Report of the Independent Evaluation of the
Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund

January 25, 2006

Michael P. Wells
Lisa M. Curran
Seemin QayumTable of Contents

Acronyms
Summary .......................................................................................................................... i
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1
2. Ecosystem Profiles ..................................................................................................... 6
3. Grant Portfolios..........................................................................................................14
4. Local Coordination ....................................................................................................26
5. Performance Monitoring ............................................................................................35
6. Relationship with Conservation International ...........................................................45
7. Governance and Complementarity with Donor Programs .........................................52
8. Conclusions and Recommendations ..........................................................................61

Annexes
1. Evaluation Terms of Reference
2. Progress and Impact Reporting for Five Selected Regions
3. Active vs. Completed Grants by Hotspot Strategic Direction
4. Parallel Investments from Conservation International Affiliates
5. Conservation International Costs Recovered Through CEPF Management Fee
6. Calculation of CEPF Management Fees to Conservation International

2

Acronyms

CABS
CBC
CEPF
CI
CU
GEF
MSP
RAF
SGP
STF
TNC

Center for Applied Biodiversity Science
Center for Biodiversity Conservation
Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Conservation International
Coordination Unit
Global Environment Facility
GEF Medium-Sized Project
GEF Resource Allocation Framework
GEF Small Grants Programme
Save the Tiger Fund
The Nature Conservancy

Summary
Background
The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) is a joint initiative of Conservation
International (CI), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Government of Japan, the John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the World Bank. Each of these donor partners
committed to a $25 million investment over 5 years: CI, GEF and the World Bank from 2000, theMacArthur Foundation from 2001 and the Government of Japan from 2002.
CEPF was conceived as a model to demonstrate the effectiveness of mobilizing innovative
alliances among NGOs to achieve conservation objectives. The objective of CEPF is to provide
strategic assistance to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), community groups and other civilsociety partners to help safeguard Earth’s biodiversity hotspots, i.e., the biologically richest yet
most threatened ecosystems. CEPF had progressively established active grant making programsin 15 regions covering 34 countries within 16 hotspots by June 30, 2005. CEPF had committed
grants of $68 million by this date, of which $47 million had been disbursed from an overall grant
making budget of $100 million.
CEPF is managed as a semi-autonomous unit within CI, whose Board of Directors has fiduciary
responsibility for the program. CEPF is supervised by a Donor Council, representing each of thedonor partners, supported by a CEPF Working Group comprising CEPF management andtechnical staff from the donor partners. CEPF has selected one or more NGOs as a Coordination
Unit in most of the active hotspot regions, to represent the program and to manage grant making.
CI is CEPF’s single largest grantee, providing a variety of coordination, implementation,scientific and administrative services at both headquarters and field levels.
Even though CEPF has completed five years of operations, the program is still developing.
Slightly less than half of the available grant funds had been received by grantees when thisevaluation began, while projects amounting to slightly less than $20 million or 20% of the total
grant funds had actually been completed. Of the 15 active grant making programs, three had been
active for 4.5 years, seven for 3-4 years and five for less than 2.5 years.
The CEPF donor partners initiated an independent evaluation of CEPF which began on August
15, 2005 and focused on grant making through June 30, 2005.
The Evaluation
The evaluation terms of reference (TOR) are explicit on the approach to be followed, stating thatthe emphasis “should be on the initiative as a whole, not on the effectiveness of respective field
programs”. The TOR also specify that the evaluation “should not assess the effectiveness of
independent projects but rather the strategic orientation of the portfolios vis-à-vis the larger
strategic mission of CEPF”. The evaluation was carried out by a team of three independent
consultants, the authors of this report. The needed tasks were planned and implemented on an
accelerated schedule in order to provide timely inputs to the donors considering imminent
refinancing of CEPF.
The evaluation focused on ten of the 15 active funding regions. Each was visited during
September-October 2005, generally for 7-10 days, following guidelines developed by theevaluation team. The visits included field visits to selected projects, extensive interactions withlocal coordination mechanism staff, interviews and workshops with grantees and other key
stakeholders, and discussions with CEPF’s regional Grant Directors. Outstanding cooperation
was received from all CEPF staff, grantees and partners in facilitating these visits at short notice.
iOverall Findings
CEPF has made strong progress overall during its first five years. While achieving gains in
biodiversity conservation within hotspot regions is a long-term challenge, a solid foundation has
been laid for the future. The overall performance from a global perspective has been excellent,even though there is some variation in the performance of individual hotspot programs.
Particularly significant progress has been made in the following areas:•

A coherent planning process to guide grant making at the hotspot level has been developed
and applied. The Ecosystem Profile methodology has improved significantly over the life of
CEPF after a variable start, with strong scientific support from CI. The more recent Profiles
have included thorough analyses of threats and opportunities, identified the key elements ofan ecological baseline for measuring progress, and provided clear strategic directions to guide
grant making. The later Profiles have been strengthened by broader and more effective
stakeholder consultations. In some cases the Profiles have been used successfully to
encourage the participation of other donors and coordinate the resulting additional
investments.

•

The hotspot grant portfolios are well aligned with the strategic priorities set out in the
Ecosystem Profiles, most of which are expressed in fairly general terms. The portfolios
typically consist of a few relatively large grants for program coordination and leadership,
several medium-sized grants to relatively capable national and international NGOs forstrategic, high-priority projects, and a larger number of smaller grants (many under $20,000)
to emerging civil society organizations carrying out an impressive range of grassroots
activities, some of which are thematically clustered. While the aggregate early gains fromsuch diverse initiatives are difficult to assess, the overall picture that emerges is that the
projects fit together in a coherent way and that most of the hotspot portfolios are wellintegrated and of significant strategic value for biodiversity conservation. While individual
projects were not a primary focus of the evaluation, design and implementation generally
appears to be sound.

•

The characteristics and capacity of the civil society constituency being supported by CEPF
vary significantly between the hotspot regions, with the result that the term ‘civil society’embraces a very broad range of organizations. The evaluation field visits provided ample
evidence that the CEPF model is sufficiently flexible to effectively identify and support a
range of civil society organizations of different types in varying contexts. Few of thesegrantees, particularly the less experienced emerging organizations, have access to alternative
sources of funding.

•

The most significant direct impacts from grant making to civil society have been: (i) capacity
building among local and national conservation NGOs; (ii) contributions to extending andstrengthening protected area networks: (iii) broadening environmental awareness througheffective communications; (iv) enabling local, national and international partnerships to
support biodiversity conservation; (v) effective advocacy by grantee organizations inconnection with infrastructure and other development projects; and (vi) contributions tosustainable financing for conservation. The portfolios also contain a significant number ofprojects that combine community development and livelihood opportunities with biodiversity
conservation, thereby contributing to poverty mitigation.

ii

•Significant indirect impacts should also result from grants, notably when a particularapproach tested or demonstrated successfully by a CEPF project is replicated or scaled up.
Other indirect impacts can be expected to include: (i) policy changes by governments or new
approaches by donors inspired by grantees; (ii) NGO grantees going on to more influential
activities as a result of capacity building and experience gained during a CEPF project; (iii)
local communities initiating new environmentally-friendly activities or obtaining services or
action from government as a result of increased self reliance and organizational skills
acquired during a CEPF project; (iv) institutional project partners such as research
institutions, local governments and national environmental funds adopting CEPF approaches
and introducing them to larger communities. Some of these benefits may not become evident
until several years after the activity that stimulated them and are difficult, if not impossible tomeasure. That does not diminish their value, however.

•

The Coordination Units, CEPF’s representatives and grant managers on the ground, haveprovided high quality local program implementation services. The Coordination Units haveeffectively identified and supported emerging civil society organizations, especially thosewith little previous proposal development or project management experience, many of which
are scattered widely in remote locations. CI provides the Coordination Unit at 9 of the 15
hotspot programs, although 4 of the last 5 programs activated have drawn on other NGOs in
an impressively diverse range of local institutional arrangements. Although thesearrangements have not been problem free, they have worked very well overall.

•With roles that go well beyond grant program administration, the Coordination Units haveemerged as one of the key strengths of CEPF. With support from CEPF in Washington,
especially the respective Grant Directors, these Units have been particularly effective inlinking smaller grassroots activities, larger projects, policy initiatives, international
collaboration, sustainable financing and other key elements of comprehensive, verticallyintegrated conservation portfolios. The CUs have been particularly adept at pursuing
constructive partnerships with governments – in some cases multiple governments – while
simultaneously supporting civil society organizations which sometimes have uneasy relations
with their governments as a result of their conservation advocacy activities. The label of
Coordination Unit does not do justice to the contribution of these key strategic partners.

Performance Measurement
The approach to performance monitoring has evolved and improved since CEPF was launched in2000 and it is a continuing work in process. CEPF is addressing large scale issues with its
partners and has a budget that is only generous by previous NGO conservation standards.
Expectations on what can be achieved at the hotspot level within short time periods should
therefore be kept within modest bounds, despite the relentlessly success-driven discourse of theconservation and development communities.
It is extremely difficult to determine how specific investments or projects of CEPF affect longterm conservation outcomes in a corridor, protected area, nation or region because such outcomesare usually the result of efforts of numerous government agencies, communities, NGOs anddonors over an extended period and are not easily attributed to a specific short-term investment
by one program. An overemphasis on generating short-term (e.g., less than 10 year) conservation
successes on a broad front can be hazardous insofar it tends to constrain risk and innovation, andrestrict the freedom needed to explore more risky undertakings or those requiring more time.
CEPF does not regularly assess or report progress at a hotspot level against either theconservation outcomes or the other goals identified in the log frames within each of theiii

ecosystem profiles. While the CUs have done very good work, they have not focused on
analyzing the overall performance of their hotspot grant portfolios. Exceptional work has been
done in communications, but the overall impacts of the portfolios and progress towards theconservation outcomes had not been systematically compiled and assessed. CEPF does plan tocompile a formal report on progress against the log frames for each funding region at the close of
the initial five-year funding period, starting early in 2006.
Most conservation outcomes are unattainable within a five year period. Effective management ofprotected areas and especially large corridors must continue indefinitely as there will always be
new threats and conflicts. Active civil society involvement in governance is essential for
equitable and transparent decision-making and accountability, even though conservation
outcomes may not be these organizations’ immediate or major priority. Therefore, to improve
performance and evaluation, targeted conservation outcomes require an explicit subset of shortterm benchmarks and targets that can track progress towards the species, site and corridors
outcomes. While aiming for these long-term conservation outcomes, the process andimplementation of CEPF grants generates considerable socio-economic, governance, livelihood
and related impacts that are not effectively captured in the current performance and evaluation
framework.
Monitoring in the form of site visits by the CUs appears inconsistent across the hotspots. The
CUs do not perceive their performance monitoring roles clearly, mainly emphasizing
conservation actions and management of grant funds. The overall responsibility for projectmonitoring as a support function as well as monitoring of progress towards outcomes requires
further clarification. While CEPF has developed impressive grant management and grantapplication software, there is no comparable system for monitoring and evaluation, and noautomatic or other compilation of project site visit observations or the progress reported byindividual projects against the targeted outputs at the portfolio level. The viability of developing
and introducing an integrated monitoring and evaluation system should be assessed. Care needs tobe taken, however, not to impose a monitoring structure that is so rigid as to inhibit the vital
innovation needed to push the boundaries of current approaches.
Relationship with Conservation International
The relationship with CI provides substantial benefits to CEPF. CI co-initiated, launched andmanages CEPF, its Board of Directors has fiduciary responsibility for CEPF, its Center for
Applied Biodiversity Science provides technical services, and several of its regional programs
and Centers for Biodiversity Conservation are local coordinators for CEPF. CI also provides arange of management, administrative and information technology services in addition to having
committed $25 million to CEPF as an initial investment. Two CI funds, the Global Conservation
Fund and Verde Ventures, as well as CI country programs have provided funding for grantapplicants that CEPF was unable to support and have co-financed certain CEPF grants. CI
therefore has an extremely close relationship with CEPF on several different fronts.

Start-Up Phase
CI’s dual role as manager of the grants program and as a potential grantee presents a potential
conflict of interest. CI is the largest grantee of CEPF and by June 2005 had received a total of $29
million in hotspot coordination grants, project implementation grants and management fees.
Recognizing this issue, CEPF’s Financing Agreement limits grants to CI to 50% of the total
available, with specific Donor Council approval, and the CEPF Operations Manual requires alliv

grant proposals, whether from CI or from external groups, to be subject to the same decisionmaking process.
As originally required by the CEPF Donor Council, the initial CEPF Spending Plan attached to
the Financing Agreement in 2000 included grants to CI that equaled 50% of the available
resources of $11.6 million allocated to the first three hotspots, without the projects concerned
having been specified or developed in detail. Subsequently, there was considerable pressure on
CEPF staff to support funding for relatively large CI proposals, particularly during the first few
years of CEPF. Although the pre-allocation requirement was subsequently changed by the Donor
Council in 2001 at the request of CEPF management, these factors contributed to a widely-heldperception that CI was being awarded significant CEPF grants without other options or
considerations being fully explored, to the detriment of the overall program.
From CI’s perspective, they were successfully engaging a range of new donors in supporting
valuable conservation initiatives with an exciting new focus on civil society. CEPF had made astrategic decision to begin work in areas where CI already had a strong presence and existing
relationships to build upon, so it was not surprising that their country and regional programs
would lead the initial CEPF effort. However, this interpretation was not shared widely among thetechnical staff of donor partners, many external stakeholders or the broader conservation
community.
These issues have received continual attention from the Donor Council, the CEPF Working
Group and CEPF management, who have all worked hard to overcome the negative impacts ofthese early developments.
Recent Developments
Subsequent developments related to these issues were examined closely during the evaluation andsome important trends became clear:•

The share of CEPF grants to CI fell from the initial 50% level to a cumulative 35% by June30, 2005, and continues to decline. This trend is largely explained by CEPF expanding into
new areas where CI does not have experience or a comparative advantage, and theconsequent need to engage with and support new partners and Coordination Units.

•

The evaluation team has concluded that CI has generally done an excellent job with the funds
it has received from CEPF. The coordination and project implementation services from CI
regional programs and Centers for Biodiversity Conservation, the scientific and technicalsupport from the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, as well as the administrative,
management and information technology services from CI’s headquarters have all been ofhigh quality and have provided essential support to CEPF’s civil society grant making.

•All transactions and financial flows with CI appear to have been transparently reported, eventhough some of these are relatively complex.

•

The pressure on CEPF staff to support CI grant proposals as well as the expectation among
CI staff that they should have priority access to CEPF funds has clearly reduced over time,
although it has not been eliminated.

•

While CI has generally done an excellent job with the grant funds it has received, it would be
hard to argue convincingly that CI has been treated like any other potential grantee, as
required by the CEPF Operational Manual.

v

•

In some hotspots it is difficult to assess whether certain program activities carried out by CIstaff with CEPF grant support “should” have been paid for by CI or by CEPF, with viable
arguments on both sides.

•

CI itself has recently committed to shifting towards a strategy of re-granting substantial
proportions of its revenues to support strategic partnerships, rather than trying to “do it all”
with their own field offices and personnel. This style of operating is much closer to the CEPF
model, which gave CI one of its first experiences of an explicit focus on making grants tocivil society with an emphasis on partnerships and alliances.

