Global Environment Facility (GEF) Report

Lewa was the recipient of a $750,000 Global Environmental Facility grant in 2000. The grant was complete last year and as part of a worldwide GEF review Lewa was choosen to be examined (We were one of only two in Africa ). The inspection involved two visits in late 2003 from GEF HQ in Washington and a local Benefits Study conducted by the Community Development Corporation (CDC) in Nairobi . This executive summary of the report is shown below.

Executive Summary of the GEF report

This report describes the outcomes of a pilot case study designed to understand the relationship between the local livelihoods benefits and the attainment of global environmental benefits resulting from the Global Environment Facility's (GEF) support to the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy (LWC) in northern Kenya . The study is part of a broader series of case studies supported by the GEF Monitoring and Evaluation Unit to assess the linkages between local and global benefits in GEF programme areas.

LWC was selected as a case study because of the potential for demonstrating strong linkages between improvements in local livelihoods and the attainment and sustainability of global environmental benefits. Therefore, implementation experience has the potential to yield important findings, lessons and recommendations.

The study team for implementing the case study comprised locally-based conservation and development specialists from the Conservation Development Centre, Nairobi , supported by technical staff from the GEF M&E Unit in Washington D.C. and from UNDP/GEF in New York .

The team employed three distinct and mutually supporting analytical approaches to understanding the livelihoods and environmental impacts of the GEF Lewa project. The first approach was a Project Performance Assessment , which aimed at measuring the project's achievements and challenges in implementing activities and in delivering project objectives and outputs. To underpin this assessment, the study team and LWC staff first developed a comprehensive "retrospective project logical framework", designed to tease out and organise the various intervention strategies employed by the project and to identify any missed opportunities in achieving the project goals.

The second analytical approach was a Local Livelihoods Capitals Assessment , which aimed at measuring the project's impacts on improving the livelihoods of local communities.

To underpin this assessment, the team developed a "livelihoods assessment framework" which detailed specific livelihoods impact indicators and the means of verification to be used in the study fieldwork to assess achievement of the indicator. The livelihoods framework was organised according to natural, financial, social & institutional, physical and human capitals, and also took into account gender considerations.

The final approach was a local-global linkages assessment , which aimed at evaluating the relationship, or linkages, between the project's local livelihoods impacts and the anticipated indirect global environmental benefits. To underpin this assessment, the team developed a "local-global linkages model" that describes the expected linkages between local and global benefits. This model also identified the crucial assumptions that need to be satisfied if the linkages are to hold true.

The outcome of the study team's investigations according to each of the above three analytical approaches are summarised below.

Project Performance Assessment
Overall, the GEF Lewa project has been especially successful in increasing LWC's institutional capacity (Result 1), and in the protection and management of biodiversity (Result 2).

These two results are at the heart of the project's overall goal. A strong foundation has also been laid with the project's work on improving community livelihoods (Result 3-5); however this is the area that will need additional attention in future if the project's initial gains in this area are to be consolidated.

Result 1 - LWC Institutional Capacity. The key achievements made in strengthening the long-term capacity of LWC to provide global and local benefits from wildlife conservation have been in the areas of increasing LWC's human resources capacity and consolidating and upgrading LWC's management systems. Another area of significant accomplishment has been in upgrading LWC equipment and infrastructure to enable LWC to more effectively conduct its wildlife protection and, to a lesser extent, its community conservation operations. However, as a result of all these improvements, LWC's operational costs have been increasing at a faster rate than revenues, which has made LWC more dependent on donor funding. The Community Development Department, which was established at the start of the project, requires a great deal more resources and personnel to support the existing and developing community conservation and development initiatives.

Result 2 - Biodiversity Protection & Management. Much has been achieved in the protection and management of endangered wildlife species in the wider ecosystem and, as LWC's core strength, this result has been the main beneficiary of the institutional strengthening activities of Result 1. During the project, LWC has developed new capacity in reaching its goal of re-establishing the region's wildlife within its natural rangelands. In particular,

LWC has developed a cost-effective capacity for the translocation of excess wildlife to restock other rangelands of northern Kenya , and has supported pastoralist communities to protect endangered species (e.g., three rhinos successfully introduced and protected at Il Ngwesi Group Ranch in 2002/3 and Grevy's zebra radio-collar monitoring programme within LWC and three pastoralist areas established in 2002). The major challenge faced relates to the high costs of wildlife security (e.g. US$4,625 to protect one rhino), which currently relies on donor support. Also, although monitoring was a responsibility identifiedfor LWC in the project proposal, there are still no biological (or socio-economic) baselines established for the target community areas.

Result 3 - Local Economic Benefits . The project has made significant progress in improving economic benefits to local communities from the sustainable use of wildlife and natural resources. This has mainly been achieved by strengthening the existing community tourism initiatives and wildlife operations, through capacity building in business, wildlife management and tourism, and by encouraging and supporting new initiatives such as the Kalama Community Wildlife Conservation Project and the Ngare Ndare Forest Trust.

