of the ozone layer; acidification; eutrophication; disposal of solid wastes; disturbance of local environments; dehydration of soils; and squandering of resources. Indicators have been devised for all the themes except the last two (due to a lack of data).

The target groups are: agricultural producers; the transport sector; chemical manufacturers; gas and electricity suppliers; the construction industry; consumers and retailers; the environmental protection industry; research and educational establishments; and environmental organizations, trade unions and voluntary bodies. Each group is led by a steering committee, consisting of representatives of government and of the target group. The process is one of intensive networking and mediation. Participants set objectives and targets for their group; agree on actions to meet the targets; and have signed (or will sign) agreements with government, committing the group to the targets and actions.

Indicators play a crucial role in the NEPP, providing the means for setting targets and a measure of performance in meeting specific objectives. They have become a powerful strategic tool, used to define the contributions of each sector to an environmental problem, and hence to set both overall targets and targets for each sector.

The use of these three sets of criteria together enables the issue analysis and policy development to retain their strategic focus, while being pragmatic and opportunistic. For example, the inclusion of issues that are high on the political agenda, as well as issues that will bring quick benefits, is essential in maintaining and building political support for the process.

Choosing and analyzing the priority issues could begin with the circulation of a discussion paper suggesting the key sustainability issues facing the country. Depending on the approach taken during strategy start-up, the prospectus document or project proposal might serve this purpose, or at least provide the basic information for the discussion paper. This could be prepared as one of the first tasks of the secretariat in the planning phase. The aim is for the secretariat to prepare and circulate sufficient documentation to provide an agenda for informed discussion.

The manner in which the secretariat will facilitate wide participation from this point will vary according to different political and social circumstances. A common approach is the establishment of task forces. In the NEAP model, for example, the basic preparation of the plan is carried out by task forces, each focusing on a particular major environmental issue or group of issues. In the more successful NEAPs, such as Uganda’s, and recently Zambia’s, the task forces undertook visits to local communities, and conducted provincial or district workshops.

NCSs have also used task forces of various forms. In Ethiopia, 26 regional task forces, reflecting the administrative divisions at the time, and 11 sectoral and cross-sectoral task forces, were each assisted by the secretariat to conduct consultations and prepare their individual reports covering issues through to prescribed actions.

Any initial paper or set of papers prepared by the secretariat to simulate discussion needs to present the issues simply but not simplistically. The analysis should give different points of view – expert and non-expert – without taking sides on what are bound to be contentious matters. The purpose of these initial discussion papers is to:

Depending on the circumstances, information can be assembled by the secretariat and consultants in a wide variety of forms, including background studies, discussion papers, and audio-visual materials for use in a range of circumstances. The detailed communications and participation plans, which need to be prepared by the secretariat at this stage, will determine the forms in which this initial information is presented. The information can be obtained from:

Terms of reference for studies will normally be prepared by the secretariat on the advice of the task forces. They will need to indicate the level of information required and the detail expected. It is important that background studies and discussion papers are not seen as ‘chapters’ of a strategy document; their role is to provide information and options for policy development.

Much of the information assembly, analysis and preparation of policy options should be undertaken by the government agencies responsible for the resources or sector concerned. This will enable use to be made of the expertise and information base of these agencies. It will also provide the agencies with opportunities to consider their responsibilities from a broader perspective than usual, taking account of their cross-sectoral and longer-term implications. Universities, research and policy institutions
and independent professionals also have important contributions to make, particularly on issues that require independent analysis or subjects that are outside the expertise or mandates of particular agencies.

During the development of the Pakistan NCS, background studies were prepared by inter-disciplinary working groups, including a writing team, sectoral and other agencies concerned, experts from academia, and others. This overcame a problem common to many strategy processes: the difficulty of finding sectoral experts with a good grasp of the cross-sectoral approach.

Another method is to organize a series of workshops to generate the material required. A strategy secretariat member or consultant would then finalize materials for subsequent review by workshop participants and others.