Despite these generally very positive developments, external perceptions continue to be
negatively shaped by the earlier events. Furthermore, the rules and disclosure requirements
governing CEPF grants to CI have not so far overcome the potential conflict of interest when agrantee is competing with other organizations for grants from a fund which it manages. Our
conclusion is that a reorientation of the CEPF-CI relationship is needed, to set further limits andto further improve transparency. The result should be to strengthen the credibility of thearrangement in both reality and perception.
Major realignments in the CI-CEPF relationship were considered by the evaluation team,including making CEPF independent of CI or making CI ineligible for CEPF grants. However,such extreme measures do not appear necessary and it is evident that such changes would have anenormous negative impact on CEPF’s capacity to operate effectively and to continue developing
the highly promising model that has emerged. Instead, the Donor Council may wish to consider
the following elements:•

A global limit for CI grants that is lower than the current 50%.

•More systematic and independent peer reviews of all grant proposals from CI, including
Coordination Unit grants (this should apply to all international NGO proposals).

•More consistent use of local independent advisory committees to advise on grant proposals(this should apply to all international NGO proposals).

•

The Executive Director of CEPF to report to the Chairman and CEO of CI, who represents CI
on the CEPF Donor Council.

vi

Governance
Donor Council
The Donor Council has played an active role in accordance with its assigned responsibilities. The
guidance and oversight provided by the Donor Council with the support of the Working Groupappears to have been effective and timely, and the Donor Council has made important
contributions to fundraising.
CEPF Working Group
The Working Group has played an active role in several of the improvements to CEPF andprovided useful input and guidance to the CEPF on important issues. Continuing efforts tocatalyze or facilitate operational collaboration between their own organizations and CEPF need to
be strengthened, as described below.
CEPF Management
CEPF management has faced a challenging set of strategic and operational issues during the first
five years. Most of these challenges have been met with great skill and there is clear evidence ofmanagement’s capacity to learn from experience and adapt to new situations, notably in theselection and management of local coordination units. CEPF is clearly a responsive organizationthat appears to operate efficiently. During the evaluation management and staff demonstrated an
exceptional capacity to respond to a myriad of requests for data and to rapidly generate products
for review. The people engaged as staff, partners and grantees are, almost without exception,
capable and impressive.
CEPF communications is exceptionally strong, particularly at a global level. For example, during
the 12 months to June 30, 2005 visitors to the CEPF Web site downloaded over 65,000 copies offinal project reports, probably drawn by the marketing of these reports in the CEPF newsletter.
These visitors came from at least 130 countries and in total downloaded more than 418,000 CEPF
documents and reports.
Engagement with Donors
As an investment, CEPF provides all of its donors with a relatively agile, flexible and fastmoving funding mechanism that supports civil society organizations in areas of global
biodiversity significance by disbursing funds in smaller amounts than these organizations
generally deal with. CEPF’s emphasis on employing good science, engaging stakeholders,building local capacities, mainstreaming biodiversity and harmonizing donor investments inbiodiversity is also of considerable strategic value to these organizations, while the capacity tosupport regional environmental collaboration involving multiple countries provides an important
contrast to the more prevalent single country donor model.
CEPF’s activities are consistent with and supportive of the poverty mitigation focus of the WorldBank and the Government of Japan as well as the sustainable development focus of GEF. Thereappears to be a strong overlap between the CEPF hotspots and concentrations of rural poverty,
suggesting that those projects supporting alternative livelihoods are likely to be benefiting thepoorest of the poor, many of whom depend directly on the services provided by the same
ecosystems that CEPF is helping to conserve. It seems evident that conservation programs such as
CEPF are considerably more cost-effective than the massive investments that would be needed torestore such ecosystems if they were to become degraded and lose the ability to provide essential
services to the poor (e.g., water, fuelwood, fodder, and flood protection, etc.).
vii

World Bank
The potential for operational collaboration with the World Bank was originally highlighted as oneof the key opportunities provided by CEPF’s innovative donor partnership. The potential for suchcollaboration has not diminished, and appears even greater now that CEPF has implemented aseries of convincing field programs and can share knowledge and lessons learned. Potential aside,
however, there has so far been little effective operational collaboration between the World Bank
and CEPF at the field level. CEPF is perceived a CI program and not part of the Bank's country
programs. Consequently, some important opportunities to build linkages and to broaden CEPF’s
impact are being missed, although there are recent signs that this may be starting to change.
Global Environment Facility
GEF has two funding windows providing resources directly to NGOs for biodiversity
conservation: the GEF Small Grants Program (SGP) and the GEF Medium-Sized Projects(MSPs). So far there have been surprisingly few interactions between CEPF and SGP. There aresome important complements in the operational models of CEPF and SGP which could provide
the basis for productive collaboration and cross learning. The MSPs have represented an
important opportunity for NGOs to access GEF resources and there may be opportunities to scale
up promising CEPF projects through MSPs.
GEF’s recent adoption of the Resource Allocation Framework is expected to significantly change
the nature of GEF operations. There may be a reduction in GEF funding to NGOs as well as
fewer opportunities for MSPs to be developed. This suggests that CEPF is unlikely to decline interms of its relative importance to GEF as an NGO funding delivery mechanism, and may
represent an increasingly valuable opportunity to support civil society with an approach thatcomplements but certainly does not duplicate SGP.
MacArthur Foundation
Grants made by the Foundation and by CEPF tend to be broadly complementary. In a few cases,
earlier grants from MacArthur have been consolidated by subsequent CEPF grants. While there
may some similarities and overlaps, redundancies are not apparent. There are some key
differences in grant making. For example, the Foundation does not have an on-the-groundpresence corresponding to CEPF’s coordination units. Also, the Foundation has gradually moved
towards larger grants, and currently supports few projects corresponding to CEPF’s smaller
grants. At present, there is limited information flow between the Foundation and CEPF, although
Foundation staff have provided valuable inputs to Ecosystem Profile drafts. Opportunities for
improved information sharing should continue to be assessed and Foundation staff should be
encouraged to participate where appropriate once collaboration between the World Bank and
CEPF starts to take off.
Government of JapanThe Government of Japan appears to value its investment in CEPF for many of the same reasons
as the World Bank and GEF. The Japanese Ministry of Finance has also been particularly
concerned that CEPF grant programs demonstrate a positive contribution to poverty mitigation.
As CEPF analyses have suggested and the findings of this evaluation have confirmed, CEPF is
supporting long-term poverty mitigation efforts on several fronts.
Program Priorities

viii

The CEPF model of support to civil society for biodiversity conservation in hotspots has made avery promising start and the experience to date does not suggest any need for radical changes instrategy or approach. Assuming that CEPF receives further financial resources to continue
beyond the five year start-up period, priorities do need to be determined for the next phase.
The evaluation findings suggest a cautious approach. While the progress made in CEPF’s firstfew years has been very positive, it is still too early to assess the sustainability of impacts.
CEPF’s ambitious long-term goals cannot be met in one or even a few five-year periods. Even
though CEPF works mainly with and through civil society, many of the challenges being
addressed by CEPF programs will ultimately require major changes in policies and behavior by
governments and other actors, none of which can be brought about rapidly or without continued
attention.
This suggests that consolidation and gradual expansion should be the strategic priorities for the
next phase, to ensure that: (i) the benefits gained so far are nurtured and sustained; (ii) lessons
from experience to date are identified and reflected in continuing operations; (iii) the tools andmethodologies for monitoring performance are developed further; (iv) the relationship with CI is
optimized and (v) operational collaboration with donor partners is strengthened.
Recommendations
Allocation of Resources
Broad decisions will need to be made on how and where new financial resources for grant making
are to be allocated across the global program. Key decisions will include: (i) whether to reinvest
in the initial CEPF funding regions, (ii) whether to expand the number of active hotspots and by
how many; (iii) the level of resources to be allocated to individual hotspots; (iv) whether toexpand the scope of CEPF to include new geographic areas or land use designations beyond thecurrent focus on terrestrial hotspots.
Following the proposed principle of consolidation and gradual expansion, considerable careshould be taken not to dilute the clear and transparent mission of CEPF, which is relatively easy
to communicate and provides clear direction and inspiration to staff, partners and grantees.
Discontinuing support for any region does not seem warranted at this early stage in thedevelopment of CEPF, particularly as many of the conservation outcomes have an anticipatedtime frame of considerably more than five years. As this report has emphasized, significant, longterm progress towards these outcomes requires sustained investments.
The evaluation team was asked to consider the option of concentrating significantly morefinancial resources in individual hotspots with the aim of achieving greater impacts. While suchdecisions should be made on a case-by-case basis, we have concluded that there are somedisadvantages to such an approach:•

CEPF’s ability to use resources effectively is limited by the absorptive capacity of local civilsociety grantees. In the hotspots visited, even though some grant funds appeared to beoversubscribed after their initial call for proposals, there seemed to be a reasonably good fit
between the available CEPF grants resources and the viable project concepts being put
forward by local civil society organizations.

•

CEPF’s influence appears to owe more to its excellent people, astute decision making,leverage and flexibility rather than the sheer amount of financial resources that it can bring tobear. A significant increase in grant resources would require more staff and a greaterixmanagement effort from the Coordination Units to maintain the current high levels oftechnical support provided to grantees – one of the clear strengths of the program. While theCUs are proving very capable in their current role, to significantly and suddenly upgrade their
grant management capacity could place excessive demands on these organizations.
•

Increasing the duration of the program, i.e., going well beyond five year periods, would
appear a more productive investment and one more consistent with the time frame likely to beneeded to generate sustainable gains at a significant scale.

Conversely, an alternative approach which spreads resources over more regions than at present
also has drawbacks. It is evident that CEPF senior management spends a considerable amount oftime refining strategies, making critically-important decisions and providing other inputs to eachhotspot region, especially during the start-up phase. Senior management also invests considerable
effort in seeking new donor partners, negotiating global grants, securing cofinancing andsupporting new trust funds. This level of effort per hotspot seems related to the number of
hotspots and the diversity of institutional and management challenges they represent rather thanthe level of financial resources available for grant making. In other words, a significant elementof fixed management costs are incurred by operating at each hotspot site. It can therefore be
anticipated that a rapid and significant expansion in the number of hotspots would require at least
a proportional expansion in CEPF’s senior management capacity.
Performance Monitoring
A priority for the next phase of operations will be to strengthen performance monitoring at a
hotspot level in two specific directions. First, both the Grant Directors and CUs need to be more
involved in portfolio performance reporting on a regular basis. Second, the use of conservation
outcomes as long-term operational targets should be complemented by the development andadoption of socio-economic, political and civil society measures and indicators that will provide
more feedback on CEPF’s interim progress towards these outcomes.
The performance assessments of each of the hotspots that are planned to start in 2006 represent an
important opportunity that will probably require considerable resources, and this needs to beplanned and implemented with considerable care if it is to prove of significant value to theprogram. A strategic and programmatic approach is needed to these assessments, that should
constitute a major activity of the second five years for CEPF. Some of the key issues that should
be taken into account are: (i) connecting these assessments to updates of the Ecosystem Profiles
for programs that are to be refinanced; (ii) linking these reviews with the development and testingof new performance monitoring methodologies and systems, including indicators to reflect thenature of and changes induced in civil society to complement the conservation outcomes; (iii)
ensuring that portfolio-level lessons are identified and disseminated; (iv) ensuring the reviews are
participatory by involving grantees and other partners; and (v) exploring opportunities for crosslearning between portfolios to help achieve global program synergies.
Ecosystem Profiles
The Ecosystem Profiles have proven to be an effective tool for planning and guiding grant
making, and have improved over time as lessons from the earlier experiences have been applied.
The Profiles are reviewed carefully by the CEPF Working Group and eventually approved by the
Donor Council, thereby providing these bodies with their most important opportunity to influencesite level grant making.
The completed Ecosystem Profiles have strategic priorities expressed in fairly general terms. Thishas so far proved to be an advantage, by providing the flexibility to make decisions on the groundx

as local grant making knowledge and experience accumulates and the capacity of each
Coordination Unit grows. Now that the existing CUs have greater capacity and an enhanced
understanding of local civil society grant making, consideration should be given as to whether
strategic priorities should: (i) become more specific and targeted based on a better understandingof the local grant making opportunities; or (ii) remain more general to encourage decentralized
decision making. Site-specific, case-by-case solutions will probably be required, based on a clear
appreciation of the capacities of both the CU and local civil society organizations.
Updated Ecosystem Profiles and revised strategic directions and investment priorities may
indicate the need for grant portfolios to be realigned in funding regions to be refinanced. Future
Ecosystem Profile preparation processes should include consideration of poverty issues,
payments for ecosystem services and the value of ecosystem services, reflecting the findings ofthe Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and consistent with the U.N. Millennium Project.
Coordination Units
The CUs have been highlighted as a major strength of CEPF, demonstrating the viability of an
innovative range of institutional arrangements and providing services that go well beyond grant
program administration. The role and functions of the CUs could still be defined more explicitly,
however, including their responsibilities for project monitoring and portfolio performance
reporting. The CU selection process should be opened up further to consider more nationalorganizations, and consideration should be given to the use of more open bidding processes for
new coordination grants. The coordination arrangements in the first three funding regions(Guinean Forests, Madagascar and Tropical Andes) should be reassessed as their initial five year
funding cycle is completed in 2006 and, in the case of Tropical Andes, should be reestablished.
It will become increasingly important to consider the long-term future of the CUs once they
emerge successfully from the early phases of grant making. There is a clear need to develop thecapacities of local and national NGOs, as CEPF is already doing, and to seek opportunities todelegate increasing authority and responsibility to these organizations to increase the local
ownership of conservation programs. On the other hand, a too-rapid wind down by the CU canjeopardize the sustainability of the gains made to that point.
Integration with Donor Partners
Strengthening the operational collaboration with donor partners should be an explicit and earlypriority of the next phase of CEPF. In order to be effective, this will require considerable efforts
on behalf of both CEPF and the donor partner organizations.
Grants to International NGOs
Within the current portfolio, international NGOs have made important contributions not only as
CUs but also by implementing strategic projects and managing small grant funds asintermediaries between the CUs and some of the smaller and more scattered or remote grantees.
In total international NGOs had received 59% of CEPF’s grants through June 30, 2005 (including
CI’s 35% share). CEPF management and some of the donor partners have expressed theimportance of gradually reducing the proportion of grants going to international rather than local
and national NGOs. Having studied the grants data, the evaluation team concurs. However, thisissue has some complex aspects and care needs to be taken before imposing arbitrary limits on
CEPF grant making to international NGOs. The international conservation NGOs often havesignificant capacities and experience in organizational management, communications, fundraisingand negotiating transboundary issues. In some contexts, they can also negotiate more effectivelyxiwith governments and large private sector firms than national organizations. While we strongly
support further decentralization of decision making within CEPF as the capacities of local andnational organizations grow, there are clear conservation benefits to be derived from theparticipation of the international NGOs. Such decisions should again be made on a case-by-casebasis.
Sharing Knowledge and Lessons
Although excellent work has been done in developing and disseminating communicationmaterials for non-technical and non-specialist audiences, more attention needs to be given to thesystematic analysis and documentation of CEPF results and experiences. Lessons learned are not
emerging at the portfolio level yet, probably because of the general lack of emphasis on portfoliolevel performance reporting at this early stage in the majority of portfolios and because of
reluctance to acknowledge or document problems and difficulties, even if these eventuallybecame important learning experiences that have led to a stronger program.
While CEPF is exceptionally strong in communications, it has not found it easy to identify anddisseminate lessons. While CEPF has clearly adapted its approach and learned from experience,
this has taken place as a result of informal information sharing within the organization combinedwith skillfully adaptive management. Either through CI or independently, CEPF should enhance
its capacity to conduct more balanced analyses of its experiences that is distinct from
communicating conservation successes.
Operational Recommendations
Certain operational areas have been identified where improvements can be made:•In some hotspots there is some duplication of effort between the tasks carried out by the local
Coordination Units and those of CEPF’s US-based Grant Directors, most of which could be
addressed by further decentralization of decision making to the local level. In general, there
appear to be good opportunities for decision making to be further decentralized once hotspot
grant programs have demonstrated their capabilities by successfully progressing beyond theirstart-up phase, although such delegation of authority and responsibility should be approachedcautiously on a case-by-case basis.

