Development Strategy

Strategies may be international, national, or local, and they may be sectoral or multi-sectoral. This handbook covers national multi-sectoral strategies. In many countries, economic and environmental strategies are unintegrated, each being undertaken parallel to the other. The number of partially integrated strategies is growing as environment strategies address economic and social concerns, and development plans pay more attention to environmental factors. Although integration is increasing, no fully integrated sustainable development strategy yet exists.

A national sustainable development strategy should build on existing strategy initiatives such as a national conservation strategy, environmental action plan or development plan, or a sectoral or subnational strategy. Only in exceptional circumstances will it need to start from scratch.

Conditions required before developing a multi-sectoral national strategy include: a defined need and purpose; a location for the strategy’s steering committee and secretariat where they can have the greatest influence on the national development system; high level support; the commitment of key participants; and a conducive political and social climate.

Necessary conditions that can be generated during the strategy process include: wide understanding of the concepts of sustainable development and the strategy, and of the need for both; clear goals and objectives; a body of well trained, experienced and committed people to drive the strategy; adequate resources; and effective communications.

Many of these conditions can be developed by working on a strategy which is less ambitious than an NSDS, such as a sectoral, regional or local strategy. The feasibility and scope of an NSDS can be determined by assessing whether the conditions can be met (and how to meet them), where change is most needed, how the strategy would relate to the decision-making system, how existing strategy processes can best be enhanced, what resources would be needed, and how they could be provided.  

The main kinds of national strategy

The many different kinds of environment and development strategies may be grouped into six categories, depending on their geographical scope – international, national, or local – and on whether they are devoted to a particular sector or theme or are multi-sectoral (Table 1).

• International strategies may be global in scope or cover two or more countries grouped politically or by natural region.

• National strategies focus on a single nation. Various forms of them are described in Box 6. In countries with federal systems, provincial, state or territorial strategies are similar in scope and organization to national strategies.

• Local or regional strategies cover parts of nations or provinces, the parts being defined politically or administratively (municipalities, counties, regional districts, etc) or naturally (coastal zones, drainage basins, mountain ranges, forests, etc).

At present, most multi-sectoral national strategies have a primary focus on either environment or development. Conservation strategies and environmental action plans cover many environmental and resource management issues, from biodiversity to human settlements. They aim to achieve specific conservation or environmental objectives and to integrate environmental conservation into development.

Conservation strategies and environmental action plans point out the contribution of conservation to development, but seldom deal directly with other aspects of development. They tend to have had their strongest inputs from environmental and natural resource interests, and their inclusion of economic and social interests is usually weaker, employing few techniques for examining economic and social issues.

Development plans cover resource allocation, infrastructure development, public investment, employment generation, and many other aspects of economic development. Economic development tends to be interpreted narrowly, however, and environmental and social concerns are rarely treated in depth. Some development plans explicitly recognize the impact of the plan on the environment and the contribution of environmental resources to the plan’s objectives. But environmental analysis is usually cursory and poorly integrated with economic analysis.

In many countries, economic and environmental strategies are not integrated. Each is undertaken independently, often at a different time, or, at best, in parallel to the other. Development planning and decision-making largely ignore environmental concerns, including the environmental strategy, if one

exists. Environmental strategies have been undertaken without sufficient regard for existing planning and decision-making procedures. Some strategies have either duplicated or otherwise failed to coordinate with existing individual sector development plans (such as forestry, agriculture and wildlife). There has often been scant assessment of how the strategy would relate to the development planning system, how to use its strengths, and how to influence it most effectively. One reason for this is the failure to overcome perceptions of the conservation strategy as anti-development or as applying to only a few sectors.

As environmental strategies address economic and social objectives more directly, and development plans pay more attention to environmental objectives, the number of partially integrated strategies is increasing. They include development plans that have not just an environmental chapter, but incorporate environmental considerations in all chapters. They also include conservation strategies and environmental plans that relate directly to the development planning system, and so have begun to make improvements to the development planning process and sectoral decisions.

There are many reasons for this move towards integration:

• increasing knowledge about development and environment issues and their interactions;

• the emergence of global environmental and development concerns as key international issues;

• greater public interest and pressure for change; and

• the need to define more precise actions, including an environmental investment portfolio.

