Reviewing the evidence on implementation and long-term impact of integrated landscape approaches
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Reviewing the evidence on implementation and long-term impact of integrated landscape approaches - James Reed, CIFOR. Measuring the Impact of Integrated Systems Research (September 27, 2021 – September 30, 2021). Three-day virtual workshop co hosted by the CGIAR Research Programs on Water Land and Ecosystems (WLE); Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA); Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM); and SPIA, the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment of the CGIAR. The workshop took stock of existing and new methodological developments of monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment work, and discussed which are suitable to evaluate and assess complex, integrated systems research.
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Reviewing the evidence on implementation and long-term impact of integrated landscape approaches
- 1. James Reed Workshop on Measuring Impact of Integrated Systems Research 28th September 2021 Reviewing the evidence on implementation and long-term impact of integrated landscape approaches cifor.org/colands
- 2. Structure • Describe integrated landscape approaches and their appeal • Explain where they are applied and if they are effective in delivering long- term impact • Consider why impact is hard to achieve or demonstrate • Reflect on how integrated landscape approaches might be improved
- 4. You say you want a definition? • A lack of definition implies a lack of basic norms and rules to follow (Mansourian, 2018; Chazdon et al., 2020) • Can lead to conceptually weak and poorly designed implementation efforts (Carmenta et al., 2020) • Inhibits ability to provide clear guidance to policy or private sector • Makes the effectiveness of ILAs difficult to evaluate and compare Why needed? • Landscape: an area as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of nature and/or human factors • But landscapes are highly contextualized and fuzzy concepts, not planning units, and are ‘seen in the eye of the beholder’ • What is integrated and what approach is taken must vary • As such, ILAs defy simple definitions, but maybe that’s a good thing? Why not?
- 5. 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s ------------------- present 1980s: Integrated Rural Development 1998: Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) 1985 onwards: Integrated Conservation & Development projects (ICDPs) Contributing Sciences: Ecosystem Management Landscape Ecology Island biogeography Conservation rooted frameworks e.g. “Ecosystem Approach” 1983: “Landscape Approach” first documented (Noss, 1983) Last decade: (Integrated) Landscape Approaches 2013: “Ten Principles for a Landscape Approach” (Sayer et al. 2013) The evolution of integrated landscape approaches
- 7. Where are integrated landscape approaches being implemented? Africa (n 87) Milder et al. 2014 South & SE Asia (n 166) Zanzanaini et al. 2017 LAC (n 104) Estrada-Carmona et al. 2014 Europe (n 71) Garcia-Martin et al. 2016
- 10. Evidence of impact? 63% of initiatives reported positive outcomes across all four domains (Milder et al. 2014)
- 11. Further reflection…. • the initiatives are self-reported and may be limited by the knowledge or the quality of data available to the respondent……may reflect the intentional or unintentional bias of each respondent…. the respondent may have had a personal interest or stake in portraying the initiative in a positive (or negative) light (Milder et al. 2014) • concerned that such initiatives were overly optimistic in the outcomes they were reporting • landscape initiatives are successful in establishing new partnerships and engaging a diversity of stakeholders, they are limited in on-the-ground outcomes and the degree to which they can affect systemic change (Hart, 2017)
- 12. Where are integrated landscape approaches being implemented? Latin America & Caribbean (n 38) Southern Africa (n 13) South Asia (n 16) East Asia & Pacific (n 33) West Africa (n 16) East Africa (n 41) Multi-region (n 9)
- 15. But integration underscores performance (Carmenta et al. 2020) (Carmenta et al. Forthcoming)
- 16. Further evidence from recent case studies “Effective implementation of several small-scale reforestation projects using the landscape approach could together lead to a forest transition, more trees in agricultural systems and better protection of residual natural forests while improving farmers’ livelihoods, all combining to achieve the SDGs” (Acheampong et al. 2020) “….opportunities observed throughout the application of the landscape approach principles include mainstreaming agreed actions into strategies and plans, increased resident capacity, conflict resolution, definition and clarity on mandates, roles and responsibilities, higher landscape connectivity and opportunities for policy influence” (Omoding et al. 2020)
- 17. Generating impact from ILAs • What gets measured, gets managed (Drucker?, Stiglitz, 2010) • However, performance monitoring tools are often not very useful in answering how or why values change • Meanwhile, traditional impact assessment is challenging as appropriate counterfactuals are lacking (Chervier et al. 2020)
- 18. An obsession with numbers • One of the principal errors of the West is the obsession to count everything….and create summaries of the social dynamics at play and transform them into some kind of gauge that reflects a promising evolution of these dynamics. Quantification can be useful for predicting, managing, and anticipating the path but this mathematical reduction of reality risks transforming imperfect measurements and reference points into the ultimate aims of the social adventure. • Indicators specifically linked to living conditions alone don’t really say anything about life itself – the quality of one’s social relationships, their intensity, their fecundity, social distance, the nature of cultural, relational, spiritual life, and so forth – everything that makes up existence (Sarr, 2016)
- 19. Not everything in life can be measured • Not everything that matters can be measured, not everything that we can measure, matters (Ridgway, 1956) • What is really cared about might often be very difficult to measure • Raising a child, performing a good deed, demonstrating good judgement, humility, empathy, love….. • Similarly, ILAs need to better capture social values and perceptions, address power asymmetries, support community action, evaluate governance performance, and assess trade-offs
- 20. Bending the curve….. • Do we try bend ILAs to fit the typical donor driven project narrative and ensure that we deliver tightly packaged outcomes within tightly bound timeframes? • Or do we try to bend the structures that currently govern integrated conservation and development initiatives (and their evaluation) and demand more holistic and dynamic (evaluation) methods that better match the realities to which these initiatives are typically applied?
- 21. Building the evaluation toolkit • Perceptions as evidence (Bennett, 2016) • Multi-dimensional well-being indicators (Carmenta et al. forthcoming) • Governance evaluation (Kusters et al. 2018) • Multi-criteria mapping (Uni of Sussex) • Remote sensing, GIS, drones • Theory-based evaluation (Belcher et al. 2020; Chervier et al. 2020)
- 22. Using theory of change in ILAs (Reed et al. Forthcoming)
- 23. Final takeaways • To better engage with the realities of complex tropical landscapes, landscape approaches need to be long-term and transdisciplinary in nature • Moving away from the dichotomous language of success and failure, and rather adopting a systems approach that prioritizes process and adaptation to determine enabling conditions and lessons learned, will likely be more constructive to the long-term sustainability of integrated landscape approaches • Research that measures the things that count as well as counting what can be measured is fundamental to building the evidence base and helping understand under what conditions ILAs are workable and who benefits