There is no single best way of going about this early information gathering, choosing the priority issues and widening the network of participants. Yet the steering committee and secretariat, as part of their work programme, will need to clearly spell out the approach they settle on and communicate it widely. Efficient management and coordination will lend credibility to the process as it gains momentum.

If interest groups agree on what the problem is, they are halfway to a solution. Issue analysis gives participants something tangible to work with and a reason for involvement. As learning takes place, the analysis can be revised a number of times if necessary.

Issue analysis should challenge the interest groups by including forecasts of likely developments in the absence of policy (or if current policies remain unchanged). For example, what are the implications for Asian societies of the 300 million cars that automobile manufactures forecast Asians will buy in the next 30 years? Participants should consider:

Developing different scenarios is a useful way of exploring these impacts. For example, one scenario could portray the likely results if current policies remain unchanged. Two other scenarios could explore the likely costs and benefits of alternative policies; one meeting targets quickly, the other more gradually.

Box 16: Suggested components of analysis

Trends in resources and ecosystems: their quantity, quality, use, ownership and management; ecological limits to resource use (within which sustainable social and economic activity must operate) under given technologies.

Identification of policy and economic forces that underlie resource/ecosystem use in major sectors and population groups. These will be both international and national; for example, debt, trade, structural adjustment, exchange rates, taxation and pricing policy, government income and expenditure, balance of payments and employment.

Identification of the responses of different sectors and population groups to these policy and economic forces.

Assessment of the importance and relevance of the resource base and ecosystems for different groups of the population, analysing the relationships between the environment/ resource base and demographic characteristics, incomes, health and welfare.

Detailed sectoral analyses of forestry, agriculture, human settlements, fisheries, energy, transport, industry and tourism, etc. These would examine the types and rates of use of resources/ecosystems by each sector, with respect to sector growth and productivity. In addition, they would analyse how sectors treat the links between economic, social and environmental subsystems: what are the sectoral objectives for each subsystem, how are trade-offs made in achieving these objectives, and what are their impacts?

Cross-sectoral analyses examining the interactions among major sectors. These would analyse the impacts of one sector on another; for example, resource flows, and physical, public health and landscape impacts. They would look at cross-sectoral integration in institutional, legal and planning issues: where are there gaps, conflicts, compatibilities and synergies?

Provisional assessment of the sustainability of resource/ecosystem use by each major economic sector or population group: covering effects on biodiversity, ecological processes, natural capital stocks and the sustainability of yields, economic viability, and social welfare and equity. For most issues, however, it is unlikely that there will be adequate information (time series) to make definitive statements about sustainability.

Analysis of the principal functional/institutional constraints to sustainability in terms of policy, planning processes, institutional roles and capacities, legislation, education and awareness, training, technologies, financial allocations and procedures, capacities to monitor the development process, etc. Where are there overlaps, gaps and conflicts? Where are coordination and capacity-building required?

Analysis of development and environment patterns and consequences with respect to ethical considerations and national goals.

Definition of priority issues — problems and opportunities — to be resolved by the strategy.

Development of different scenarios and options with costs and benefits of each.

Outline policy recommendations, from above analyses.

It is useful to analyse the issue sectorally and cross-sectorally. The former enables the role and impact of each sector to be clearly defined and allows policy proposals to be closely related to existing sectoral mandates. The latter breaks down sectoral barriers and helps participants to think strategically.

A sector analysis examines each sector and its contribution to development and environment, and then looks at cross-sectoral issues to identify possible conflicts and compatibilities among sectors. This is likely to be closer to the forms of analysis with which planners are familiar. More important, it is easy to relate to – and therefore to influence – the existing policy-making system. It also, however, runs the risk of repeating the usual sectoral plans and failing to provide much new insight. In addition, sector-focused analysis is very time-consuming, and can produce large amounts of information that may not be useful for the strategy. It can also tend to treat some key issues superficially.