•

CEPF headquarters negotiates and arranges multiregional grants to single donors that are
intended to complement grant made locally through the Coordination Units. Such grants havesometimes been able to provide comparable services to multiple hotspots or to take advantage
of significant cofinancing opportunities, particularly with the private sector. However, insome cases the cost-effectiveness of these grants is not evident and key management
information has not always been communicated effectively to the respective local
Coordination Units. In such cases the CUs are unclear about their responsibilities formonitoring and supervision, and there is a lack of integration with the rest of the hotspot
portfolio.

•

CEPF’s grant application procedures are demanding, so much so that they represent a severe
challenge to many potential grantees. Although the application procedures have been
simplified, there is room for further streamlining.

•

The use of CEPF’s grant management system by the CUs is variable and appears to face avariety of technical constraints that require continued attention.

xii

Overall Message
The donors have launched a very promising and special program in CEPF. This innovative model
fills a unique niche in international biodiversity conservation and is being implemented by a very
professional global team plus partners who have made excellent early progress towards theirlong-term goals. We have no hesitation in recommending that the donor partners continue
funding the program and seeking further expansion opportunities.

xiii

1: Introduction
Background
The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) is a joint initiative of Conservation
International (CI), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Government of Japan, the John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the World Bank. Each of these donor partners
committed to a $25 million investment over 5 years: CI, GEF and the World Bank from 2000, theMacArthur Foundation from 2001 and the Government of Japan from 2002.
CEPF was conceived as a model to demonstrate the effectiveness of mobilizing innovative
alliances among NGOs to achieve conservation objectives. The objective of CEPF is to provide
strategic assistance to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), community groups and other civilsociety partners to help safeguard Earth’s biodiversity hotspots, i.e., the biologically richest yet
most threatened ecosystems. CEPF had progressively established active grant making programsin 15 regions covering 34 countries within 16 hotspots by June 30, 2005. CEPF had committed
grants of $68 million by this date, of which $47 million had been disbursed from an overall grant
making budget of $100 million (Table 1.1).
CEPF is managed as a semi-autonomous unit within CI, whose Board of Directors has fiduciary
responsibility for the program. CEPF is supervised by a Donor Council, representing each of thedonor partners, supported by a CEPF Working Group comprising CEPF management andtechnical staff from the donor partners. CEPF has selected one or more NGOs as a Coordination
Unit in most of the active hotspot regions, to represent the program and to manage grant making.
CI is CEPF’s single largest grantee, providing a variety of coordination, implementation,scientific and administrative services at both headquarters and field levels.
The CEPF donor partners initiated an independent evaluation of CEPF which began on August
15, 2005 and focused on grant making through June 30, 2005. This is the report of the evaluation
team. This chapter describes the evaluation approach and methodology, and provides a brief
overview of CEPF.
The Evaluation
The evaluation terms of reference (TOR) are explicit on the approach to be followed, stating thatthe emphasis “should be on the initiative as a whole, not on the effectiveness of respective field
programs”. The TOR also specify that the evaluation “should not assess the effectiveness of
independent projects but rather the strategic orientation of the portfolios vis-à-vis the larger
strategic mission of CEPF” (Annex 1).
The evaluation was carried out by a team of three independent consultants, the authors of thisreport. The needed tasks were planned and implemented on an accelerated schedule in order toprovide timely inputs to the donors considering imminent refinancing of CEPF. Information
gathering and analysis was based on:• Reviews of key background documents.
• Interviews and consultations with: CEPF management and staff, both in Washington, DC andin the field; CEPF grantees and partners (including at least one workshop with grantees ineach hot spot visited); interviews with knowledgeable stakeholders not directly involved in
CEPF-supported activities; management and staff of the donor organizations, including the
CEPF Working Group; and CI management and staff.
• Direct analyses of CEPF’s databases and grant management systems.
• Data and analyses provided by CEPF at the specific request of the evaluation team.

1

•Site visits.

Site Visits
A representative sample of active CEP grant-making regions were selected for site visits based on
the following criteria:• Broad geographic balance between Africa, Asia and Latin America• Balance of mature and more recent CEPF programs• Variety of different local coordination mechanisms, including those with and without CI• Single- as well as multi-country hotspots• Diversity of portfolios, including small grant programs and multi-regional grants• Logistical considerations
The locations selected for visit by at least one member of the three-person evaluation core teamwere:
• Caucasus• Mountains of Southwest China• Northern Mesoamerica• Southern Mesoamerica• Sundaland (Sumatra)• Tropical Andes (Vilcabamba-Amboro Corridor)• Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena (Chocó-Manabí corridor)
These site visits were supplemented by commissioned case studies conducted by independent
consultants1 selected by and reporting directly to the evaluation team, to provide a broader view
during the limited time available for the evaluation, in the following hot spots:• Cape Floristic Region• Madagascar• Succulent Karoo• Tropical Andes (Vilcabamba-Amboro Corridor) (also visited briefly by a core team member)
The evaluation therefore focused on ten of the 15 active hotspot regions. Each of these regions
was visited during September-October 2005, generally for 7-10 days, following guidelines
developed by the evaluation team. The visits included field visits to selected projects, extensive
interactions with local coordination mechanism staff, interviews and workshops with grantees andother key stakeholders, and discussions with CEPF’s regional Grant Directors. Outstanding
cooperation was received from all CEPF staff, grantees and partners in facilitating these visits atshort notice.
Separate, detailed reports on the findings from each site visit were prepared solely for the use of
the evaluation team. This overall report draws on these reports, but does not attempt tosummarize them.
CEPF Overview
CEPF provides strategic assistance to nongovernmental organizations, community groups andother civil society partners to help safeguard Earth’s biodiversity hotspots. A fundamental goal isto ensure civil society is engaged in biodiversity conservation. CEPF focuses on hotspots in
1 Manuel Glave (Tropical Andes), David Grossman (Cape Floristic Region and Succulent Karoo) and Sally

Timpson (Madagascar).

2

developing countries, providing funding and technical assistance for civil society groups to: (i)help preserve the diversity of life and healthy ecosystems as essential components of stable andthriving societies; and (ii) undertake initiatives that will ultimately also contribute to poverty
alleviation and economic prosperity.
CEPF follows CI’s focus on biodiversity hotspots. Each hotspot is characterized by at least 1,500
endemic plants and less than 30 percent of its original natural habitat remaining. Together, thehotspots are home to 75% of the planet’s most threatened mammals, birds, and amphibians. The
first phase of CEPF targeted 17 of 25 originally recognized hotspots that include countries
eligible for CEPF funds as World Bank member client countries and signatories to theConvention on Biological Diversity. Based on new research on biodiversity status and threats bynearly 400 experts, CI has identified nine new hotspots, increasing the total of critically importantregions for biodiversity globally from 25 to 34. Although the 34 hotspots once covered 16% of
the Earth’s land surface, 86% of the original habitat has been destroyed and the intact remnants of
the hotspots now cover <3% of the Earth’s land surface.
Within the hotspots, CEPF investments target action in key biodiversity areas as well as threats tobiodiversity in conservation corridors. The design process includes the identification of species,
site and corridor conservation outcomes for the hotspot. The outcomes are meant to guide overall
effort by the wider conservation and donor communities. As part of the preparation prior toinvestment in each hotspot, CEPF identifies its niche through a stakeholder-driven prioritization
process that factors in socioeconomic features, threats and current investments alongside thebiodiversity science in each hotspot. The CEPF niche and subsequent strategic directions andinvestment priorities are articulated in an investment strategy for each hotspot, known as an
Ecosystem Profile. Each profile, approved by the Donor Council, is intended to guide both civilsociety in applying to CEPF for grants and CEPF decision making.
The 16 biodiversity hotspots supported by CEPF are:• Atlantic Forest (Brazil)• Cape Floristic Region (South Africa)• Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Iran and Turkey)• Coastal Forests (Eastern Arc Mountains & Coastal Forests of Tanzania and Kenya)• Eastern Afromontane (Eastern Arc Mountains & Coastal Forests of Tanzania and Kenya)• Guinean Forests of West Africa (Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone andTogo)• Himalaya: (Eastern Himalayas - Bhutan, India, Nepal)• Indo-Burma (Eastern Himalayas - Bhutan, India, Nepal)• Madagascar and Indian Ocean Islands (Madagascar)• Mesoamerica (Northern Mesoamerica: Belize, Guatemala, Mexico and Southern
Mesoamerica: Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama)• Mountains of Southwest China (China)• The Philippines (The Philippines)• Succulent Karoo (Namibia and South Africa)• Sundaland (the Indonesian island of Sumatra)• Tropical Andes (Vilcabamba-Amboro Corridor: Bolivia and Peru)• Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena (Chocó-Manabí Corridor: Colombia and Ecuador)
Preparation of ecosystem profiles and grant-making programs have been phased, with activities
having started in three hotspot regions in year 1, six in year 2, one in year 3, three in year 4, andan additional two in year 5. All hotspot regions cover a five-year implementation period.

3

Key Data
Figure 1.1 shows the proportion of funds committed to grants by June 30, 2005 for each hotspot
compared to the allocated grant budget for the 5-year investment period.

$0$2,000,000$4,000,000$6,000,000$8,000,000$10,000,000$12,000,000

Eastern Himalayas
Northern Mesoamerica
Eastern Arc Mountains and Coastal Forests
Caucasus

Succulent Karoo
Mountains of Southwest China

Tumbes Choco Magdalena
SundalandSouthern Mesoamerica
The Philippines
Cape Floristic Region
Atlantic Forest

Tropical Andes
Madagascar
Budget Available

Guinean Forests of West Africa

Committed Grants

Inception to June 30, 2005

Total Committed versus Budgeted Funds*

Figure 1.2 is a financial model prepared by CEPF that shows overall cash flows based on theinitial funding commitment of $125 million as well as the overall funding goal of $150 million.

4

Table 1.1 summarizes the key elements from CEPF’s financial statements to June 30, 2005, theeffective cutoff date for the evaluation.
Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Grants Awarded and Other Expenses
To June 30, 2005

Start

1/2001
1/2001
1/2001
12/2001
12/2001
12/2001
12/2001
12/2001
12/2001
6/20022/20037/20037/2003
1/20042/2005

Cumulative

Guinean Forests of West Africa
Madagascar and Indian Ocean Islands
Tropical Andes
Atlantic Forest
Cape Floristic Region
The Philippines
Southern Mesoamerica
Sundaland
Tumbes Choco Magdalena
Mountains of Southwest China
Succulent Karoo
Caucasus
Eastern Arc Mountains & Coastal Forests
Northern Mesoamerica
Eastern Himalayas

Ecosystem Profile Preparation
Operational Costs

Spending
Authority% ofAuthority

5,713,635
3,899,128
4,858,856
6,286,922
5,036,435
6,068,407
4,073,237
9,366,704
4,280,585
5,564,675
3,628,460
2,699,238
3,864,815
1,980,938
500,000

6,200,000
4,250,000
6,150,000
8,000,000
6,000,000
7,000,000
5,500,000
10,000,000
5,000,000
6,500,000
8,000,000
8,500,000
7,000,000
7,300,000
5,000,000

92%
92%
79%
79%
84%
87%
74%
94%
86%
86%
45%
32%
55%
27%
10%

67,822,035

100,400,000

68%

6,366,562
9,918,821
16,285,383

Total
Expenses

84,107,419

By Grantee
External Partners
Conservation International
Total

5

Total
44,365,426
23,456,609% of Total
65%
35%

67,822,035100%

2: Ecosystem Profiles
CEPF has prepared Ecosystem Profiles to articulate grant-making strategies for each hotspot.
Each Profile describes the biological significance of the region, identifies the proximate andunderlying causes of biodiversity loss, links this with an inventory of conservation investments
taking place or planned, and then identifies thematic and spatial priorities for CEPF grant making.
This chapter reviews the scientific and strategic rationale for the Ecosystem Profile approach,reviews linkages between the Profiles and existing planning processes, and discusses somespecific issues that have arisen during the Profile preparation process.
Strategic Rationale
The CEPF Operational Manual requires CI to recommend specific biodiversity hotspots aspriorities for CEPF investment annually, based on biodiversity status, political contexts,
leveraging opportunities and other factors. The Donor Council then decides which hotspots toselect for CEPF programs.
Biodiversity Hotspots
Following the work of Norman Myers, CI adopted the concept of hotspots to prioritize areas
where conservation funding would contribute the most toward slowing the current rate ofextinction. A region must meet two criteria to qualify as a hotspot: it must contain at least 1,500
species of vascular plants as endemics (>0.5 percent of the world’s total), and it has to have lostat least 70% of its original habitat. A recent reanalysis by CI has led to a shift in the boundaries ofsome hotspots and reclassification of others. CEPF has started to reflect the new names anddesignations in communications but continues to invest only in the original geographic priority
areas as agreed by stakeholders and the CEPF Donor Council as outlined in the ecosystemprofiles.
The biodiversity hotspots are among the most challenging as well as the most important places toachieve conservation success. These are predominantly tropical islands or mountainous areas
where biodiversity faces complex threats. Strong socioeconomic and political forces have often
led to the fragmentation of original ecosystems into smaller areas that are highly contested by avariety of stakeholders. Distributions of wealth, access and power are often highly inequitable.
Powerful private sector interests tend to dominate natural resource access and use, often withlittle constraint being exercised by weak government institutions. Local communities tend to be
marginalized and poor, and usually have limited opportunities to influence the management of theresources that their livelihoods ultimately depend on. Reconciling ecosystem conservation ondifferent scales across complex jurisdictional boundaries with sustainable development insituations of weak governance is perhaps the major challenge facing the conservation anddevelopment community. Mobilizing civil society to play a more effective role in this process isan essential component that has so far received little support. The Ecosystem Profiles articulate
how this should be attempted in each CEPF hotspot.
Applicability of the Ecosystem Profile Approach
The hotspots range from the Eastern Arc at 30,000 km2 to Indo-Burma at 2.4 million km2. Some
degree of geographic concentration or clustering of effort is therefore essential, particularly in thelarger hotspots, if the modest resources available to CEPF are not to become dissipated. This isespecially critical within the larger, heterogeneous hotspots such as Madagascar (0.6 millionkm2), Sundaland (1.6 million km2) and Tropical Andes (1.3 million km2).