We know of no example of a fully integrated strategy; one that combines all aspects of social, economic and environmental policy into a sustainable development strategy, as called for by Agenda 21 and Caring for the Earth. The trend is clearly in this direction, however. Sustainable development strategies have the potential to replace the development planning process as we know it today.

The history of national strategies

Placing national strategies for sustainable development in a historical context can help to ease the confusion felt by governments and communities when confronted with the vast array of unrelated strategy options, models and demands on their limited resources.

The momentum for national strategies has built up over the past 30 years. The various approaches have evolved in three broad stages, leading gradually to greater emphasis on local initiative.

International efforts to nurture cooperative management of common resources have been limited by the ability of each participating country to act. Governments have accepted a growing range of international obligations and have needed to express these in umbrella national strategies.

A recent example is the Convention on Biodiversity Conservation, which calls for the preparation of national biodiversity strategies. Initially, countries took their lead from the World Conservation Strategy (WCS), published in 1980. The WCS introduced the term ‘sustainable development’ and promoted the preparation of national conservation strategies (NCSs). This concept, based on a process of consensus-building, was the main guiding force in national attempts to reconcile conservation with development for the first half of the 1980s. By 1985, some 30 countries had embarked on a NCS process, largely in isolation from one another but often with assistance from IUCN, which was learning as it went along.

The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), which ran from 1985 to 1987, reinforced the value of national strategic approaches and led to a second wave of initiatives. What was becoming apparent during this period was the need for a new, strategic, inter-sectoral approach to managing change; an approach that would overcome the weaknesses of economic planning and piecemeal environment protection policies.

At that time, a number of international organizations came on the scene, with a variety of thematic strategies for selected countries. This greatly complicated the situation. Until then, strategies generally had been the initiatives of governments or national groups, proceeding at a pace and pattern best suited to them. From 1985 on, in response to a global action plan on drought, the United Nations Sudano-Sahelian Office (UNSO) for Africa supported the preparation of national plans to combat desertification. A year later, after the development of a global forestry strategy, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) began sponsoring the preparation of national Tropical Forestry Action Plans (TFAPs). To date, TFAPs have been prepared for 91 countries in all parts of the world. In 1987, the World Bank began helping four countries in Africa prepare National Environment Action Plans (NEAPs). By 1991, ten additional NEAPs had been started. These were in response to an internal World Bank directive, requiring action plans as a Bank loan precondition for the least developed countries. In 1992, this
directive was reinforced and expanded to cover all 110 of the Bank’s borrower countries.

It was appropriate that the next major addition to the strategies family should come with the UN Conference on Environment and Development, otherwise known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The action plan of the conference, Agenda 21, calls on governments to adopt national strategies for sustainable development that ‘build upon and harmonize the various sectoral, social and environmental policies and plans that are operating in the country’. A Capacity 21 programme was
established within UNDP to promote and support the strategies.

The labels in this smorgasbord of strategies – for example, NCSs, TFAPs, NEAPs, NSDSs, Green Plans and NEMPs (National Environment Management Plans in the South Pacific) – imply that each is a distinct entity. In practice, this is not so: there is a great diversity within each type, and overlap among them. Yet one can safely generalize that strategies which have departed from the original model to express true national identity have tended to be the most successful.

Entry points into a multi-sectoral national strategy

It is likely that some kind of strategy on environment and development is being, or has been, undertaken in most countries.
Fresh initiatives should be linked to ongoing or past processes, and be clearly identified as extensions or components of them. NSDSs and other multi-sectoral strategies should build on existing strategic initiatives, not attempt to duplicate or ignore them. Some NEAPs, for example, have ignored established NCSs. Substantial investments have already been made in these existing processes. New investment is likely to be more effective if it draws upon and enhances these processes and does not distract, undermine or devalue them.

The object is not to create a new or separate sustainable development process but to improve existing processes of planning and decision-making. National economic plans, and longer-term strategies such as Malaysia’s Vision 2020, are highly influential because they are linked to powerful economic, industrial and financial ministries. NSDSs should be fully integrated with these plans. Otherwise they risk being marginalized as outside the mainstream of national priorities, and they may be unable to influence the main economic agents of change.