A cross-sectoral or thematic analysis identifies a set of major problems and opportunities facing the country, and then examines their sectoral and cross-sectoral roots. That approach was adopted by the Dutch for their National Environmental Policy Plan (see Box 15). This enables participants to think strategically from the start and ensures that time and money are not wasted by collecting and analysing information that will not be used. Although a process of analysis which crosses sectoral boundaries is often contentious and meets with resistance, it is the best way to identify early which issues are negotiable and which are not. In the Botswana NCS, resolution of the negotiable issues increased understanding of cross-sectoral interactions and opened up possibilities for resolving other issues that at first seemed intractable. A difficulty is that this approach does require skills in cross-sectoral synthesis and analysis that are often in short supply.

The initial information gathering, through to defining the priority issues and the consideration of different scenarios, will involve a number of stages and components in the strategy’s approach to the analysis of information. Components of this process of analysis are suggested in Box 16.

The steering committee and secretariat will need to determine who undertakes the various components of analytical work. In some strategies, the sectoral and cross-sectoral analysis has been done by special task forces while other components are undertaken by government agencies, consultants, NGO participants, or the secretariat. Problems of information overload are common in strategies; systems will need to be set in place so that information is readily accessible and able to be manipulated (Box 17).

The scope of sustainable development may be too broad to be encompassed by a single strategy. Therefore, strategies might progress best by focusing on achieving a few specific objectives. For example, a local strategy for the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia and the Dutch National Environmental Policy Plan both have the ultimate goal of sustainable development, but their specific objectives are more limited. The Santa Marta strategy focuses on improving and maintaining the quality and flow of water. The Dutch strategy concentrates on reducing pollution.

Objectives are at the heart of the strategy. This means they will not all be agreed to at once. Preliminary objectives may be proposed early on for the sake of discussion, but the objectives agreed to toward the end of issue analysis are likely to be significantly different from those advanced at the beginning. For this reason, it is somewhat misleading to speak of objective-setting and issue analysis as separate steps. They go together.

Box 17: A sustainable development information system

The more comprehensive the strategy, the greater the information it requires and generates, and the more challenging the information management problem. It may be worth considering establishing a Sustainable Development Information System as an integral part of the strategy process. This could consist of either a central office with, for example, hard-copy and computer files of information, plus maps and air photos, or a network of existing data centres with an agreement and procedures for cooperation on the strategy.

Individual countries may also find it helpful to identify and maintain registers (preferably computer-based) of their national expertise base — institutions and individuals in the government and non-governmental sectors with experience and skills relevant to sustainable development. This resource will be required to play a central role in providing technical and resource information and leading debate in the strategy process, and also in implementing, monitoring and evaluating the strategy.

While many countries do not yet have such registers, most bilateral donors, multilateral development banks and consultancy companies maintain rosters of environmental and sustainable development expertise, both individual and institutional. Independent, publicly-accessible registers of individual professionals who have worked internationally are maintained by both IIED and IUCN on separate but identically structured and shared databases. Making such information available may be a significant role for outside organizations and agencies in the strategy process.

Objectives that meet these criteria are required to assess progress with the strategy. They are also essential for the strategy to make actual progress. They are the logical complement to concentrating on a few priority issues. They help the participants focus their efforts to understand the implications of the strategy. Objectives give participants a yardstick with which they can measure progress; hence, they can also give participants a sense of direction and, eventually, achievement.

Strategy objectives generally will fall into two categories: those that set a long-term vision for sustainable development (for example, 20 years or a generation), and those that are consistent with the long-term vision, but tailored to a shorter time, such as the project or development cycle.

As an illustration, the specific objectives set by the National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development in Australia are presented in Box 18.

Box 18: Australia’s national strategy for sustainable development

Australia prepared an NCS in 1983 following wide consultation within government and with the private sector. A unit within the ministry responsible for environment provided the secretariat. The NCS was a highly compromised document, reflecting the predominance of development interests in Australian politics at the time. Within government, for example, it was up to the environment agencies to prove unsustainability when considering major development proposals from other agencies. Through the 1980s the onus of proof shifted to the development agencies so that, where there was doubt about the possible consequences of an action, a decision should err on the side of caution.