6

International boundaries present another challenge. While five of the CEPF hotspots consist of
sub regions within countries, the other ten include at least two countries, with some crossing as
many as six national boundaries. Even though international collaboration adds politicaloperational complexity, conservation on appropriate scales is essential and is embedded in the
hotspot concept.
Conservation Outcomes
Identifying conservation priorities and targets and then measuring the degree of success ofconservation activities, whether in the hotspots or elsewhere, is tremendously challenging. CEPF
has adopted the conservation outcomes (results) methodology of CI, which provides a scientificbasis for the grant making strategies in the Ecosystem Profiles. CI’s approach to measuringconservation outcomes is based on identifying targets at three different scales: (i) the species
level, including all species listed as Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable; (ii)individual sites identified as Key Biodiversity Areas; and (iii) biodiversity conservation corridors
linking the key sites at a landscape level. CEPF does not have its own in-house technicalscientific capacity nor was it intended to do so. For the Ecosystem Profiles, CI’s country
programs, regional Centers for Biodiversity Conservation, and Center for Applied Biodiversity
Science and partner organizations have generated the needed species and habitat distributional
data within the hotspots.
Relationships with other conservation planning approaches
Strategic planning for conservation rarely starts with a clean slate. Among the challenges
encountered during the preparation of the Ecosystem Profiles was the need to work withinternational NGO partners that already had their own methodologies, while taking adequate
account of conservation planning processes that had already taken place in the selected hotspots.
Finding Common Ground with Partners
To facilitate analysis and collaboration, CI aimed to encompass the boundaries of the hotspots
with the World Wildlife Fund-US and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Ecoregions. CEPF and its(non-CI) international NGO partners have generally managed to overcome any difficulties
presented by these different approaches, notably in the Caucasus, China and East Africa, and thedifferent priority-setting approaches do not appear to have been an impediment to collaboration.
For example, the regional WWF office acting as CEPF Coordination Unit in the Caucasus wasable to seamlessly blend the WWF Ecoregion approach with CEPF’s own methodology and
WWF in the Eastern Himalaya appears ready to follow suit.
From the outset in China, the new and emerging CEPF program engaged effectively with andsupported both TNC and WWF, both of whom had considerable experience in the hotspot. The
Sundaland Ecosystem Profile divided the target area into four sub regions, each of which wasallocated to an international NGO (Wildlife Conservation Society, WWF-Indonesia and CI, who
focused efforts within two regions), and then each organization had considerable flexibility to
implement their own approach, with considerable success, although opportunities should now besought to strengthen the links between these separate sub-programs.
In Mesoamerica, CEPF is poised to further the regional conservation planning and action agenda
through a proposed ecoregional planning alliance with TNC in Northern Mesoamerica, and an
ongoing territorial and land use planning alliance in Southern Mesoamerica involving national
and international NGO partners and the Costa Rican Ministry of Environment.

7Building on Earlier Efforts
In a few hotspots, notably Madagascar and the Cape Floristic Region, previous planning
processes closely linked to CEPF’s objectives were incorporated into ecosystem profiles andstrategic planning. The Madagascar Ecosystem Profile, which was prepared at a relatively earlystage as CEPF’s methodology was still being worked out, was largely based on the National
Environmental Action Plan and a 1995 CI-convened priority-setting workshop. As a result of thebroad stakeholder inputs to this workshop, only limited additional consultations were considerednecessary. While justifiable, this was not an entirely successful compromise. The dramaticadvances in the Madagascar conservation policy since 2000, to which CEPF and CI have been
key contributors, as well as the lessons from five years of grant making and the prospect ofsignificant new international agency funding for the environment, now necessitate a significant
and far reaching update to this Ecosystem Profile.
In South Africa, CEPF built on an earlier participatory planning framework that had developed abiodiversity conservation strategy for the Cape Floristic Region with GEF funding through World
Bank. This process had involved a broad range of stakeholders over two years, although thesubsequent transition to action had been slow. CEPF built on this information to develop its
Ecosystem Profile and focused on engaging civil society in conservation-based activities. Thiswas conducted effectively and had the effect of galvanizing the entire CAPE initiative. It is now
evident that some of the critical bottlenecks and capacity deficiencies in local government
agencies may have been underappreciated during the planning process, and will require renewed
attention not only from CEPF but from its national and international partners.
The Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC), an ambitious undertaking funded by GEF, GTZ,
UNDP and World Bank joining protected areas and corridors in the eight country-region,
provided an overarching framework for the development of the Ecological Profiles and corridor
strategies in the Northern and Southern Mesoamerica hotspots. CEPF has actively supported andcollaborated with the MBC and several CEPF grants respond to priorities identified by the MBC.
Given these synergies between CEPF and MBC, and the compelling regional vision of the MBC
as well as of the Central American Commission on Environment and Development, the umbrella
initiative of the Central American governments, the option of uniting Northern and Southern
Mesoamerica for the next phase of CEPF should be carefully considered. It would arguably bemore effective – environmentally, politically, and in terms of CEPF costs, administration, andgrant-making – to have one overall regional CEPF profile for the region, with strategic thematicand geographic subcomponents.
Strategic Planning
The process of drafting an Ecosystem Profile begins when the CEPF Donor Council approves a
hotspot region as a priority. The preparation of an Ecosystem Profile begins with a prioritysetting process that aims to include all significant biodiversity conservation stakeholders. The
purpose is to secure broad-based scientific agreement on the biological priorities and to define
conservation outcomes and needed conservation actions for the area. This priority-setting processusually involves national experts and participants from government agencies, NGOs, local
communities and donor organizations. The results from the priority-setting process also provide
baseline information and a logical framework that are both included in the Ecosystem Profile tobe used in measuring the subsequent performance of the grant portfolio. Technical review teams
and regional contacts from donor partner organizations have an opportunity to comment before
the Profiles are submitted to the Donor Council for endorsement. Each Profile also has to beendorsed by the GEF Operational Focal Point in the respective country or countries. Onceapproved, each Ecosystem Profile is made public on the CEPF web site. Letters of Inquiry(LOIs) are invited and the application process moves forward, with all applicants required to8explain how their proposed activities will contribute to at least one of the Strategic Directions in
the Profile.
Improvements Over TimeThe Ecosystem Profile preparation process for the first three CEPF hotspots sites selected (e.g.,
Guinean Forests of West Africa, Tropical Andes, and Madagascar & Indian Ocean Islands)
generally relied on CI staff and consultants. They compiled background information, consulted
stakeholders and synthesized these inputs into a draft Ecosystem Profile in a rapid manner during
the initial design phase of the overall initiative. Whether due to inexperience or insufficient time,these early draft Profiles were not well received by the technical staff of the CEPF donor partners,
who generally found the materials poorly organized and contributing little that was new. A
considerable amount of time was spent on discussing, reviewing and strengthening these initial
Profiles.
Six Profiles for the second phase of hotspot start-ups were approved one year later in December
2001. These were based on considerably more participatory and transparent processes and ingeneral were technically stronger. CEPF has effectively increased consultations and stakeholder
engagement to ensure consensus, ownership and commitment among civil society to deliver on
the strategies. CEPF has found that organizations or teams of individuals could produce a better
product than individuals acting alone. This improvement in the quality of the Ecosystem Profile
process and outputs has continued through subsequent hotspot introductions, and the final
versions of the most recent Profiles are impressive documents.
The planning process has also benefited from the expanded use of maps, remote-sensing andgeographical information system tools, often with technical support from CI’s Center for Applied
Biodiversity Science as well as some of the large international NGO partners (notably Birdlife
International and WWF).
The costs of the Ecosystem Profile preparation process have steadily increased over time as thescope of work has expanded to involve more stakeholder meetings, workshops and translation
fees. The average costs for the Profiles in each CEPF phase of hotspot introduction have been as
follows: Phase 1: $90,000; Phase 2: $150,000; Phase 3-5 $250,000. However, when the
additional resources later provided to CI to revisit some of the earlier Profiles and retrofit
outcomes monitoring methodologies are taken into account, the average costs of the first twophases increase by $70,000, thus eliminating most of the cost changes over time.
Benefits from the Preparation Process
At each hotspot visited, the evaluation team met with stakeholders who had participated in the
Ecosystem Profile preparation process. In general the process was highly regarded by theparticipants, particularly in the more recent cases. Numerous respondents explained that this was
the first time so many diverse stakeholders had been brought together in their region to share
information and experiences and to jointly develop conservation priorities and strategies. Many
civil society organizations reported having had few if any previous opportunities to discuss andplan such issues in a common forum with government officials as well as researchers. CEPF andthe local CU’s convening power to bring together government and civil society for the first time
had clearly provided several opportunities for the emergence of new as well as more constructive
relationships both among NGOs and with diverse governmental agencies
Through its workshops and meetings, the Profile preparation process requires building consensus
and mutual awareness of the issues as well as the aims and strategy of CEPF. The consultation
process also appears to have contributed to broadening the vision of participants, making themmore aware of ecological connectivity, ecosystem services and the fact that actions in one place9

have impacts elsewhere. Especially in regions where such consultative processes are still
exceptional, participants appreciated sharing knowledge and communicating with otherstakeholders who were approaching biodiversity conservation with different perspectives,
opinions and capabilities.
Use of the Ecosystem Profiles
The primary function of the Ecosystem Profile document is to provide an overview of the key
issues germane to conservation and to define a clear and transparent strategy for CEPF grant
making. This was achieved in all of the hotspots.
In some cases the value of the document has exceeded this goal. For example, in the Caucasus thenational conservation agencies in Georgia and Armenia insisted that the Ecosystem Profile had
become a key planning document that they referred to regularly, especially in determining whereto establish new protected areas. Also in the Caucasus, CEPF has been very effective in using the
Ecosystem Profile to encourage conservation investments from other donors, notably KfW andNORAD, and then helping these same donors work out where their own projects should befocused in order to most effectively complement existing activities.
With increased use of GIS mapping, the Profiles also provide a rich visual map that is a key
communications tool for grantees, especially smaller NGOs, to place their activities within alarger landscape context, with the Atlantic Forest and Sundaland Profiles providing excellent
examples.
There is little, if any, sign that Ecosystem Profiles have been used or adopted by CEPF’s own
donor partners, notably World Bank and GEF, with the sole exception of the Cape Floristic
Region. In the most of the hotspots, there are relatively large World Bank and/or GEF projects
with overlapping objectives to CEPF, but little sign of active cooperation. This issue is discussed
further in Chapter 7.
Ecosystem Profile Issues
This section discusses some technical and operational issues that have arisen in the development
and implementation of the Ecosystem Profiles. These observations should be read in the context
of our general conclusion that the Profiles are a good methodology that has been applied withsteadily increasing skill and effectiveness and has considerable future potential.
Linkage of Threats Analysis to Grant Making Strategies
One of the strengths of the Ecosystem Profiles, particularly the more recent ones, has been to
combine CI’s conservation outcomes methodology with extensive stakeholder consultations inorder to pinpoint the species, sites and corridors to be prioritized by CEPF grant making. The
next logical step is to recognize and understand the threats to biodiversity in these areas, assess
the work already under way to mitigate these threats and then identify the niche and opportunities
for CEPF to address these threats. While our discussions with the CUs and the CEPF Grant
Directors indicate that these issues are reasonably well understood in each hotspot, thedocumentation does not consistently reflect this.
The Ecosystem Profiles provide an overview of the socio-economic and sometimes the politicalcontext within each hotspot and also identify the major threats to conservation. What is less clear
in the Profiles is how CEPF has decided which of these threats it plans to tackle directly throughits grants to civil society, which threats it plans to tackle in cooperation with partners, and which
threats are simply beyond its scope to address with modest resources over a 5-year period. Not
10surprisingly, the grant making strategies outlined so far are based much more on systematic workin conservation science than on detailed analyses of the socio-economic and political issues thatneed to be addressed in order to redress or mitigate the threats. In Guatemala, Indonesia, West
Africa, Madagascar and other regions with weak governance, for example, resource
overexploitation and the degradation of protected areas are usually consequences of much broader
and deeper social, economic, political, and cultural problems and cannot be dealt with as sitespecific problems of parks management.
The discussions in the Ecosystem Profiles have not so far attempted to systematically classify,
prioritize or rank the various threats that have been identified, to analyze in any depth the current
or planned actions by other stakeholders and then to provide clear, logical connections to theplanned CEPF interventions as outlined by the Strategic Directions and Investment Priorities.
This is understandable during the initial, start-up phase of grant making but has implications forthe process of updating the Ecosystem Profiles. A considerably enhanced level of analysis andinsights can be anticipated, based on the knowledge gained and lessons learned during the first
five years. Continuing advances should be expected in the biological information available torefine the targeted lists and baselines of species, sites and corridors to be refined. But
considerably more efforts should be possible on the social and economic context. An enhanced
understanding of the dynamics of civil society should lead to a clearer appreciation of grant
making opportunities. In some cases these may be reasonably specific, for example prioritizing
certain types of grantee organizations or certain thematic areas or sectors.
In developing a more analytical approach to the documentation of threats, we recognize the needfor tact and diplomacy in preparing what will become a public document. Some degree ofgenerality can therefore be anticipated when analyzing the role of partner organizations,especially government agencies in those cases where there has been a near-catastrophic failure ofgovernance that provides a formidable barrier to more effective biodiversity conservation. Such
concerns apply equally to most NGOs and international agencies, including CEPF’s donor
partners.
How Specific Should Grant Making Strategies Be?
Each Ecosystem Profile typically specifies 3-7 Strategic Directions which are further broken
down into 2-5 Investment Priorities, and these are the principal guides to grant making. The
categories that have been used thus far are generally fairly broad, providing considerable
flexibility to the Grant Directors and the CUs.
The main advantages of such flexibility are to devolve such decisions to those with local
knowledge and experience, so they can respond to new and innovative opportunities as theyoccur, and make adjustments that reflect lessons learned during early phases of grant making.
Each of the CUs visited has convincingly argued the case for remaining flexible and able torespond to emerging priorities and unmet needs. Another reason for retaining some level ofgenerality and flexibility derives from the very nature of the Ecosystem Profiles. While these are
valuable documents and compare favorably with other strategic conservation plans, they are notcomprehensive, all-inclusive studies of all major factors affecting conservation that can be used to
pinpoint precise interventions.
On the other hand, the Ecosystem Profiles represent the most significant opportunity for thedonor partner organizations to influence grant making within each hotspot, as the donors are notdirectly involved in subsequent decisions on which individual grant applications CEPF will
support. Understandably, this has led to a certain amount of pressure to make the Strategic

