The following guidelines have been adapted from the first edition of this publication and added to from some of the key ‘lessons learnt’ by practitioners in management effectiveness evaluation over the past five years.
Effective evaluation needs a high level of support and commitment from protected area management agencies as well as from other parties involved. Evaluation of management effectiveness should be incorporated into the core business of protected area agencies.
A consistent and accepted approach such as the IUCN-WCPA Framework provides a solid theoretical and practical basis for developing management effectiveness assessment systems, and enhances the capacity to harmonise information across different systems.
Evaluation exercises that assess each of the six elements in the Framework and the links between them are most desirable, as these build up a relatively comprehensive picture of management effectiveness. This kind of evaluation is regarded as having greater ‘explanatory power’.
It is critical that the key values, management goals and objectives for the protected area have been spelt out clearly. Standards against which inputs, processes and outputs can be judged are also important.
A clear purpose, scope and objectives for the assessment are needed. It is important at the beginning of an evaluation project to know exactly what it is expected to achieve, and to understand the levels of resourcing and support that can be expected. Agreement among all partners on criteria, assessment objectives and broad questions is important before a more detailed methodology is selected or developed.
We should learn from others and use or adapt existing methodologies if possible. Methodologies should be as compatible as possible.
Tools need to be appropriate and responsive to needs. Flexibility should be retained – an iterative approach is helpful. Methodologies should be improved over time.
Indicators need to be as cost-effective as possible. It is desirable for indicators to have some explanatory power, or be able to link with other indicators to explain causes and effects. Social, economic and cultural indicators as well as those related to natural systems are needed.
The limitations of indicators need to be understood. There is a danger that evaluations can over-simplify reality by interpreting indicators to mean more than they really do.
Gaining approval, trust and cooperation of stakeholders, especially the managers of the protected areas to be evaluated, is critical and must be ensured throughout the assessment. Assessment systems should be established with a non-threatening stance to overcome mutual suspicion. If the evaluation is perceived to be likely to ‘punish’ participants or to reduce their resources, they are unlikely to be helpful to the process.
Care needs to be taken to ensure all stakeholders have an opportunity to express their viewpoints.
For all except special-purpose single-event evaluations, it is desirable to repeat similar measures at intervals. Standardized reporting allows comparisons across sites, across time, and to meet multiple reporting requirements. The system should be capable of showing changes through time.
Evaluation of management effectiveness is best if it is backed up by robust, long-term monitoring.
Evaluation must make the most of what information is available (where necessary, interpreting qualitative and anecdotal information), and should drive the establishment of a future monitoring programme, which is targeted to find out the most critical information.
Advice from evaluation needs to be clear and specific enough to improve conservation practices and it needs to be realistic, addressing priority topics and feasible solutions.
Adaptive management and action learning approaches work on the philosophy that the assessment process itself it is vital learning experience, which enhances and transforms management. Evaluation often has impacts on management well before a formal report is prepared.
Short-term benefits of evaluation should be demonstrated clearly wherever possible.
Assessment planning should include an early consideration of communication and of the evaluation audiences. The way that findings are reported must suit the intended audiences. Timeliness of reporting is critical to making it useful.
Evaluations should spell out need for planned change or should encourage reinforcement of what is going well at site or organizational level.
Recommendations should include short-term actions, which are clear, concrete, achievable within time and resource constraints and prioritised; as well as long-term and other recommendations that enable managers to take advantage of potential increased resources and opportunities.
Evaluation findings, wherever possible, should be positive, identifying challenges rather than apportioning blame.
Findings and recommendations of evaluation need to feed back into management systems to influence future plans, resource allocations and management actions. Evaluations that are integrated into the managing agency's culture and processes are more successful and effective in improving management performance in the long term.
Two key factors that determine whether evaluation findings will ‘make a difference’ are:
a high level of commitment to the evaluation by managers and owners of the protected areas; and
adequate mechanisms, capacity and resources to address the findings and recommendations.