It was in this changing climate that, in 1989, a national summit of industry, unions and conservation organizations was convened to begin defining principles of what, in Australia, is called Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD). With this began the process of preparing a National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development (NSESD). A number of ESD discussion and policy papers were released and nine working groups were established involving government, the private sector and NGOs in order to undertake strategy planning in the sectors of: agriculture, energy production, energy use, fisheries, forest use, manufacturing, mining, tourism and transport. A draft strategy was prepared on the basis of working group reports and
released for public comment and a final NSESD was published late in 1992, ten years after the preparation of the NCS. The strategy has been adopted by the Australia’s federal, state and territory governments.

The goal of the strategy is development that improves the total quality of life, both now and in the future, in a way that maintains the ecological processes on which life depends.

Core objectives are:

to enhance individual and community well-being and welfare by following a path of economic development that safeguards the welfare of future generations;
to provide for equity within and between generations; and
to protect biological diversity and maintain essential ecological processes and life-support systems.

Guiding principles are:

decision-making processes should effectively integrate both long- and short-term economic, environmental, social and equity considerations;
where there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation;
the global dimension of environmental impacts of actions and policies should be recognized and considered:
the need to develop a strong, growing and diversified economy which can enhance the capacity for environmental protection should be recognized;
the need to maintain and enhance international competitiveness in an environmentally sound manner should be recognized;
cost-effective and flexible policy instruments should be adopted, such as improved valuation, pricing and incentive mechanisms; and
decisions and actions should provide for broad community involvement on issues which affect them.

These guiding principles and core objectives are considered as a package. No objective or principle predominates over any others.

It was easy for participants in the British Columbia Land Use Strategy to agree on principles for conserving ecological processes and biodiversity, but much more difficult to agree on objectives, such as the percentages of different types of forest to be protected in parks. Addressing such objectives forced participants to discuss the role of protected areas in sustainable development, and how much protection is enough and why. In due course, the discussions changed the consensus on this issue.

The results of the various analyses and debates on issues will need to be collated by the secretariat with help from the task forces. It will also be necessary to record where consensus has and has not been achieved. Further work can then be done on the priority issues and objectives; the aim being to detail specific policy provisions, primarily addressing those issues and objectives where consensus has been reached.

Throughout the process, from the earliest stages of issue definition, various levels of policy will have been discussed and some will have been adopted as the favoured course of action by participants. The secretariat will need to draw these levels together within one framework so that the broad principles, goals, and objectives of the strategy (the broad policies) can provide the umbrella for more specific objectives and operational criteria, standards and targets (the specific policies).

It is important to move quickly from consideration of the broad policies to that of the more specific. As participants found during the development of the British Columbia Land Use Strategy, it is usually quite easy for participants to agree on generalities that give wide latitude for interpretation, masking crucial differences among competing interests. The Australian NCS document was too general in drawing policies on the most contentious issues. This allowed the mining industry to use the document to argue the case for large-scale exploitation of mineral resources in Kakadu National Park, a World Heritage Site. The Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, which fought the mining industry in the high court on the issue, did not share this interpretation of the NCS policies. The policy framework should therefore set out a long-term vision of what is sustainable, together with medium- and short-term policies to move in that direction.

Focusing on specific objectives, standards and targets will bring out the real debate on sustainable development. The task of participants in the strategy is not to try to bring the debate on every issue to a quick resolution: debate on some issues is likely to continue for many years. Rather, the aim is to reach agreement on how to respond to some of the major problems and, in so doing, make progress towards sustainable development. Ultimately, some key issues for the strategy will need to be resolved by an arbitrating authority, usually the government. Institutional reforms such as the creation of the Resources Assessment Commission in Australia, can be set up to deal with these situations as part of the strategy process. Eventually, some issues may need to be resolved by parliament in the form of legislation. The secretariat always has the option of developing detailed policies, even where consensus has not been reached, with a view to these being settled through the strategy steering committee or in cabinet.