11

Directions and Investment Priorities in the Profiles as specific as possible, so the donors can be
confident that their overall objectives are being met.
If the Strategic Directions and Investment Priorities were to become so general that almost any
grant proposal could be made to fit one of them, then it would be viable to question whether the
Ecosystem Profile really is an operationally-relevant document or else simply a report preparedmainly for the donor partners. But this clearly has not happened. Our informal reviews of both
accepted and rejected grant proposals reveal that the CUs and Grant Directors have gone toconsiderable lengths to ensure that there is a fit between grantees’ proposed activities and theapproved Investment Priorities. Rather, the overall impression is that the CUs and Grant Directors
may have erred on the side of caution in their grant making, particularly to new andinexperienced civil society organizations.
During the initial five years of grant making the degree of specificity of the Strategic Directions
and Investment Priorities in the Ecosystem Profiles does appear to have been appropriate ifallowances are made for two key factors. First, the technical quality of the Profiles improved
significantly over time, after an unconvincing start; second, the Grant Directors supported by theCUs have generally proven to be effective and skilled at making informed grant making
decisions, as described in later chapters. Given these two factors, the rather general nature of the
grant making guidance provided in the Ecosystem Profiles has become an advantage in practice.
Elsewhere in this report, it is argued that CEPF should continue to cautiously decentralize its
decision making. Keeping the Strategic Directions and Investment Priorities reasonably general
would be consistent with this goal, while an insistence on more specificity could unnecessarily
constrain the Grant Directors and CUs.
Defining and Anticipating Impacts on Civil Society
While considerable scientific effort has been put into determining and documenting the elementsof biodiversity to be conserved, the actual and potential role of civil society in achieving
conservation goals has not been analyzed in depth, particularly in those regions where civilsociety is a relatively new or emerging phenomenon. Each of the Ecosystem Profiles containgeneral characterizations of civil society within the hotspot, but this information is not elaborated
in a way that is comparable to the attention given to the biological aspects of conservation.
This is an important issue because the term civil society covers a very broad range of local andnational organizations and individuals with characteristics that differ significantly between the
hotspots. The relatively sophisticated conservation and development NGO communities in muchof Latin America, the Philippines and to some extent Indonesia might have trouble understanding
how they could be described under the same category as the mix of institutions tentatively
comprising civil society in China and the Caucasus, where some organizations are not officiallyregistered and others have such strong ties to government that they can only be regarded as NGOsin their very specific local context. Further variations on the civil society model are appearing inSouth Africa, while civil society in Madagascar has just begun to emerge despite 20 years ofrelatively significant donor investment in the country’s biodiversity. Not only do theorganizations comprising these civil societies differ from one another, but the frameworks within
which they operate, their relationships with government and of course their capacities forindependent action all vary greatly. What they share is a potentially vital role in conserving
biodiversity.
The Ecosystem Profiles generally lack detailed analyses of civil society at least partly because
this topic has not been studied and documented in many of the hotspots. Assessing the status andpotential of the diverse and sometimes rapidly changing elements of civil society and theirpotential role in eliciting changes in societal behavior towards biodiversity is not something that12

can be rapidly assessed through a brief consultancy. This needs to be learned over time through asustained set of interactions with the key people and organizations involved, and that is exactly
what has been taking place during CEPF’s first five years of grant making.
It could be argued that CEPF does not need a detailed understanding or analysis of civil society
and that it is possible to ‘learn by doing’ by inviting grant applicants to apply for funds and thenworking with them to shape proposals and design projects that fit the Investment Priorities.
Following such an approach, the first five years of grant making has indeed provided an
important opportunity to learn about civil society’s interests, capacities and ambitions in thevarious hotspots. As this experience continues to accumulate, CEPF has the potential to generate
powerful lessons on the relationship between variations in civil society organizations and somekey aspects of grant making, including: (i) the types of grants; (ii) the size and length of grants;(iv) their likelihood of success and impact; and (v) the amount of management effort likely to berequired and the time frame over which they are likely to be needed.
While tools may not yet be widely available to classify different elements of civil society and“map the civil society landscape” as a baseline, CEPF appears to be in a strong position to takethe lead in this area with support from CI as well as other international and local partners with therequisite expertise. A stronger analytic focus on the dynamics of civil society should eventuallycontribute to more effective grant portfolio performance monitoring to match the efforts being
made to assess conservation outcomes through shifts in biological indicators. Participatory
approaches that involve all kinds of NGOs and indigenous peoples in assessing what kinds ofgrant making work best in specific civil society ‘landscapes’ could be an exciting development ofvalue to all of CEPF’s donor partners. Such tools could also lead to an enhanced understanding ofcivil society’s role in contributing both to biodiversity conservation and poverty mitigation,building on the poverty studies recently prepared by CEPF (Chapter 3).

13

3: Grant Portfolios
CEPF had committed over 500 grants with a total value of $68 million to civil society
organizations in 16 hotspots by June 30, 2005, from an overall grant making budget of $100
million. Of the grants awarded, $47 million had been disbursed, while projects amounting to $20
million had actually been completed. The grant portfolios are required to follow the Strategic
Directions and Investment Priorities specified in the Ecosystem Profiles. The ultimate targets ofgrant making for each hotspot as a whole are expressed in terms of conservation outcomes, i.e.,
species, sites and corridors.
This chapter provides an overview of the grantees and the types of projects supported and reviews
CEPF’s grant making procedures. Some specific aspects of the grant portfolios are thendiscussed: the alignment of the portfolios against the Ecosystem Profiles; the use of small grant
programs and multi-regional grants; contributions to poverty reduction; advocacy; and financial
leverage and cofinancing. Annex 3 contains data on active and completed grants by hotspot
strategic direction.
Overview
While the greatest number of grants has been made to local and national civil society
organizations, international NGOs have received most of the funds (Table 3.1). InternationalNGOs have received 44% of the grants and 59% of the total funding or financial support. If
grants to CI are excluded, other international NGOs have received $16.3 million or 24%. The
larger grants to international NGOs are mainly for local CEPF coordination and/or they are grants
to CI. These are discussed further in Chapters 4 (the CUs) and 6 (CI). Grantees affiliated withinternational organizations are counted as local organizations only if they are legally registered in
the hotspot and have an independent board.
Table 3.1. Split of number and amount of grants between national and international NGO grantees
International NGOs
Local NGOs
Funding Region
Grant Total Grant Grant Total Grant
Grant Total
Grant
$
Count
$
Count
$
Count
Atlantic Forest
Cape Floristic Region
Caucasus
Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena
Eastern Arc & Forests
Eastern Himalayas
Guinean Forests
Madagascar
Mountains of SW China
Northern Mesoamerica
Southern Mesoamerica
Succulent Karoo
Sundaland
The Philippines
Tropical Andes
Grand Total

504,383
697,519
2,699,238
2,232,197
1,973,849
500,000
4,830,387
2,685,928
4,700,085
1,943,414
1,741,911
1,311,077
7,190,164
3,809,004
3,372,067
40,191,222

6
7
5
12
22
1
44
26
27
5
13
10
32
24
14
248

Size of Grants

14

5,782,539
4,338,917
0
2,048,388
1,890,966
0883,248
1,213,200
864,590
37,5242,331,326
2,317,384
2,176,540
2,259,403
1,486,789
27,630,813

28
34
0
25
24
0
21
11
42
1
36
35
27
20
16
320

6,286,922
5,036,435
2,699,238
4,280,585
3,864,815
500,000
5,713,635
3,899,128
5,564,675
1,980,938
4,073,237
3,628,460
9,366,704
6,068,407
4,858,856
67,822,035

34
41
5
37
46
1
65
37
69
6
49
45
59
44
30
568

The global grant size distribution is shown in Figure 3.12. As might be expected, the number ofgrants drops off rapidly above $300,000. The pattern below $300,000 is somewhat surprising,
however, with relatively few grants in the $20,000-50,000 range, although this may be an artifactof the size of the ranges graphed. One contributing factor to the effect shown is that moredemanding application procedures come into effect for grants above $20,000, leading to aclustering effect at just below this level from grantees who might otherwise have requested larger
amounts. Another factor contributing to the abundance of small grants under $20,000 is themodest capacities of virtually all local and national civil society organizations in many of thehotspots where CEPF operates. For comparison, the average grants of the GEF Small Grants
Programme are about $20,000, while the upper limit is $50,000.
Figure 3.1
Grant Amount<$20,000$20,000-49,999 $50,000-299,999

999,999$300,000-

! $1M

0
5

50

stnarG #

57

100

87

1

47

87

CU Grants Removed (n=548)
All Grants (n=567)

150
200
216 216202 197

250

Grant Size Distributions Summary

A sizeable cluster of grants in the $50-300,000 range is evident. This is a range that falls between
the GEF Small Grants Programme and the GEF medium-sized grants which are usually close to
their $1 million ceiling. This range does overlap with the smaller grants of the MacArthur
Foundation. The absence of a financial grant ceiling allows CEPF grant making to be genuinely
flexible and responsive to a variety of organizations in different phases of capacity development
and operating in a range of different contexts. It also differentiates CEPF from most other grant
making programs.
Range of Grantees
CEPF is arguably more comprehensive in its approach than most other civil society grant making
programs that do not go much beyond generically identifying NGOs as potential grantees. The
range of partners and grantees extends from individuals, farmers and community organizations,through national NGOs, research institutions and private sector organizations, up to international
environmental NGOs with global reach. Prominent and strategically vital partnerships have also
been developed with local and national governments, including the agencies responsible forconservation as well as closely-related sectors such as forestry and agriculture, a significant
number of which have a history more of conflict than cooperation.
This graph includes only direct CEPF grants to single grantees; this means that a grant made by CEPF toestablish a “small grant program” managed by a partner and making multiple grants only appears as asingle grant. These small grant programs are described later in this chapter.
2

15

CEPF has reached a wide array of civil society actors and institutions in all of the hotspots despitea variety of social, economic, and political constraints. The CEPF approach has been flexible
enough to make progress in the midst of some potentially discouraging civil society scenarios.
For example, NGO networks and civil society organizations have only recently started to emerge
in the Caucasus and China where they still have uneasy relations with government. Conservationin Madagascar has for decades been dominated by the large international NGOs while localorganizations lacked capacity, training, and opportunities. NGOs in Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena
are viewed with increasing suspicion by the government of Colombia, where grant-making isfurther complicated by guerrilla, paramilitary, drug-producing, and drug-trafficking activities. As
CEPF was launched in Sundaland in 2002, the situation in Indonesia was highly unfavorable tocivil society activities due to civil unrest and regional conflicts (especially in Aceh) and awidespread breakdown in governance. Guatemala in Northern Mesoamerica, having emerged
from a lengthy civil war, is plagued by corruption and a weak state is unable to act against intensepressure on natural resources and protected areas, while Ecuador in Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena
and Nicaragua in Southern Mesoamerica face comparable problems.
Civil society has not been analyzed in great depth as part of the planning process for grant
making, as noted in Chapter 2. There has been relatively little systematic stakeholder analysis,
although it is evident that the coordination units generally have considerable knowledge of civilsociety or are learning quickly, and this has made a major contribution to the high quality of the
grant portfolios.
Focus of Grants
After visiting project sites and discussing numerous grants with a range of stakeholders in several
hotspots, the evaluation generally found that CEPF’s own information reporting systems andcommunications materials have done an excellent job in capturing the essence of most projects,
although naturally there is a strong tendency to emphasize successes rather than to identify
lessons from less successful initiatives.
CEPF grants appear to have been particularly effective or to show particular promise in theseareas:•

Protected areas: Project portfolios in all hotspots have primarily focused on achieving
conservation outcomes by supporting the expansion, consolidation and improved planningand management of protected areas, having used the best-available science to identify themost important species, sites and corridors. This has been done by convincing leaders andgovernments to expand or solidify their protected area networks; by providing training andother capacity building services to protected area managers and staff; by supporting NGOs
working in collaboration with government conservation agencies in activities such as park
planning; by ensuring that state-of-the-art cartography is accessible to civil society andgovernment stakeholders; by supporting research to help define appropriate reserveboundaries; and, crucially, by integrating these various approaches into a cohesive program.

•Species conservation: Projects aimed at preventing extinctions, which generally contribute to
ecosystem conservation as well, have included mobilizing local community organizations toplay an active role in conservation through participatory biological monitoring; research tomonitor and assess threatened species; research to support more efficient harvesting of
economically-valuable species; mitigate threats of hunting, poaching and illegal trade;
expanding knowledge of medicinal plants and other valuable species among indigenous
peoples; and specific measures to help conserve flagship species and their habitats.

16

•Capacity building and training: The capacity of most civil society organizations andgovernmental stakeholders in conservation are strikingly low in most hotspots. Grants areoften made to the national offices of international NGOs in order for these organizations toprovide formal training as well as employment for a cohort of promising individuals who are
expected to provide the next generation of national conservation leaders.

•Community development and poverty mitigation: The project portfolios reflect a growing
appreciation that effective conservation requires working with the local people in and aroundprotected areas and critical habitats who are the users and sometimes the managers of
biodiversity resources. All of the portfolios support community stewardship of biodiversity
through improved use and management of natural resources, the reduction or elimination ofpractices harmful to biodiversity, and the development and adoption of a variety ofalternative livelihood opportunities. While poverty alleviation was generally not an explicit
focus of the ecosystem profiles, a significant number of CEPF grants have provided the basis
for improving the incomes and economic well-being of poor communities.

•

Building Conservation into Development Planning: Grants have supported the development
and implementation of GIS systems as sources of biodiversity information for decision
makers and planners in different sectors attempting to harmonize conservation with economic
development. Innovative payment for environmental services programs have promoted
biological connectivity and restoration in buffer zones of protected areas and corridors whileproviding attractive economic incentives for small farmers and landowners to maintain land
uses consistent with conservation. Other grants have supported the restoration of former
forested areas in ways that can generate attractive returns for landowners, and promoted
sustainable practices through environmental certification for mining and forestry.

•Private sector: At least five Ecosystem Profiles contain strategic directions that specificallytarget the private sector (Atlantic Forest, Cape Floristic Region, Madagascar, Succulent
Karoo and Sundaland), with the Cape Floristic Region, Succulent Karoo, and Sundalandachieving significant conservation contributions from national and international companies in
the mining, agribusiness, wine production, logging and ecotourism sectors.

•

Multinational hotspots: A unique contribution of CEPF has been to demonstrate thatconservation planning and implementation can take place on a regional, multi-country scale.
Among the sites visited by the evaluation team, this was particularly evident in Northern andSouthern Mesoamerica and in the Caucasus, where CEPF is working at a regional level
through a variety of NGO, national government and regional organization partners.

•

Long-term conservation financing: CEPF grants have been used to support work by the CUs
in helping to establish conservation trust funds in the Caucasus and in Madagascar, as well as
substantially leveraged support for existing trust funds in the Tropical Andes.

