Over the next five years, more than $122 million will be invested in conservation and sustainable development in five of the eight most important key biodiversity areas. CEPF funds will be only a fraction of these investments. CEPF will be unable to support the breadth of projects that need to be implemented or the total number of organizations that require funding. CEPF will therefore invest, at a regional and local level, in a niche that other donors are not filling. This niche is to enhance civil society's ability—through the building of knowledge, capacity and coordination—to engage in the decisionmaking processes that determine how Mesoamerica's natural and financial resources will be used.
After a successful five years of investment, CEPF will have increased civil society's capacity to influence the decisions that ensure the sustainable management of Mesoamerica's natural resources. NGOs, community groups and local government officials across the region will have increased knowledge about the threats to biodiversity, the role of their governments and regional actors in increasing or diminishing these threats, their potential solutions and the likelihood that such activities geared toward mitigating threats will work. Civil society groups will also demonstrate an increased capacity, both individually and in coordination with others, to take decisions about how to manage these threats and opportunities. CEPF's legacy for natural resource management in Northern Mesoamerica will not only be in specific projects, but in the development and strengthening of a civil society-based decisionmaking process that is more knowledgeable, more democratic, more effective and, ultimately, more sustainable.
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