The framework should set out levels of policy that become progressively more focused. Specific policies relating to a priority objective would outline the reforms required to address it, covering:

Specific policies need to include clear guidance on their most appropriate practical interpretation. This practical expression may need to be demonstrated or tested through special demonstration projects or facilitating programmes as part of strategy
implementation.

The policy framework should clearly relate strategy policies to other policies of government (and of other partners in the strategy); defining which policies may override it and the circumstances under which they may do so, and which policies are subordinate. Sectoral policies within the scope of the strategy are likely to be subordinate to the strategy, for example. But the finance ministry’s policy on annual budget plans may be overriding. If so, it will be important to review the budget plans’ criteria for programmes and projects to ensure that activities called for by the strategy receive high priority.

The policy framework will also need to clearly define how it links with and builds upon other strategies operating at national or other levels of government. To avoid the strategy becoming marginalized and irrelevant, sectoral policy development and planning will have to be drawn into the process. This can be done by ensuring that the strategy has the proper authority, and by clearly defining at the outset its relationship with other decision-making processes. It is important that participants in all sectors understand which elements of their policymaking, planning and implementation will become, in effect, their sector’s contribution to the strategy, and which elements will be left outside the scope of the strategy. Making agency policy development and planning an explicit part of the strategy will also help to integrate sectors.

The strategy policy framework should be subject to periodic reviews, timed to take best advantage of the country’s existing development cycles. Making and reviewing specific cross-sectoral and sectoral policies is a continuing part of the strategy process. Policy formulation, particularly cross-sectoral policies, should be widely participatory. The actual drafting of cross-sectoral policies may be done by the strategy secretariat, an inter-sectoral team, or a central agency. Usually, sectoral policy review and reform will continue to be done by the line agency concerned.

The policy framework will need also to define indicators so that progress towards the objectives and targets may be monitored and evaluated. Defining indicators can also help to make the objectives and targets more specific.

An action plan should be part of a strategy’s policy framework. Yet in work on strategies to date, it has been found convenient to separate out the broad policy framework from specific action prescriptions. The Nepal NCS document, for example, presents national and sectoral policies together, then revisits these in the form of a more detailed Conservation Action Agenda. There was a tendency in the early NCSs to emphasize building agreement on broad policy while leaving more detailed prescriptions to be taken up as the policies filtered through government and other sectors in society. Many of the early World Bank-initiated NEAPs, on the other hand, tended to leap straight to specific project prescriptions with little emphasis on broad-level consensus-building. Today the NEAP model usually includes the preparation, over a year, of an NEAP Policy Document and a separate Environmental Investment Programme. This was the case in the Zambian NEAP, initiated in 1993.

Many NCSs have also evolved to give more detailed expression to various forms of action plans. In Vietnam, the most recent document prepared in the NCS strategy process was a portfolio of project concepts, each with a simple budget. In a regionally coordinated programme that begin in 1992, South Pacific island countries are being assisted in preparing national environment management plans, which bind broad policy prescriptions and a project concept portfolio into one document for each country.

In the Ethiopia NCS, a national policy document – drawing from those policy documents previously defined by regional level government – took two years to prepare and was completed in early 1994. Detailed investment programmes are now being developed over the next year by the regional authorities and sectoral agencies to give more detailed expression to the policies.

The purpose of an action plan or investment programme is to enable implementation of the provisions of the overall policy framework. The plan needs to flesh out the policy prescriptions and define programmes and projects that directly address the priorities for action. There are several important principles to consider when deciding on the comprehensiveness and level of detail of an action plan:

These points are taken up in more detail in the remaining chapters, but they should be borne in mind when considering the specific approaches suggested in this section.

The secretariat should develop a cross-sectoral action plan which addresses the basic elements of an institutional framework for sustainable development: the capacities needed for these reforms to work, including the skills in various essential decision-making methods such as environmental assessment (EA); and a series of demonstration programmes and projects undertaken with line agencies which test the policy innovations proposed in the strategy. The line ministries will also need to carefully define their sectoral action plans; these might include a range of new initiatives where gaps have been identified and where new relationships and procedures need to be built, and necessary adjustments to existing programmes and projects.