Grant Making Procedures
Potential grantees in each hotspot first submit a letter of inquiry (LOI) using a standardized
template. The LOIs provide information about the applicant organization and a brief descriptionof the proposed project, indicating the strategic direction in the Ecosystem Profile to which it
responds. The LOIs are reviewed by the local coordination units, the grant directors and, in someregions, by external reviewers. LOIs are sometimes reworked following suggestions from CEPF
staff. Once an applicant’s LOI is approved, the grantee is invited to submit a full proposal,
including a logical framework and indicators, using the Grantwriter software package. Grant
applications for under $20,000 do not submit full proposals but are processed based on an offline

17

description of the project activities and deliverables and budget, often provided as part of the
LOI.
The local coordination units and the grant directors usually work closely with the applicants on
the development of the grant proposals. Risk and financial assessments of the applicant and the
project are undertaken by CEPF in Washington, D.C. In some cases, the proposals are sent out toexpert, non-aligned reviewers. Based on internal and external reviews, the CUs and the CEPF
grant directors make a decision on project approval. If approved, a contract is prepared andsigned by the grantee and the CEPF Executive Director.
Grantwriter is a grant application system for grantees, while Grant Tracker is an online grant
workflow/reporting system that tracks the progress of applications, and then financial andprogress reporting and disbursements once grants are approved. Numerous grantees claimed theyspent inordinate amounts of time trying to download and upload application materials fromGrantwriter. The log frame requirement was also a major challenge for many grantees – and not
only for the smaller NGOs with lower capacity.
The CEPF grant processing time from submission to full approval has steadily declined fromabout nine months in 2002 to about three months in 2005. The total number of letters of inquiry
submitted for review has increased from just over 200 in 2002 to around 900 in 2005. CEPF
therefore processes grants considerably faster than traditional funding mechanisms forconservation. The Grant Tracker system provides the CU with ready access to grant information
and allows management to intervene effectively when processing bottlenecks or backlogs occur.
Rejections as well as acceptances are tracked, and the Grant Directors and the CUs takeconsiderable trouble to explain in a letter to each unsuccessful applicant why their LOI was not
accepted. The reasons for rejection are clearly provided. These are usually due to applications not
being sufficiently aligned with strategic directions, being outside the areas of geographic focus orsimply because they lack adequate details of the proposed project.
In general CEPF has an efficient, transparent and streamlined grant application and management
process, even though many applicants still have difficulty with online processing and log frames
in particular. Some grantees report frustration in that the application process itself often requires
funds and resources such as appropriate computers and software, which are not always available.
Almost all of the hotspots programs have accepted LOIs on a rolling basis, i.e., applications could
be submitted at any time and are assessed and approved continually. More recently, the Caucasus
program has experimented with requests for proposals by specific dates, and there have been
three rounds of funding so far. It is still too early to fully assess the overall advantages of thisapproach, which obviously results in a pulse of applications and a relatively severe burden on
staff within a short period of time; however, time is then freed up during other periods that can be
more intensively devoted to project monitoring and technical support to grantees in the field.

Consistency with Ecosystem Profiles
The grant portfolios were compared to the strategic directions specified in the Ecosystem Profiles
in each of the hotspots visited. Each strategic direction has a budget approved by the Donor
Council and there has been some flexibility in adjusting these budgets to respond to changing
hotspot conditions, although not the overall hotspot grant portfolio budgets.
It was clear that the Ecosystem Profiles have guided grant making and none of the portfolios
examined were inconsistent with the Profiles. This is at least partly attributable to the fact that the18

guidance provided by the Ecosystem Profiles tends to be fairly general, as discussed in Chapter 2.
There is no doubt that the grant directors and the coordination units have been diligent in ensuringthat all grants follow the guidance. The evaluation team observed consistently high quality grant
portfolios that comply with the strategic directions and target the conservation outcomesdelineated in the ecosystem profiles.
There is considerable local variation in how this came about in practice. In some cases specific
grantees are approached and encouraged to submit certain types of projects consistent with aselected strategic direction in order to achieve a particular objective. In other cases thecoordination units simply publicize the grant making opportunity and the strategic directions andthen consider all applications as they come in. Particularly in this latter case, the result can be thatthe demand for grants favors some strategic directions over others, which is one of the reasons
why some strategic directions within individual hotspots have used more of their budgeted grant
allocations than others. In these cases the coordination units needs to revisit the ‘less popular’strategic directions and aim to develop viable project concepts with potential grantees.
The coordination grants tend to be large, as described in Chapter 4, and can have a distorting
effect on the overall portfolios if, as tends to be the case, the entire coordination grant is allocatedto one strategic direction. In the future, it may be better to retain coordination grants as a separate
funding category outside the strategic directions.
Small Grant Programs
There are two types of CEPF “small grant”. The first is any grant made by CEPF of <$20,000(increased from $10,000), while the second is a grant made by a small grants program establishedthrough a single CEPF grant to an NGO or fund for re-granting. The latter type is the focus here.
There is no set grant period for small grants, although they are usually about one year in duration.
The small grants programs are designed to help implement specific strategic directions. Grants
are modest in scale, scope, and cost, application procedures have been simplified, and projectreview and approval are relatively rapid. Some of the small grant programs have supported
capacity-building, training, and technical assistance needs in regions with fewer, emerging, or
less-resourced civil society organizations that might not otherwise obtain access to CEPF funds.
By awarding block grants to regional lead organizations for re-granting, CEPF decentralizes anddistributes the decision-making and monitoring responsibilities and processes to the local andnational levels. At the same time, the grant-making administrative burden on CUs and CEPF staff
and management is alleviated.
The lead re-granting organizations are responsible for managing the programs and all aspects ofgrant making, and together with local selection committees, for grant review and approval. In
most regions, these organizations developed the small grant proposal requirements and formats,approval process, and monitoring systems. CEPF as a whole only requires LOIs for small grants
under $20,000, which is what many of the small grants programs use as well, but several have
prepared their own simplified application procedures.
CEPF financial reporting is quarterly for all grantees, however, programmatic reporting is semiannual for all but those grantees assessed as being high risk. At the request of CEPF management,
the Donor Council agreed in December 2001 to change the Operational Manual to enable CEPF
to have the flexibility to require only semi-annual programmatic reporting. Initially CEPF
implemented this flexibility only for grantees assessed as being of low risk. A reassessment in2005 led CEPF management to adjust this to also include medium risk grantees. Now only highrisk grantees are required to submit quarterly programmatic reports.

19

Eight of the 15 hotspot regions have small grants programs under implementation; in most cases
these were specifically called for in the Ecosystem Profile strategic directions. In two cases thesmall grants programs anticipated in the Ecosystem Profiles have not yet been established. In
Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena there is as yet no agreement on suitable national NGOs to serve as thelead re-granting organization and in Southern Mesoamerica, it was decided that the CU could
more cost effectively administer small grants than a re-granting organization.
Four small grants programs in the Atlantic Forest hotspot are together administering $2.0 million
or 25 percent of the portfolio budget, and have awarded nearly 200 grants over the past three
years. Half of these small grants support the creation of private natural reserves, improvement ofmanagement plans, and organization of networks of private reserves as the basis for collective
long-term management. In Madagascar, the overall grant is awarded to CI-Madagascar as the leadorganization, then CI “subcontracts” regional partner organizations or nodes. Each node receives
a grant from CI for approximately $20,000, one third destined for training, equipment, andcapacity building needs, and the remainder for micro-grants.
While all small grants programs are aligned with strategic directions, some focus on particularthemes. Programs in the Atlantic Forest and Philippines target threatened species, Mountains ofSouthwest China specifies the lesser-known endangered species, and the Caucasus pinpoints 50
globally threatened species in the hotspot, as well as alternative livelihoods (e.g., ecotourism,
collection of non-timber forest products, and sustainable hunting and fishing). All of the small
grant portfolios reviewed during the site visits appeared consistent with their guidelines, although
the program in the Philippines has only made ten grants in three years, and implementation
arrangements there are being renegotiated.
The small grants programs, and especially the excellent Atlantic Forest model, feature these bestpractices: (i) the re-granting organization chosen to run the small grants program is recognized as
an NGO leader in the corridor or region with the full capacity to manage such a program; (ii) the
re-granting organizations participates in hotspot-level coordination and grantee meetings andactivities; (iii) regular meetings with the CU review implementation, ensure complementarity andexchange lessons; (iv) grant-making is done on the basis of a request for proposals; (v) simplified
application or letter of inquiry formats are used; (vi) proposal reviews and grant selection aretransparent; and (vii) the lead organizations are responsible for monitoring the grants, conductingsite visits and providing technical assistance as well as training potential grantees in proposal
writing, project design and management, and organizational development.
Multiregional Grants
A multiregional grant supports activities by the grantee in multiple hotspots. CEPF had awarded$5.1 million in 17 multiregional grants implementing 15 projects by June 30, 2005. In somecases, these grants are subsequently re-granted by the original grantee in smaller amounts to othergrantees. Three grantees received two thirds of the multiregional grants: Rare/CI ($2.0 million)
and Save the Tiger Fund (STF)3 ($1.5 million). CI was a grantee for four of the 15 multiregional
grants.
Multi-regional grants impart some important and distinctive benefits. They have allowed CEPF
to: (i) move rapidly in disseminating and applying proven conservation approaches in new areas;(ii) facilitate exchanges of knowledge and experience between hotspots; and (iii) strengthentransboundary coordination in conservation programs. Moreover, these grants have also helped
CEPF secure some significant cofinancing opportunities, particularly with the private sector.

3

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is actually the official grantee, while Save the Tiger is the project.

20

The negotiation and approval of these grants rests almost entirely with CEPF in Washington,
D.C. While it seems valid for multiregional grants to be decided in Washington based on a global
perspective that may not be evident to each of the local coordination units, such centralized
decision making has in some cases led to a diminution in transparency and accountability, withconsequent uncertainty among the CUs as to: (i) how re-granting takes place and further grantees
are identified and supported; and (ii) who is responsible for monitoring the actual performance of
these grants.
The Rare/CI grant can claim considerable success in environmental communications, with anapproach based on building local pride in endangered species that has won international awards.
Thirteen individuals were identified from participating CEPF hotspots, then provided withtraining at a UK university and subsequent support while implementing the program in the field.
This multiregional grant includes a significant match, with Rare agreeing to implement 15
additional campaigns with other funding. In total, the grant enabled Rare and CI to support 13
environmental awareness campaigns in nine hotspots across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Together, they report reaching nearly one million people and inspiring other donors and groups tocommit nearly $10 million to Rare for 40 additional campaigns in the next three years. With the
new funds raised, Rare now has the resources to launch 70 new campaigns – more campaigns
than it has supported during its entire 18-year history. Deliverables also included building a longterm financial foundation for the organization’s operations.
The CEPF Grant Director assigned to this multiregional project was responsible for monitoringand supervising all aspects of the project together with the designated project leaders from bothRare and CI. This included a number of site visits, among other supervision activities. There aresome concerns with this project, however:•The generous budget pays for US-based CI staff salaries and travel and both CI and RARE
take a 13% overhead. The budget also includes $72,000 in university professional services
and over $60,000 for equipment, course materials and library fees, for 13 students. The costof the activities conduced under this grant appears disproportionately large relative to other
CEPF grantees, while there do appear to be comparable and less expensive options available,
such as expanding the use of local universities.

•

Some of the CUs and their local selection committees attempted to reject these grants coming
to their own hotspots, either on the basis of excessive cost or because they doubted theapproach would be effective, but were overruled by CEPF management.

STF received $500,000 from CEPF for each of the China, Eastern Himalayas and Sundaland
hotspots (through the National Fish and Wildlife Service). STF also received a matching $1.5
million grant from Exxon Mobil Corporation. The CEPF grant includes STF salary andmanagement costs of $750,000. The remaining $2.25 million is being re-granted by STF overthree years, mainly to established international NGOs with grants averaging about $50,000.
Assessing the cost-effectiveness of this multi-regional grant is challenging. There has been asignificant contribution to the operating expenses of STF, while re-granting has mainly been toorganizations that CEPF might have been expected to reach on their own. However, CEPF
leveraged $1.5 million cofinancing and has the potential to contribute to the emergence of a longterm independent grant-making program based on Ecosystem Profiles in several hotspots. Thus,
CEPF invested in a long-term strategy to engage STF and ensure its long-term survival withrolling Exxon Mobil financial commitments. To date, the CEPF CU in China has had relatively
little information on the ultimate use of these funds or conservation outcomes and coordination
within the grant portfolio appears limited.

21

Multiregional grants have sometimes been able to provide comparable services to multiple
hotspots or to take advantage of significant cofinancing opportunities. However, key management
information regarding some of these grants has not always been communicated effectively to therespective local Coordination Units and the accountability and transparency surrounding thesegrants does not appear to match the exemplary information flow and transparency associated withthe rest of the CEPF grant portfolio.
Poverty Mitigation
The Donor Council’s November 2004 statement on CEPF and Poverty Reduction highlighted thecritical issues by emphasizing the following points: the value of ecological services to humanity
is only beginning to be appreciated; ecosystem services that are the basis for life on Earth arebeing jeopardized by human activities; the hotspots are critical both for biodiversity as well as forlarge numbers of impoverished people who are highly dependent on natural ecosystems; poor
people are often forced to overuse or degrade environmental resources as a short-term survival
strategy, thereby exacerbating the problem; biodiversity conservation activities and investments
contribute to poverty reduction by protecting the biological assets upon which the poor depend;
CEPF addresses poverty reduction through support for civil society organizations working on
environmentally sustainable livelihood opportunities and improved resource management;
CEPF’s biodiversity conservation activities thereby help to reduce poverty, consistent with Goal
7 on Environmental Sustainability of the Millennium Development Goals.
Following this compelling logic, it would seem apparent that CEPF as a program is making asignificant contribution to long-term poverty mitigation that provides an essential complement toother donor programs that are more focused on directly improving key human welfare indicessuch as income, employment, health, nutrition, education, access to fresh water, etc. Although it
is essential for CEPF to support the continuing search for synergies between biodiversity
conservation and poverty reduction, CEPF should not dilute its mission by seeking to emulate
development organizations focused primarily on poverty. Decades of investments in overly
complex integrated conservation and development projects have demonstrated how difficult andcostly it can be to try to build specific poverty linkages into conservation projects.
During 2005 CEPF launched an intensive effort to measure the program’s contribution to poverty
reduction. Detailed case studies have been prepared for Southern Mesoamerica and the Atlantic
Forest, Brazil, with others planned in the Philippines, Succulent Karoo and other hotspots. Thesestudies have drawn on national and local data sets and maps, supplemented by a questionnairedeveloped for the use of grantees to generate project-specific data. This has resulted in thecompilation of a useful picture of the grant portfolios’ relationships to poverty reduction and has
certainly enhanced CEPF’s collective appreciation of the complex, multidimensional relationshipbetween biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation.
The main conclusions of the first two hotspot studies is that CEPF is indeed operating in areas
where rural poverty is concentrated, thereby increasing the likelihood that many direct andindirect project beneficiaries are among the poorest of the poor. Another finding is that CEPFsupported projects do contribute specifically to poverty reduction by creating jobs, providing
skills training, reducing vulnerability to disasters and by promoting alternative income-generating
opportunities that are less damaging to the environment than current practices.
The evaluation team is impressed with the quality of the analyses carried out by CEPF, which arematched by very few other global conservation programs. These studies have been beneficial inhighlighting important issues for CEPF’s managers, staff, grantees and other partners, while thedevelopment of an approach to keep track of poverty-relevant performance indices for individual
conservation projects is a useful tool likely be of interest to other organizations. There is,22however, at least one important methodological constraint to the studies performed, in that it isextremely difficult to aggregate the different poverty impacts that can be attributed to individual
projects.
Considerable care should be taken in drawing conclusions from the CEPF poverty studies for
future grant making. For example, even if the methodological challenge identified in the lastparagraph could be overcome and all of the direct poverty impacts of projects could be measured
and aggregated (direct impacts here refers to immediate jobs, income gains and other measurable
welfare benefits), would this somehow capture the essence of CEPF’s contribution to poverty
reduction? Almost certainly not. Even those projects specifically aiming to generate income gains
through alternative livelihoods tend to be relatively small. The real value of such pilot ordemonstration projects would only become apparent if the ideas or techniques being
demonstrated take root over time and are then replicated or scaled up by others, either
spontaneously or with support from other, larger funding sources. Measuring the direct,
immediate impact of CEPF’s projects does not give a good indication of the potential impact ofsuch a project. It could also be argued that the indirect, long-term impacts on poverty reduction
achieved through grant support for civil society organizations is likely to be considerably greaterthan the direct, short-term impact of relatively small, short-term projects4. These issues should be
looked at in the context of a wider discussion about the direct and indirect, short-term and longterm impacts of relatively small grants to civil society.
A logical step to follow up the CEPF poverty studies would be to include consideration ofpoverty issues in new and updated Ecosystem Profiles. CEPF has already supported someinnovative projects setting up payments for ecosystem services. The closely related issue of
assessing the value of ecosystem services would be worthwhile to start including in the
Ecosystem Profile preparation process. If the Profiles determine the need to pursue specificpoverty-oriented activities, we advocate that these be conducted in partnership with appropriately
specialized civil society organizations working in close partnership with conservation
organizations, and that additional cofinancing be obtained to support such initiatives.
Environmental Advocacy
CEPF grantees have made a number of significant contribution to influencing major development
or infrastructure plans to takes account of biodiversity conservation. Some of the more important
examples include the following:•

Caucasus: In Armenia, a pioneering effort by a coalition of groups resulted in thegovernment’s 2005 decision to redirect part of a transnational highway originally planned to
cut through the nation’s Shikahogh Reserve. The landmark decision is the first time civilsociety has influenced developmental plans in the country.