Entry into the kind of multi-sectoral strategy cycle described in this handbook will therefore probably involve one of the following:

• the further development of an existing multi-sectoral national strategy, such as a National Development Plan, National Conservation Strategy, or Environmental Action Plan;

• expanding a narrowly-focused initiative, such as a structural adjustment programme;

• building on a sectoral or thematic strategy or on a multi-sectoral regional or local strategy; and

• start-up (although this implies starting from scratch, all countries have some form of policy-making and planning process on which to build).

Necessary conditions

The conditions required for an effective multi-sectoral national strategy depend on its scope. The more comprehensive a strategy, the more complex it is. It will require a bigger information base and a wider range of participants. It also demands more money and professional staff with considerably more integration and management skills.

Many difficulties with national strategies have been due to inexperience and lack of appropriate models. Sometimes problems have been severe enough to cause the strategies to lose momentum, reach an impasse on critical issues, lose leadership
and vision, or even be abandoned. In some cases, countries have embarked on multi-sectoral strategies before they were ready for them. The necessary conditions and capacity may need to be developed gradually, through a less ambitious strategy process that, in due course, can be made more comprehensive.

Conditions before developing the strategy

Necessary conditions required before developing a multi-sectoral national strategy include:

1. A defined need and purpose. The need for a strategy, as the best response to well identified problems, must be evident. It may be that a multi-sectoral national strategy is not an appropriate course of action. A thematic strategy, local strategy, or some more specific action may be better for the time being.

2. A location for the steering committee and secretariat where they can have the greatest influence on the national evelopment
system. It is impossible to develop and implement a strategy without a clear decision about which organization is directly responsible for it. If the strategy is to be influential, the organization has to be influential.

3. High level support. Political support at a high level – parliamentary, cabinet or head of state – is crucial for the development of a strategy. Support must be visible, and must be based on an understanding of the strategy process and its costs and likely benefits. Since the strategy includes the formulation and implementation of government policy, the highest levels must both support the strategy process and understand its products as they evolve. This support should include:

• a commitment to develop and implement government policy arising from the strategy, and to commit government funds (and, if necessary, donor assistance) for this purpose;

• the intention to follow and to consider the policy implications of the strategy throughout the process, and not merely to consider the whole strategy agenda whenever it is formally submitted for adoption;

• instructions to government departments that their policy formulation and planning should be coordinated with the strategy, unless the topic is outside the scope of the strategy; and

• the intention to keep the strategy process open and inclusive, and not confidential and closed – encouraging participation in the strategy, giving participants ready access to information, and encouraging them to adopt critical approaches.

4. The commitment of key participants. The participation of certain groups and individuals will depend on the strategy’s scope and purpose. Obviously their participation is essential; if some cannot be induced to participate, this is a sign of inadequate support. A more limited strategy, requiring the involvement of only those who are keen to participate, should be considered, with a view to bringing others on board as the strategy gains in momentum and support.

5. A conducive political and social climate. Political unrest will make it difficult, if not impossible, to develop a strategy, mainly because the necessary broad consensus cannot be reached. However, the situation shortly after a major political change could provide the right stimulus. Political conditions must be conducive to free speech and participation, giving confidence for creative thinking and a mandate to think critically.

Conditions that should be provided while developing the strategy

Necessary conditions that can be generated while developing a strategy include:

1. Wide understanding within the country of the concepts of sustainable development and the strategy; and of the need for both. This can be developed in the course of the strategy, provided a nucleus of key people and organizations are supportive from the outset.

2. Clear objectives, together with a monitoring mechanism, so that the strategy continues to pursue them and is not diverted or hijacked. The objectives have to be those of the people implementing the strategy, and so must be set in a participatory manner. They can be refined as the strategy progresses.

3. An engine to drive the strategy, including well-trained and experienced personnel. A body of committed people inside and outside government is needed to drive the strategy throughout, and to provide the main energy source. Capable staff with good management skills and judgement are essential for managing the strategy process. The capacity to manage the process can be developed as part of the strategy.

4. Adequate resources. Funds have to be available, either from national sources or a combination of national sources and donor funding (see Chapter 10 on donor support). National sources include special allocations of government revenue, adjustments to existing government sectoral budgets and investment plans, the corporate sector, and other participants, such as NGOs. The minimum required is for a steering committee and secretariat to carry out core functions of policy review and development and initial capacity-building activities.