By this stage in the strategy a strong net-work of government technical staff should have become fully engaged in the process. Desk officers, who will be responsible for carrying forward the actions, need to be the main creative force in detailing the plans. This would help to avoid a key problem of past strategies, where action plans may have involved consultation (as distinct from participation) but essentially have been prepared by consultants.

Attracting donor funding often requires that project concepts be developed into comprehensive proposals; it is at this point that busy government teams often lose their sense of ownership. An up-front commitment to a concept is very important but is rarely made by external funding agencies. Donors need to acquire a special sensitivity, flexibility and patience in making early commitments to support the necessarily slow process of negotiation and discussions that must accompany programme design
within government.

Key participants in action planning should also include non-governmental actors, particularly the business sector. Industry’s participation is essential, both as an implementer and as an investor, but it is, by far, one of the least tried and tested aspect of strategies. Industry representatives should be included in various round table discussion groups from the earliest stages. Targeted private sector action plans (these are common, for example, in the transport, energy or agricultural sectors) can then be negotiated to encourage or discourage selected activities. Often, government and the donor community will need to give special attention to nurturing private sector action planning. In Nepal, for example, industry, government and local communities have been involved in developing pollution action plans for ‘hot spot’ industrial areas.

Once the broad areas for action have been set with the private sector, then more focused action planning relating to specific areas can be a continuing process. A good deal of innovation and flexibility will need to be shown by government and donors in designing a range of instruments to support and encourage this process.

Processes of structural adjustment promoted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are often a powerful factor to be considered in defining action plans for the private sector in developing countries. Such international organizations are currently not oriented or equipped to approach the design of structural adjustment programmes as action plans for sustainable development. Narrow economic criteria predominate and, in order to reorient them, strategy teams will have to work closely with those involved in structural adjustment packages. In Nepal, IUCN helped the IMF determine the feasibility and cost of improving the environmental performance of the major tannery in the Kathmandu valley, so that these factors could be included in plans for structural adjustment.

Over time in the strategy cycle there will be a need and an opportunity for subsidiary action plans and a need for a more complete expression of the original action points. This will take the pressure off the strategy team to cover everything from the outset. The secretariat needs to constantly keep in mind that the top priority issues must be addressed first. In fact, if agreement on a range of actions relating to a key issue is reached early in the strategy process, then the secretariat should feel free to seek endorsement for them there and then. There are great advantages to the action plan being adopted for implementation in these staged editions. It allows for the more straightforward actions to proceed, and builds momentum and confidence in the process. Also, past experience has shown that if an action plan is delivered as a single package, many of the more difficult, less defined and less attractive actions fall by the wayside.

There may be political pressure on the secretariat to come up with one action plan ‘product’. The World Bank NEAP model, for example, requires this. A consolidated version, or at least a clear indication of how the various action plan elements relate to each other, can be produced. This is desirable, in any case, to ensure that the overall strategic framework for the package
is appreciated.

Box 19: Changes likely to be covered by an action plan

Changes to development policies, national development plans, sectoral master plans, and regional plans, to ensure appropriate vertical integration as well as integration with environmental and social policies.

Integration of environmental and social considerations into programme and project
cycles. Environmental assessment is one way of doing this.

Reforms to economic policies, resource allocation and property rights policies, and sectoral policies and practices for environmental protection, natural resource management and development.

Adoption of economic instruments and other policy tools to integrate economic, social and environmental objectives.

Changes to legislation. These may include new umbrella laws, amendments to existing laws to incorporate standards and practices to ensure sustainability, and changes to rules and regulations.

Institutional strengthening and organizational development. Institutional strengthening entails creating new or better-equipped political, economic and social institutions, and links between them, to address issues of sustainability directly; and establishing links between existing public service institutions. Organizational development entails amending the mandates, policy documents, objectives, corporate strategies, functions and programmes (internal management and administration as well as professional), organizational structures, staffing, funding sources, and protocols concerning external relations to promote sustainability.

