Evaluating A Decade of Conservation 

“The last decade of work by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) represents the most significant response of our species to date to stop the hemorrhaging of our planet’s biodiversity,” the evaluator concludes.

According to the report, CEPF’s single most significant contribution has been to provide much-needed conservation attention to these hotspots, areas of high biodiversity and extreme development pressure that for various reasons would otherwise be unlikely to gain the support needed to jump start meaningful local conservation efforts.

As part of CEPF’s 10th anniversary observance, it engaged independent consultant David Olson of Conservation Earth Consulting to conduct the analysis. After months of research, field trips and interviews with staff, grantees and partners, Olson produced a 100-page report that is now available. It looks at the effectiveness of the program as a whole over its 10 years of grantmaking.

To put together the evaluation, Olson studied a wide range of CEPF hotspot ecosystem profiles, regional assessments of CEPF investment performance and final reports from grant recipients.

Previous program evaluations and other relevant documents were also consulted for this evaluation. He interviewed conservation specialists and practitioners outside CEPF who are familiar with global conservation programs and CEPF and its impacts. He also visited the Succulent Karoo region of southern Africa and southern Mesoamerica.

Findings in the report include:

• The real value in the global program has been to improve the potential for conservation effectiveness of civil society, and increase the probability that their activities will translate into future gains of protection and improved management over coming decades.
  
  
• The $261 million leveraged by the more than 1,500 civil society organizations supported by CEPF indicates they will have a sustained role and impact.
  
  
• Basic actions like bringing people together to discuss a common conservation vision and establishing opportunities for dialogue and new partnerships among diverse stakeholders are standard CEPF practices and have helped secure conservation gains. Eighty-four conservation forums or alliances were initiated by CEPF.
  
  
• CEPF’s success derives heavily from the weight of the financial, technical and logistical resources and far-reaching influence six major donors can bring to a single global conservation program. Few, if any, other global programs benefit from such an involved and high profile consortium.
  
  
• For the scale of its investments, CEPF has made a profound contribution to global conservation owing to its biodiversity focus and willingness to invest in areas of risk and uncertainty, tailoring its investment profiles to each unique scenario, and its commitment to the lengthy and challenging work of building conservation awareness and constituencies.
  
  
• Early indicators — respectable additions of protected areas and managed landscapes, leaving behind a credible and confident NGO community responsible for leveraging funding well beyond initial investments, science-based strategies guiding conservation actions in multiple sectors, and ongoing fora for dialogue among stakeholders and governments — suggests that CEPF has facilitated civil society in reaching a point of independently sustained growth and activity in many regions.

CEPF is a joint program of l’Agence Française de Développement, Conservation International, the Global Environment Facility, the Government of Japan, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the World Bank.