•

Eastern Arc & Coastal Forests of Tanzania and Kenya: A TRAFFIC assessment of the illegal
logging of the coastal forests of southern Tanzania since the opening of the Mkapa Bridgeover the Rufiji River helped lead to a national indigenous hard wood harvest ban, various
harvest and trade restrictions, additional forest staff employed in all districts, additional
budgetary allocations and confiscation of illegal timber.

•

Guinean Forests of West Africa: (i) An extensive forest reassessment effort in Liberia by
local and international partners led to the reform of national protected area management
legislation and policies, helped the government to begin correcting a historical imbalance

4

Indirect impacts are elaborated on page 62.

23

toward forest overexploitation; (ii) Three major international private sector mining partners
expanded their capacities in biodiversity conservation.
•

Southern Mesoamerica: A coalition of more than 15 Panamanian NGOs helped convince
governmental officials to shelve plans for constructing a highway through Volcán Barú
National Park, which forms part of La Amistad Biosphere Reserve.

•

Mountains of Southwest China: A grantee’s photographic exhibition helped convince thegovernment to postpone plans to build dams along the Nujiang River that would havethreatened one of the last free-running rivers in the hotspot and a World Heritage Sitecontaining old-growth forests, 7,000 plant species of 80 rare or endangered animal species.

•

Sundaland: Local communities and organizations in Sumatra won cancellation of logging
plans for nearly 50,000 hectares in the northwest of Bukit Tigapuluh National Park, capping a
six-month effort led by a local foundation to help traditional forest-dwelling communities
advocate against the logging. Following NGO pressure one of the world’s largest pulp andpaper producers stopped logging in 2002 in the proposed Tesso Nilo protected area.

•

Tropical Andes: A logging company agreed to give up the last remaining logging concession
in the Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve and Indigenous Territory that threatened the reserve as
well as the livelihood of thousands of indigenous people living in the region.

•

A grant to the Conservation Strategy Fund in Northern and Southern Mesoamerica has
yielded a comprehensive inventory and mapping of existing and planned infrastructure
projects (road construction and networks, electricity generation and transmission, etc.) in theregion, providing an invaluable tool for conservation planning, policy, and advocacy.

Leverage and Cofinancing
The CUs and the Grant Directors have been very effective in generating matching and new
resources for CEPF-supported projects, alliances, and strategies in virtually all of the hotspots.
Such leveraging has in many cases served to greatly increase the amount of funding available topursue CEPF strategic directions and conservation outcomes. This is separate from funding that
grantees raise from other donors and the private sector.
CEPF Funding Region
Atlantic Forest (Brazil)
Cape Floristic Region
Caucasus
Eastern Arc Mountains
Guinean Forests
Madagascar
Southern Mesoamerica
China
The Philippines
Succulent Karoo

Grants$2,766,327$3,399,460$2,670,000$357,700$3,241,849$2,651,523$1,855,142$2,735,634$431,304$1,404,102

Cofinancing$2,192,760$1,473,913$1,380,000$227,571$3,261,247$2,087,453$1,223,058$1,668,920$777,700$244,041

24

Project/Regional
Leveraging

Total Leveraged
Funds$3,550,000$2,200,000$8,880,000$0$5,904,015$2,928,572$15,880,000$3,200,000$7,000$2,250,857$5,742,760$3,673,913$10,260,000$227,571$9,165,262$5,016,025$17,103,058$4,868,920$784,700$2,494,898

SundalandTropical Andes
Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena
Global Grants$4,066,478$2,256,247$1,830,441$2,864,030$1,680,375$636,902$1,732,667$3,000,000$1,617,555$17,253,456$4,498,000$10,000,000$3,297,930$17,890,358$6,230,667$13,000,000

Total$29,666,207$18,586,607$69,324,455$100,911,062

25

4: Local Coordination Units
Introduction
Locally-based coordination units (CUs) implement the CEPF program in each hotspot region,
working closely with the Grant Directors. The most important tasks of these CUs are to lead
implementation of the CEPF ecosystem profile in the hotspot and build a broad constituency of
civil society groups working across institutional and geographic boundaries toward achieving
shared conservation goals.
CEPF and CI management conceived the CUs as key partners at the regional level with thecapacity to establish and deliver a coherent and effective conservation strategy. This involves: (i)providing technical assistance to grantees and other partners; (ii) strategic planning and action;gathering key players together in partnership arrangements; (iii) supporting an expanding networkof institutions sharing the commitment to a common strategy; and, in most cases, (iv) projectmonitoring. Through these activities, CUs are expected to deliver effective conservation
programs that contribute to the conservation outcomes defined in the Ecosystem Profiles.
In practice each of the CUs plays a slightly different role, with some more involved than others in
preparing the Ecosystem Profiles. This chapter considers the selection of the CUs, their roles andtheir relationship with CEPF.
Coordination Grants
In total the CUs have been awarded coordination grants of $13.2 million, and have received
further grants for project implementation of $10 million, totaling $23.2 million. Of this amount,
CI has received $18.1 million. As required by the Financing Agreement, grant allocations to CI inareas where it is considered to have a comparative advantage were approved within CEPF annual
spending plans by the Donor Council.
The multi-year coordination grants awarded so far cover the remaining periods of the initial $125
million CEPF investment, with the single exception of the Eastern Himalayas where thecoordination costs can be anticipated to be around $800,000. This gives projected total
coordination grants of about $14 million. With a total spending authority of $100.4 million for
grants, it thus seems likely that coordination grants will absorb almost 14%.
While the types of expenditures supported by these coordination grants vary depending on thelocal context and the organizational configuration adopted, the CUs are typically composed of
local staff who work full-time on CEPF grant programs (where CI is the CU, their staff usually
become full- or part-time CEPF staff). Local leadership is provided by the senior management
staff of the organization acting as the CU, who generally charge some proportion of their time tothe coordination grant. Other significant components of the coordination grants include
equipment, vehicles, travel, workshops and training in support of grant program management.
CEPF has developed a model of actual and projected future expenses based on the CEPF initialfunding goal of $150 million. The relative share of CEPF expenditures expected to be allocated tocoordination grants over time based on the first five years donor investment is shown in Figure
4.1 (the coordination grants shown here do not include the grants made to the CUs for project
implementation or for re-granting as small grant funds).

Figure 4.1. CEPF actual and project expenditures by major categories
26

Selection of Coordination Units
The CU arrangements can be summarized as follows (Table 4.1):• Seven regions have CI exclusively as their CU (China, Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena, Northern
Mesoamerica, Philippines, Southern Mesoamerica, Sundaland, Tropical Andes), althoughprovincial-level review committees advise on grant approval in China. The CU grant to CI for
Tropical Andes was completed in 2003 and this program has subsequently been managed by
CEPF from Washington.
• As CU for the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, CI-Brazil operates in close alliance with a national
NGO and proposals are reviewed by external reviewers. As CU for Sundaland, CI includes
WWF and WCS in key aspects of coordination.
• Five regions have CUs that are not linked to CI (Caucasus, E. Himalaya (still in design), Cape
Floristic Region, Succulent Karoo, Eastern Arc and Coastal Forests of Tanzania and Kenya).
• Two regions have had no CU at all and been managed directly by CEPF’s headquarters-based
staff (Guinea Forest and Madagascar, although CI is a major grantee in Madagascar).
Substantial reliance on CI as CU was anticipated in the early phases of CEPF. CI was selected as
the CU in 8 of the first 10 regions where CEPF launched operations. In some of these regions CI
was already well established (e.g., Tropical Andes, Brazil and Costa Rica in Southern
Mesoamerica); in others CI consolidated its operations by acting as the CU (e.g., Ecuador in
Chocó-Darien-Western Ecuador and Guatemala in Northern Mesoamerica); while in some cases
CI established itself for the first time by becoming the CU (e.g., China and Southern
Mesoamerica beyond Costa Rica). In some of these regions CI had a clear comparativeadvantage as CU, while in other regions that seems less clear.
Unfortunately the virtually automatic selection of CI as CU during the early phase of CEPF fed
the external perception that they had been unfairly favored relative to other candidates who had
not received serious consideration. It would be difficult to argue that the policy spelled out in the27

CEPF Operational Manual that CI had to go through the same procedures as any other grantapplicant was applied consistently in the awards of the early CU grants.
More recently CEPF has experimented with a variety of other CU institutional arrangements,
some involving single NGOs while others consist of NGO coalitions. While most of theseorganizations are part of international NGO networks, their leadership and staff are almost
entirely national. CI was selected as CU for one of the last 5 hotspot programs activated.
Table 4.1. CEPF Coordination Units
LaunchRegionCountries

Coordination Unit

Evaluation
Field Visit
Yes

Dec
2000
Dec
2000
Dec
2000

Madagascar

Madagascar

None

Tropical Andes

Bolivia & Peru

CI-Bolivia & CI-Peru

Yes

Guinean Forests ofWest Africa

None

No

Dec
2001

Cape Floristic
RegionGhana, Guinea,
Cote d’Ivoire,
Liberia, Sierra
Leone, Togo
South Africa

Yes

Dec
2001
Dec
2001

Atlantic Forest

BrazilSouthern
Mesoamerica

Dec
2001
Dec
2001
Dec
2001
June
2002

Sundaland Sumatra

Costa Rica,
Nicaragua,
PanamaIndonesia

Cape Action for People and the Environment(CAPE) Coordination Unit at the South African
National Biodiversity Institute.
CI and SOS Mata Atlantica (CI received the
grant and has an alliance with SOS)
CI -Southern Mesoamerica Program (based in
Costa Rica)
CI-CEPF Grants Manager for Sumatra plus
three lead organizations (CI, WWF and WCS)
CI-Philippines

Yes

Choco-DarienWestern Ecuador
Mountains ofSouthwest China

Colombia,
EcuadorChina

CI-Colombia and CI-Ecuador

Yes
Yes

Feb
2003

Succulent Karoo

Namibia, South
AfricaJuly
2003

Eastern Arc
Mountains &Coastal Forests of
Tanzania and
Kenya

Kenya, Tanzania

July
2003

Caucasus

Jan
2005

Northern
Mesoamerica
Himalaya; IndoBurma

CI-Center for Biodiversity Conservation in
Mesoamerica (grant suspended October 2005,
CU to be restructured)
In design

Yes

Feb
2005

Armenia,
Azerbaijan,
Georgia, Iran,
Russia, Turkey
Belize,Guatemala,MexicoBhutan, India,
Nepal

CI China together with two review committees
including the Sichuan Planning Commission,
WWF China Program, The Nature
Conservancy, Sichuan Forestry Department,
Center for Biodiversity and Indigenous
Knowledge and the Yunnan Forestry
Department
Succulent Karoo Ecosystem Program
Management Unit at South African National
Biodiversity Institute and the Namibia Nature
Foundation.
International Centre for Insect Physiology andEcology; Tanzania Forest Conservation Group;
Bird Life Africa Secretariat plus national
partners Nature Kenya and Wildlife
Conservation Society of Tanzania; WWF.
Steering committees including govt. and NGOs
in Tanzania and Kenya
WWF Caucasus Program; coordination
members in each country except Iran; expert
reviewers group

Philippines

28

No
Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

Role of Coordination UnitsManaging the CEPF grant programs in accordance with the Ecosystem Profiles and following thepolicies and procedures set out in the Operational Manual involves the CUs in the following
tasks:• Assisting grant applicants with project design and application process• Identifying strategic partnerships and encouraging alliances among grant applicants working
in complementary geographic or thematic areas• Facilitating the review of grant applications by review committees (if any)
• Analyzing grant applications• Building the capacity of applicants to manage, monitor and report on projects.
• Ensuring collaboration, communication and information exchange among grantees, relevant
government agencies, local communities and other key stakeholders.
• Sharing project partners’ conservation successes and lessons with other CEPF grantees• Encouraging and seeking funds to leverage and sustain CEPF investments.
• Monitoring projects.
The CU is the primary contact for CEPF’s actual and potential grantees at every stage of project
identification, development and implementation (in regions with no CU, the grant director is theprimary contact). Letters of Inquiry from potential grantees often start with little more than avague project concept, with the smaller and more recent civil society organizations in particularlacking the technical knowledge and experience needed to develop their ideas into a full
proposal. Many CEPF grantees had not received prior external funding and are unfamiliar withthe required procedures. Working with the smaller NGOs to identify and develop viable projects
is often a lengthy and time consuming process, especially when these groups are dispersed over alarge geographic area. Most of the CUs have staff who work extensively with their grantees on acase-by case basis, providing capacity building to emerging environmental NGOs in a way that ismatched by few other programs. Some of these services are provided by intermediate, usuallynational, NGOs. Grant directors have also spent considerable time helping to design and refine
proposals together with grantees and CUs.
Coordination Unit Performance
The CUs generally add considerable value that goes beyond the management of the grant
programs. It was evident from the evaluation field visits that the CUs have recruited very
effective local staff and have done an excellent job on behalf of CEPF. The CU staff generally
excel at working with grantees, particularly in bringing together communities and organizations
with complementary interests and skills to form innovative and effective partnerships. While theresources needed for staffing and other expenditures are conventionally discussed in terms of thesize of the grant portfolio, it is clear that large numbers of inexperienced NGOs actively seeking
external funding require a considerable amount of management time. Increasing use of nationalNGOs as intermediaries between CEPF and local grantees may help address this issue over time.
While the ecosystem profiles provide some guidance about incorporating civil society actors, it is
the local coordination units that must assess and negotiate the terrain of civil society, and theirlocal knowledge and experience are irreplaceable for CEPF grant-making. The evaluation teamwas consistently impressed by the commitment, judgment, and tactical skill of the CUs. In somecases, it is the decades-long experience of CU staff that has allowed access to local and nationalorganizational circuits and alliances; in others, it is the willingness to spend well over half of theirtime traveling to seek out and include small, local organizations; in yet others, it is the skillful29

navigation of sometimes murky political waters to obtain pivotal partnerships with key
government actors.
Complementing their grant-making programs, many senior CU staff are effective at building
networks that include key government decision makers, donors and other policy-level actors, andhelping to ensure that these individuals are well informed about and ready to support CEPF
projects. The CU mission includes supporting or working with others to instigate the whole rangeof complementary measures required to make conservation projects effective. This implies
vertically integrated conservation initiatives that link grassroots projects with political and policy
issues, infrastructure planning, partnership building with NGOs and government, advocacy andcommunications. An effective CU must be enterprising, highly respected by government and the
NGO community, and have a deep and up-to-date appreciation of the vast array of national andinternational issues with a bearing on conservation. This is exactly what the evaluation teamencountered at most of the hotspots visited.
Local Coordination Grants
Many of the coordination grants are for substantial amounts, while most of the CUs also receive
significant implementation grants in addition (Table 4.2). It seems clear that most of thecoordination grants are for coordination in the broadest and most positive sense of this term andthat most of the other grants to coordination units for specific project implementation are forvaluable and justifiable activities. However, there is sometimes a blurring at the edges thathinders firm analysis. It is not always easy to draw a firm line between the CU’s “coordination”
and “project implementation” activities. Part of this difficulty arises from similar activities
sometimes being classified as “coordination” in one region and “implementation” elsewhere, e.g.,communications and project monitoring. Further analysis would need to be based on a detailed
comparative study of the scope, content and cost of all of the coordination and implementation
grants to the CUs.
The size and justification for some of the early coordination and implementation grants to CI in
Latin America and in parts of Asia have attracted criticism from local stakeholders as well as staff
of both CI and CEPF. A review of the early coordination grants shows relatively low figures forthe coordination grants to CI in Indonesia and the Philippines, although CI also received
significant grants for project implementation in each of these regions. It is not always easy toassess which CI activities are appropriately financed by CEPF and which “should” be financedout of CI’s own funds. The justification for CI staff in Washington to charge time to CI
coordination grants is not always completely clear, although we accept that supporting arguments
can be made.