Education and training to develop the necessary attitudes and skills.

In summary, the action plan should lead to necessary innovations in decision-making procedures, to an identification and understanding of new administrative functions and to institutional reforms.

New laws, institutions or other major policy changes should not precede a full appreciation of the processes and functions they will fulfill. In some cases, the need for a new law or institution may be so well-recognized and enunciated in the endorsed policy framework that the government can act immediately. In most cases, although a policy commitment may be made, further effort will be required to bring on board those who will be involved in implementation. They can then appreciate the administrative implications, have a role in detailing the proposed reforms, and, most important, be able to raise their own capacity and commitment. Voluntary initiatives to implement the policy often may precede, and perhaps even obviate the need for, legislation.

For example, a government may make a commitment to establishing an effective national system of environmental assessment. having a small local or international team prepare EA legislation for submission to cabinet and legislature is usually not the best way to ensure successful implementation. Instead, it may be more effective to develop a participatory programme in which technical people from key sectors are helped to prepare and field test EA procedures suited to national conditions, which subsequently can be expressed in law (as necessary). This was the approach adopted in Nepal through the Environment Core Group. The action plan needs to define this kind of development programme for any policy, legislative, institutional or organizational change for which there is likely to be inadequate understanding, acceptance or capabilities for implementation.

In some cases, such as a new environment agency, there may be no ideal structure, merely principles that need to be followed in such matters as its status and independence. There are several models which could probably serve the purpose equally well. The strategy secretariat should provide cabinet with alternatives and a favoured option. The final decision will be a political one.

The action plan should dovetail with the national, sectoral and subsidiary development planning processes. The action plan – or at least the components to be implemented by government – would normally have to be submitted for approval of the financial and resource implications. This is likely to be a separate process from approval of the policy framework.

The type of action plan and budget will vary widely among countries. Some elements of the action plan could be made the subject of a donors’ conference. As the Pakistan NCS experience has shown, the strategy process as a whole has proved to be a promising vehicle for replacing conventional concepts of aid conditionality, moving from a situation in which conditions are set by donors, to one in which they are defined by the recipient country; or to an effective combination of both (Chapter 10). However, attracting aid should not be the main preoccupation of the strategy.

Planning for implementation must recognize the existing constraints of the government and (where relevant) donors. Current economic recessions and other constraints have made the possibility of obtaining substantial amounts of new development aid money very unlikely. If anything, aid budgets are getting smaller. Also, the governments of many lower-income countries are unable to absorb significant amounts of new money, due to limited institutional capacity to undertake development projects.

Therefore, a critical step in ensuring implementation of a strategy is to assess how the recommended programmes and actions fit within the current circumstances of governments and donors. This does not mean that the policy framework and action plan need be less creative in their vision. Rather, the action plan must spell out the steps to lead governments and donors to implementation. Funding constraints also point up the crucial need for business and industry to participate fully in the strategy.

Immediate short-term measures to refocus existing investments include adding an environmental assessment component to a programme or project to better determine effects and mitigative measures (using strategy criteria in the EA framework). Another way to try and turn the focus toward sustainability is adding an environmental management component to current projects that are likely to have negative environmental consequences.

The action planning process must also help national planning commissions (or similar agencies) sort out what to do immediately with the long shopping list of projects submitted by sectoral ministries and awaiting definition of the next annual budget and five-year plan. A process of project appraisal against the principles, priorities and criteria established in the strategy policy framework should be included in the implementation work to deal with these project lists. One of the most powerful potential ‘action plans’ for sustainable development in a country is the national budget, and strategies should tackle key aspects of its formulation process head-on. This work will require considerable technical input, both from those who know why the recommended strategy programmes were selected, and from economists familiar with planning budgets.

National planning bodies usually provide the channel for reviewing government programmes against national goals. They are a good way to introduce the concerns of sustainable development. Of course, the goal is to have these concerns addressed well before in the sectors themselves. Thus, when programmes are delivered for coordinated review against a broader strategic frame-work, it can be assumed that they are internally consistent with sustainability principles.