The challenges to the project have been in the management of heightened community expectations as to the level and nature of benefits from tourism, and the lack of progress in developing any income-generating activities outside of tourism.

Result 4 - Community NRM Capacity. Partial success has been achieved in enhancing pastoralist institutions through support and capacity building of the pastoralist group ranch governance and educational support through the Lewa Education Trust, which was established in 2001. However, the major missed opportunity during the project was the lack of attention and strategies aimed at improving community pastoralist NRM practices .

Result 5 - Policy Environment. LWC did not make strengthening local and national policies supporting wildlife conservation and community livelihoods a priority action during the implementation of the project. Rather, LWC has chosen to tackle these politically sensitive issues indirectly and informally, firstly at the district level through the Community Development Manager and area chiefs, and secondly at the national level by involving and working with senior government officials who endorse and personally support LWC's community conservation initiatives. However, national wildlife and land-use policies remain unaltered and continue to limit the potential sustainable benefits that wildlife could generate in the region, which in turn would strengthen long-term biodiversity conservation support. For example, the prohibition of carefully monitored consumptive wildlife utilization prevents income-generating activities such as wildlife cropping, processing and sale of wildlife products, and sport hunting. Although LWC disseminates information widely for fundraising and attracting tourists, it has yet to make a concerted effort to disseminate its experience and lessons learnt to local and national government and other communities inthe region.

Conclusions and recommendations
The study has synthesized its conclusions and recommendations emanating from these findings under three sections: Lewa project performance and impact conclusions; Lessons learnt and recommendations to the GEF; and finally, Specific implementation recommendations to LWC . Below are summarised the conclusions from the first two of these sections.

Lewa project performance and impact conclusions
LWC has been especially successful in increasing LWC's institutional capacity (Result 1), and the protection and management of biodiversity (Result 2), which has been the main thrust of the GEF support. Although not a major feature of the original GEF proposal, LWC has also made good progress in laying a foundation for enhancing community livelihoods and bringing about sustainable natural resource use practices (Results 3-5). This reorientation of the project towards community livelihoods aspects has been due to LWC's recognition of the importance of community support and participation in achieving their longterm conservation objectives.

However, if this foundation is to result in significant and sustainable livelihood improvements in the long-term, this area of improving local livelihoods needs to be consolidated in future and new opportunities developed that have to date been missed. Firstly, other conservation compatible IGAs, besides nature-based tourism, need to be identified, promoted and supported to further enforce the linkages with the realisation of global conservation benefits. Secondly, the project has not yet significantly addressed traditional pastoralist activities. Implementing activities designed to strengthen community natural resource management systems and to identify realistic and low cost ways of improving livestock productivity and rangeland management will provide alternative ways to reduce local natural resource pressure. This is an area that LWC is now turning to through its support and involvement with the development of the Northern Rangelands Trust initiative, which it is suggested should develop a strategic approach to broader ecosystem management.

This case study has demonstrated that the livelihood improvements delivered by the project are in turn ultimately likely to lead to additional global environmental benefits, as described above for the Local-Global Linkages Assessment . However, while these linkages between local and global benefits generally appear sound, the absence of baseline data and the short time-span that the project has been operating makes it difficult to confirm tangible indirect global environmental benefits with hard data from the field. In addition some opportunities have been missed to maximise these indirect global benefit through promoting income generation from the sustainable use of natural resources other than wildlife, and through advocating for more enabling national wildlife and land use policy.

Lessons learnt and recommendations to the GEF
This case study has conclusively shown that the GEF support to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy has been effectively and efficiently used to develop the long-term capacity of the Conservancy to contribute towards the conservation and management of Kenya 's biological diversity, thereby generating a significant direct global environmental benefit.

In addition, an important conclusion of the study team is that the integrated conservation and development approach adopted by LWC has led to the achievement of rare "win-win" benefits for both conservation and development . Experience with integrated conservation and development approaches around the world has proven that such win-win scenarios are unusually difficult to achieve in practice. Only time will tell whether LWC's successes in this regard are ephemeral, since population increases or changing economics between conservation compatible and conservation incompatible land uses may undermine them.

The study team has identified eight specific lessons relevant to the future design and implementation of similar GEF projects that have emerged from this case study, as listed below:

1. A high degree of community ownership over project design and implementation is vital to success
2. Effective and sustainable local institutions are crucial for project success and sustainability
3. Locally-base project implementers with a long-term commitment to the area are more likely to succeed
4. Monitoring systems incorporating baseline data collection are needed
5. Long-term external financing may be essential
6. Win-win scenarios between conservation and development are most easily attained where populations are homogenous, conservation-compatible land uses are attractive, and population pressure is low
7. Non-cash benefits may be more important to communities than cash benefits
8. Successful ICD projects need to be tailor-made to local needs, involve multiple strategies, and adopt a wider ecosystem approach.

An important conclusion of the GEF study team is that the integrated conservation and development approach adopted by LWC has led to the achievement of rare "win-win" benefits for both conservation and development.