In making programmatic finance available to Wetlands International, DGIS placed considerable trust in the ability of the organisation to manage the proposed work effectively. Wetlands International believes that this trust has been respected and feels that it has demonstrated leadership and accountability in delivering the work through the individual projects. Many of the projects that were granted funds have produced high quality outputs and sustainable results. Others have laid substantive foundations for future sustainable development and conservation.
Did the programme make a difference? We believe it did, and considering the time limitations substantially so. Many of the activities have substantially contributed to implementation of the joint workplan of the Ramsar Convention and the CBD. The GPI has also supported several projects that have made important contributions in relation to climate change mitigation and water resources management. The programme as a whole has enhanced the science basis for wise use of peatlands, and several useful demonstration projects have been supported in a number of DAC 1 countries in Asia and Africa. The programme has supported the establishment of new networks, involving different stakeholder groups. The Grupo Páramo (Andean countries), IMPESA (southern Africa) and the GPI itself are good examples. It also encouraged other donors to invest in wise use of peatlands. The GPI programme leveraged almost twice as much funding from other sources during the implementation period, and we expect more to be raised by the various project implementers on basis of their project results.
The Global Peatland Initiative has proven to be useful as a public-private partnership. Such partnerships should not be regarded as a magical tool to achieve sustainable development or "wise use" of natural resources such as peatlands. Their value is mainly in providing a platform for a variety of development and conservation sectors and stakeholders to work together constructively towards a better understanding of each other's interests and towards agreements on issues that require inter-sectoral cooperation. In this respect it is important that sustainability or "wise use" is not only an opportunity, but may involve opportunity costs for some of the stakeholders on local and regional levels. For instance, in poverty trapped regions it should be acknowledged that without attempts to solve the economic and social problems one can not expect much attention to environmental problems, while at the same time environmental issues may augment poverty. To solve such discrepancies it can be useful to clearly identify and assess the opportunity costs through such partnerships, enhancing credibility of the fundraising approaches to donor agencies.
The paradigm of "wise use" or sustainable development provides the partnership with a tool requiring the industry to internalize environmental and related social issues within their operations, whereas environmental non-governmental organizations are required to internalize economic and related social issues in their environmental objectives.
In this respect the partnership could be directed more towards the peat based industry. So far too little emphasis has been given to the initiatives and contributions of the industry with respect to achieving wise use. A case in point are the investments made in rehabilitation of exploited peatlands and the efforts made for instance by the Canadian peat industry to support the science community. The GPI could also contribute to the debate of peat as a renewable or non-renewable source of energy.
Another most important challenge of the partnership is to contribute to the de-coupling of poverty and degradation of peat resources in the world. To really address environment-poverty issues, generally longer-term programmes are necessary. It is a pity that for bureaucratic reasons the GPI was able to only finance short-term activities. In this light, the achievements of the partnership have been significant, but to achieve sustainable results some of the initiatives started by the GPI will require longer-term follow up funding.
In operating along these lines we believe that in the end the GPI partnership can provide added value towards achieving the ultimate goal of its partners: the wise use of peatlands. So far, the GPI partnership has proven its value, and it is clear that without the joint expertise of its partners and their networks it will be much more difficult to positively influence the policy frameworks of the different conventions and governments.
last update: 04/09/10