In developing countries, the sector programme review process within national planning agencies is weak. It often amounts to little more than assembling the various sectoral programmes and passing them on to finance agencies where the real decisions, cuts and reallocations are made. Strategy teams will need to identify the main decision points, what is decided and how, in the allocation of public resources. Exercises can be designed to be undertaken within national planning bodies which address these issues and bring together the action planning, implementation and capacity-building elements of a strategy.

Two interesting exercises of this kind were undertaken in Bhutan and Nepal as part of national strategy processes. In Nepal, as step in developing a national system of EA, some 30 members of the environment core group drawn from the different sectors worked within the National Planning Commission (NPC) for a number of weeks. They reviewed more than 40 projects submitted as elements of the annual programmes from sectoral ministries. Access was given to all NPC files and budget documents. The goal was to test various EA procedures and criteria which the group had defined in previous exercises and to identify planning gaps and weakness in the projects under review. Most important, the group also defined the weaknesses in administrative procedures, capacities and structures within the NPC and the various agencies to which it related.

The review was in response to an action defined by the original NCS Conservation Action Agenda (ie that there should be an EA system) but it also resulted in a wide range of recommended actions that began to address more fundamental difficulties. In Bhutan, a similar but more restricted review was undertaken, by the National Environment Strategy Secretariat, of all projects which at the time were before the NPC. This exercise was not as effective because it was one-off and not undertaken as part of a broader participatory endeavour to develop EA procedures.

These examples show why the strategy process needs to be ongoing and iterative and why the various skills and mechanisms for review are so important (addressed as monitoring and evaluation in Chapter 9).

Most strategies, from the initial wave of NCSs in the early 1980s through to the diverse range of types now undertaken, have been viewed as one-time planning exercises. Many of the NCSs and several of the more recent NEAPs have been compiled through consultative mechanisms akin to those which evolved during the 1970s for the development of land-use plans. Many strategies are even called plans, such as those following the NEAP model: the National Environment Management Plans of the South Pacific Islands, the Green Plan in Canada, and the Dutch National Environment Policy Plan.

Even though most have been much more ambitious and interactive than their names imply, there has often been no vision for the process beyond final endorsement of the document. Implementation has been seen as crucial to the plan’s success but as something apart. Secretariats have usually closed down once a plan has been prepared and the idea of returning to the planning phase to review and revise the policy framework and action plan has been absent. This critical reassessment process has been taken for granted in conventional development planning, but not in the case of early strategies. Most of them were born through conservation or environment imperatives and have gradually evolved to be more conscious of their leading role.

Strategies have to date been viewed as projects with a predetermined lifespan and end product. Some development planners believe this is how it should be and that to regard strategies as an ongoing process would undermine their impact in a world where political realities give governments and donors alike short-term time horizons and pressure to deliver. Strategies must respect and take advantage of these political realities but, if they are to determine the way development takes place, then they need to become an integral part of the machinery of government.

Another trend reflected in the strategy experience is that a country cannot have effective centralized planning and decentralized implementation. As the common principles for development reflected in most strategies begin to change the structures and ways decisions are made then, inevitably, the nature of strategy planning will also change. Greater emphasis will need to be given to devolution in countries where the centraliz ing forces have failed to nurture the local level. Methods for linking national strategy planning with strategies developing at local level and across government sectors will become more important. The Ethiopian NCS process has made a good start in this respect. Now that strategies are underway in most provinces of Pakistan, the next phase of planning within the NCS will look very different than it did in the first round, however successful that may have been.

There are two main challenges, then, facing national strategy planning over the next decade. The first is to convince governments that strategies should been seen as continuous, cyclical processes, integrated into and changing conventional development cycles. The second is to help build strategies at sub-national levels and establish effective working links among strategies so that, in future, the detail of policies and action plans will be generated by the institutions and communities responsible for implementing them.

		Updated 10 June, 2003