5. Effective communication. Communication is the means by which participants in the strategy:

• exchange information with each other;

• reach agreement with each other on actions;

• undertake actions to change or strengthen values and knowledge; and

• inform others about the strategy.

Together with participation, communication is the crucial element of the strategy, pervading all others. A communications plan needs to be developed and implemented, covering modes and frequency of communication among participants and between participants and others.

Overcoming obstacles

Several obstacles must be overcome in order to foster the conditions for an effective strategy.

Lack of support

A lack of high-level support for a strategy can be overcome by developing awareness and support among interest groups and the public, and by taking every advantage of events that publicize the need for and benefits of a strategy. Many strategies received their initial stimulus from international initiatives, notably the World Conservation Strategy, the report of the WCED (Our Common Future), and UNCED’s Agenda 21. Others have been galvanized by disasters and crises such as the Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines. In Zimbabwe, politicians were influenced to support the development of the national conservation strategy when they were flown to a drought-stricken region and saw for themselves the full extent of land degradation.

Lack of capacity

If there is a lack of well-trained personnel, experience or resources, there are several ways to build on, and learn by, experience, using limited resources. One way is to form a team to undertake projects that could eventually contribute to a strategy. Bhutan, for example, has begun by forming a National Environmental Secretariat, with close working ties to the National Planning Commission, whose first task has been to develop an environmental assessment procedure for the country. Another option is to develop either a thematic or a local strategy first. The more modest subject scope of a thematic strategy (covering a single theme such as energy or forestry), and the geographical scope of a local strategy (covering a region or locality), can make them suitable as pilot projects. Through them, the necessary skills can be developed in strategy preparation and implementation, including integrating sectors and managing a complex participatory process. Guinea-Bissau is an example of a small, yet highly diverse country that is developing four local strategies and a regional strategy to gain experience and build the capacity to undertake a national strategy. An advantage of these local strategies is that they cover areas that, ethnically, economically and ecologically, are relatively homogeneous. This makes it easier to find solutions toward sustainable development, although difficulties remain in obtaining the support of national authorities for local development plans. The regional strategy covers half the area of the country and two-thirds of its population. So its problems are similar to those that would be faced by a national strategy, but on a somewhat more manageable scale.

Determining the scope

National, local, or sectoral strategies: which comes first?

The variety of national approaches suggests that every answer is potentially correct. Malaysia began with state conservation strategies before embarking on a national conservation strategy, while Pakistan and Zambia developed their national conservation strategy first, and are now developing provincial conservation strategies. Australia’s national conservation strategy led to Victoria’s state conservation strategy, which, in turn, provided a framework for municipal conservation strategies. Several of Canada’s provinces and territories undertook strategies before the federal government; and in some provinces, the first strategies were at the local level. In Cuba, regional multi-sectoral strategies provided crucial experience for the development of a national sectoral strategy (on protected areas). Guatemala has also started regionally (in Petén). Nicaragua began at the national level, but involved all municipalities in developing the strategy. Ethiopia’s national strategy is being elaborated through a set of regional processes. The province of British Columbia has multi-sectoral, sectoral and local
strategies (Box 7).
 

Local or regional multi-sectoral strategies and national thematic strategies are valuable for developing experience and building capacities to undertake more complex national strategies. But they are not without problems and are only effective where supported by a suitable national policy framework. Local resource allocation and management decisions taken without reference to national priorities and criteria can result in unacceptable disparities with other areas or simply may be impossible to implement. The success of the Tortuguero Conservation Strategy, a local strategy to control the expansion of banana plantations in Costa Rica, depends not only on actions it is generating at the community level but also on national-level actions.

Local strategies often consist of a mixture of actions undertaken by the participants and recommended actions to be undertaken by higher-level government authorities. Appropriate national policies can define the scope of such recommendations and so ensure that the expectations of the local strategy are realistic. A local strategy in Canada collapsed because of the lack of policies at the provincial level that would have enabled strategy participants to strike an acceptable balance between jobs and protected areas.

There are also risks to undertaking a thematic or sectoral strategy before a multi-sectoral strategy. Sectoral strategies often ignore important inter-sectoral links and impacts. It may prove difficult for an eventual multi-sectoral strategy to harmonize different thematic or sectoral strategies that have been developed in isolation. Ideally, a national multi-sectoral strategy should be developed before local or sectoral strategies, because it can provide a framework for all other strategies whereas local and sectoral strategies cannot. But if it is easier or more effective to develop a local or sectoral strategy first – or if one or the other is necessary to build capacity or support for a national multi-sectoral strategy – then the local or sectoral strategy should come first.

These are key questions that will help to determine whether to undertake a national multi-sectoral strategy, a national sectoral strategy, or a regional or local strategy:

• Where is the need for change most critical: the nation, a region, a local area, or a sector? Would policies at a higher (eg national) level constrain or foster the possibilities for change at a lower (eg local) level?

• What organizational/staffing/financial capacity is required for the strategy?

• What conditions for an effective strategy are missing and how could they be fostered?

• What can be done with minimal external assistance?

The decision-making system and existing strategies

Where does the NSDS fit in the decision-making system and how does it relate to existing initiatives? In practice, almost all countries are already likely to have several multi-sectoral and sectoral strategies or strategy-like initiatives at national, local and intermediate levels. The questions then are:

• How would the national sustainable development strategy relate to existing planning and decision-making processes? Does it fill a clear niche?

• What opportunities are there to build on and enhance existing strategy processes and structures? Should the national sustainable development strategy: a) be developed from an existing strategy? If so, which one?; b) start off as a coordinating framework for several existing initiatives, and be developed from there? If so, which strategies and related initiatives most need coordination?; or c) be developed from scratch?

The desirable alternatives are a) or b). Alternative c) would apply only in the unlikely situation of a complete absence of strategic initiatives; if there had been a long gap since the last initiative ceased to play any meaningful role in the country; or if there were unacceptable political costs associated with existing or recent initiatives.

Upgrading an existing strategy

There are several ways of developing one or more existing strategies into a National Sustainable Development Strategy. If there is an economic development plan but no conservation strategy or environmental action plan, then the latter could be prepared, although there is a risk that it would be a poor relation of the development plan. To avoid this:

• the agencies and planning team responsible for the development plan should be closely involved in the conservation strategy; and

• the development plan and conservation strategy should be closely linked, with the scope and content of the two corresponding to each other – one providing the socio-economic perspective, the other the socio-environmental perspective (obviously this will entail modifying the development plan, including expanding its scope).

An alternative procedure would be review, modify and expand the development plan so that it provided fully for conservation of ecological processes and biodiversity, protection of natural and cultural heritage, and sustainable use of resources. Similarly, if a conservation strategy or environmental action plan exists but there is no economic development plan (often the case in upper-income countries), then the conservation strategy could be reviewed, modified and expanded to address social and economic objectives. In either case, the logical time for modification and expansion is when the development plan or conservation strategy is due for review. Expanding the scope will involve widening the range of participants in the strategy. Environmental interests and sectors would participate in the development plan; and development sectors and interests would participate in the conservation strategy. Modifications to the existing development plan or conservation strategy might include:

• Incorporating environmental factors in economic policies, plans and decisions.

• Developing institutions to integrate social, economic, and environmental objectives.

• Incorporating environmental components throughout the development plan. Each sector would identify the contribution of environmental goods and services to the sector and the sector’s impact on the environment. The plan would include policies and measures to maintain the environmental goods and services and reduce impacts on the environment. Priority would be given to those areas where environmental goods and services are most at risk or environmental impacts are most severe.

• Incorporating socio-economic components throughout the conservation strategy or environmental action plan. The strategy would address not merely how to ensure that economic activities are environmentally sound, but how to improve economic performance in ways that are ecologically sustainable and how to improve the quality of life in ways that are economically viable.

The most appropriate course is to combine development and environmental initiatives into one initiative, involving participants in existing multi-sectoral strategies, and building on the processes, institutions, policies and agreements of those strategies. An NSDS could start out as a simple way to coordinate and provide a framework for the often-large number of development and environment initiatives that a country pursues at any one time. These may include a national development plan, national conservation strategy, environmental action plan, forestry action plan, biodiversity strategy, and Agenda 21. Without such a framework, there is a risk of conflict and duplication and of new initiatives diverting attention and resources from the overall process.