Table 4.2. Coordination Unit Grants Awarded to October 2005 ($US thousands)
Funding
RegionAtlantic Forest
Cape Floristic
RegionCU

CI
Non CIAll Hot
Spot
Grantsto June30,
2005

Coord.
Grants

Implem.
Grants to
CUAll
Grants
To CU

Total
Grants
to CI
where
CI is
CU

1,260

57

1,316

1,316

48

1,365

6,287

8,000

583

0

583

na

482

482

5,036

6,000

30

Other
Grantsto CI

Total
Grantsto CI*

Spending
Authority

Caucasus

Non CI2,4705

200

2,670

na

5

5

2,699

8,500

E. Himalayas
Eastern Arc &Coastal Forests

Non CI

na

na

na

na

0

0

500

5,000

Non CI

700

1,183

1,883

na

191

191

3,865

7,000

Guinean Forests

No CU

na

na

na

na

2,464

2,464

5,714

6,200

Madagascar
Mountains ofSouthwest
China
Northern
Mesoamerica
Southern
Mesoamerica
Succulent
Karoo

No CU

na

na

na

na

1,536

1,536

3,899

4,250

CI

1,856

580

2,436

2,436

52

2,488

5,565

6,500

CI

1,550

0

1,550

1,550

0

1,550

1,981

7,300

CI

1,053

186

1,239

1,239

213

1,451

4,073

5,500

CI

615

506

1,121

1,121

82

1,203

3,628

8,000

Sundaland

CI

755

2,348

3,103

3,103

150

3,253

9,367

10,000

The Philippines
Tumbes-ChocóMagdalena

CI

400

2,706

3,105

3,105

219

3,325

6,068

7,000

CI

1,055

592

1,647

1,647

106

1,753

4,281

5,000

Tropical Andes

CI

904

1,689

2,593

2,593

na

2,593

4,859

6,150

13,20010,04423,244

18,1105,548

23,65967,822

100,400

As CUs, both CI-Brazil and WWF Caucasus declined the opportunity to apply for further project
implementation funds because of concerns that they would be perceived as competing unfairly
with other local grantees (although WWF Caucasus did accept one further grant which was regranted to a key regional body that was unable to apply). Such concerns do not appear to havebeen a major factor elsewhere.
We did not find anything “wrong” with the grants to CI, and we fully appreciate that excellent
work and excellent people need adequate financial resources. However, many of these grants
appear to be generous, and we are aware that some of them are only as “low” as they are after
extensive negotiations between CEPF and CI staff. Although we agree with CEPF and CI
management that the need for such extensive negotiations are less of a problem now than they
were 3-4 years ago, even more transparency and more evidence that CI is genuinely competingwith other NGOs, as required by CEPF’s Operating Manual, would go a long way to addressingthese concerns.
It is important to note in examining Table 4.2 that coordination grants are usually awarded earlyin the 5-year funding cycle. The percentage of total grants awarded to the CUs is therefore higher
during the early years of each program.
Performance of Coordination Units
The CU function is one of the most impressive aspects of CEPF. Management has recently
recognized that the term ‘coordination unit’ tends to understate the contribution of the CUs. As aresult, the title given to these strategic partners as well as their role is being re-examined, a stepwhich we support.
The diverse range of strategic choices made in establishing the coordination units are a strong
positive feature of CEPF. An overall picture emerges of a judicious and wise selection of
coordination unit partners, with some early missed-steps corrected through an effective learning
experience. Among the hotspots we have studied, the CU models in the Caucasus, China,
5

Includes $1.2 million to be disbursed as a small grant program.

31

Sundaland, Southern Mesoamerica, Succulent Karoo and Cape Floristic Region all seem
excellent, as do the separate Ecuador and Colombia programs in Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena.
There are also many positive indications regarding the CUs in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil andthe Eastern Arc Mountains/Coastal Forest of East Africa, which are based on NGO alliances andconsortia.
In the Tropical Andes, the CU grant to CI-Andes ended in mid-2003. Since then the Grant
Director has very competently carried the grant-making and grant supervision responsibilities,
with some support from the two CI offices in Peru and Bolivia, most notably negotiating
matching arrangements with national environment funds in the two countries to make optimal useof the remaining CEPF funds and ensure continued support for civil society projects in the
Vilcabamba-Amboró corridor. Yet the lack of a functioning CU has nonetheless had
consequences for on-the-ground project monitoring and made it difficult to consolidate the gains
and momentum of completed CEPF grants and related initiatives in the Vilcabamba-Amboró
Corridor.
CEPF operates without a CU in Madagascar and in the Guinea Forest. In Madagascar, earlyattempts to establish a consortium among a small group of international NGOs, including CI,
were unsuccessful and the decision was made to manage the program directly from Washington,
where the personal effectiveness of the Grant Director and Grant Manager have been significant
factors in enabling this unusual arrangement to work reasonably well in practice. This program
works very closely CI at a national level, is indistinguishable from CI to most national
stakeholders and has granted CI over $1.5 million (including $271,000 for a small grants program
for local groups). While most of the resources have been granted to the local programs ofinternational NGOs, in some cases for re-granting to smaller organizations, this CEPF program
has made progress in supporting and building capacity among national organizations andMalagasy conservation professionals, in contrast with almost all other donor-supported programsin Madagascar. While Association Fanamby, one of the five Malagasy NGOs supported by
CEPF, is highly regarded and appeared to be to be doing good work, the fact that the director isthe son of the CI Regional Director does expose these grants to criticism.
Management of Coordination Units
Each CU has specific deliverables articulated in their approved log frames, regular required
quarterly financial and semi-annual programmatic reporting, and routine visits from the relevant
grant director.
With a relatively decentralized program operating in so many contexts, it is inevitable that there isvariation in the effectiveness of the CUs. While the overall picture is very positive, there are cases
where individual CUs are struggling with one or more issues, including project portfolios thatlack strategic direction, loss of impetus, problematic relations with CEPF Washington, and so on.
Some of the early arrangements did not work particularly well and had to be adjusted, notably in
Tropical Andes and the Philippines. The coordination grant for Northern Mesoamerica wassuspended during the evaluation for delays in start-up, delivery and staff recruitment as well assome use of CEPF resources for non-CEPF purposes.
CUs for hotspots that include multiple countries face a considerably more complex set ofchallenges in making sure that their regional portfolios are appropriately integrated. Among theregions visited, multi-country CUs have made a promising start in the Caucasus and worked
extremely well in Southern Mesoamerica, but not as well in Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena where the
CI-Colombia and CI-Ecuador programs until very recently operated almost completely
independently from one another. This is due in part to the complex geopolitical situation in theborder regions of the two countries, but also to a lack of clarity on how the bi-national CU would
32

operate, including coordination between the two CI country programs, the regional CI Center for
Biodiversity and CEPF in Washington, DC. However, the CU has just begun a second phase witha renewed commitment to improved bi-national coordination, communications, and strategicplanning and grant making.
As the number of active CEPF regions has increased, the management challenge of identifying,
selecting, negotiating and monitoring an increasingly diverse range of coordination arrangements
in some very diverse contexts has become considerable. The evaluation team considers that thesetasks have been conducted with considerable skill and judgment by CEPF management. Thereappears to be clear evidence of a learning process as stronger institutional models have been
introduced, with CEPF increasingly favoring multiple NGO partners to conduct the CU role
jointly, largely inspired by the example of the Atlantic Forest and, subsequently, the Succulent
Karoo and Eastern Arc/Coastal Forest.
As part of a strategic shift in programming, CI has started to establish regional Centers for
Biodiversity Conservation. These are currently operating in Brazil and Guianas, the Andes,
Madagascar and Melanesia, and are being established in the Philippines, Mexico and Central
America, and China. The goal is to develop solid science based and regional portfolio ofconservation outcomes (species, sites, and corridors) delivered via alliances and partnerships,with some resemblance to the CEPF model. Each Center consists of a regional director plus staff
with thematic expertise (e.g., policy, protected areas, species, biological monitoring, conservation
economics) based in different countries in the hotspot. Even though difficulties have beenencountered with the CU arrangement with the Centers for Biodiversity Conservation in Northern
Mesoamerica, the evaluation team considers that these Centers should continue to be considered
as a potential part of CU arrangements.
One aspect of the CEPF-CU relationship does need increased attention. Relatively large multiregional grants are necessarily negotiated in Washington, then passed down to the regional
programs. In several cases, we have observed lesser integration between these projects and rest of
the respective hotspot portfolios. In some of these cases, the projects appear to have been selected
because they represent extremely good cofinancing opportunities and the chance to work directlywith major private sector donors. However, more effort is required to ensure the CUs and theirlocal grant selection committees participate adequately in the decision-making process for thesegrants, and to ensure that the CUs gain a better understanding of their supervision and monitoring
responsibilities for such projects.
Other new initiatives emanating from Washington and developed in close cooperation with theCUs have been extremely important, especially in support of efforts to secure sustainablefinancing. Significant progress has been made towards supporting the establishment of potentiallyvital trust funds for protected area management in both the Caucasus and Madagascar. If
consummated, these would each be remarkable breakthroughs. The proposed tri-national fund in
the Caucasus could make important contributions to regional peace building, while sustainable
conservation financing in Madagascar is a goal that has eluded previous donor funding efforts
over a long period of time.
While a certain amount of variety among the specific CU arrangements is to be expected, there isa lack of consistency when it comes to project monitoring. Some CUs understand this is theirrole, they have resources allocated and they carry out the role diligently. Others are stilldeveloping monitoring plans while some do not yet seem to have a coherent monitoring program.
This should be standardized as a priority.
The long-term institutional sustainability of the CUs does need to be considered. For example, it
has proven difficult to consolidate CEPF’s gains in the Tropical Andes without an active
33

coordination unit, and the CUs are obviously vital in most other regions. Consideration needs tobe given to the type of longer-term CU arrangement that would be considered financially viable,
ideally involving a greater proportion of the funding gradually going to local and national as
opposed to international NGOs.

34

5: Performance Monitoring
The performance of CEPF can be assessed at the level of individual grants, at the level of hotspot
grant portfolios and at a global level. This chapter discusses how CEPF has approachedperformance monitoring, how the approach has evolved with experience and the information that
was available to assess performance during the evaluation. The main emphasis here is on themonitoring and performance of the grant portfolios at a hotspot or ecosystem level.
Monitoring Framework
The Ecosystem Profile for each hotspot includes a logical framework for CEPF’s five-year
investment, as required by the Operations Manual. These log frames are included in each
Ecosystem Profile package approved by the Donor Council but are not included when the Profiles
are posted to the CEPF web site. The more recent log frames include specific conservation
outcomes or targets in terms of priority species, sites and corridors. These log frames are intended
to provide the basis of a systematic method of measuring progress at the portfolio or ecosystemlevel.
Each project is required to explain how it fits into one of the Strategic Directions identified in the
Ecosystem Profile, as discussed in Chapters 2 and 3. Each project must also use a log frame toshow how the goals and purpose of the proposed activities relate to the Strategic Directions,
Investment Priorities and outcomes for the hotspot. This log frame, from which smaller projects
are exempt, is used as a performance-tracking tool that requires the grantee to set quarterly targets
for each indicator of project outputs. In principle this provides a link between goals and progress
made at the project and at the portfolio level.
CEPF does not regularly assess or report progress against the ecosystem-level log frame goals
and indicators. CEPF does plan to compile a formal report on progress against the log frame foreach funding region at the close of the initial five-year funding period. The initial five-year
investment period for the first three CEPF regions ended in December 2005 (Tropical Andes,
Madagascar and the Guinean Forests).
In 2003 CEPF initiated midterm portfolio reviews to assess progress and impacts and derivelessons that could be incorporated into future management of the grant portfolios. Three reviews
were carried out: in the Cape Floristic Region, Madagascar and Tropical Andes. While theseprovided some useful information, they were not deemed sufficiently valuable by CEPF
management to be continued or to be retained as part of the regular performance monitoring
program.
Starting in 2005, Portfolio Overviews have been prepared for each of the hotspots. These
overviews were prepared by the Grant Directors in collaboration with the Coordination Units.
They usefully describe the highlights and achievements of CEPF grants and essentially “tell thestory” of the impacts CEPF has had, although in an anecdotal fashion that emphasizes successes
rather than providing a balanced analysis.
CEPF also submits quarterly reports to the donors that highlight new grants in each hotspot anddescribe significant developments related to earlier grants.

Evaluation Approach35This was the information available as the evaluation began. Following the field visits, it became
apparent that the coordination units, while doing extremely good work as described in Chapter 4,
were not focused on analyzing their overall grant portfolio performance. The CUs were proactivein either carrying out or encouraging a broad range of promising civil society activities inbiodiversity conservation that in virtually all cases appeared to fit together into a convincing
portfolio. Furthermore, exceptional work has been done in communications, to disseminate
among interested stakeholders what CEPF was doing and to highlight opportunities for new
partners and grantees, but the overall impacts of the portfolios and progress towards theconservation outcomes had not been systematically compiled and assessed.
Naturally the evaluation team formed our own opinions on the progress made by the portfolios asa whole and, as this report continually emphasizes, it became clear that throughout its focal
regions CEPF is doing excellent work that stands out in comparison with any other conservation
programs we are aware of. Even though less than half of the grant funds have been disbursed andseveral of the hotspots only became operational during the last 2-3 years, it is evident thatconsiderable progress has been made.
Following consultations on preliminary findings from the evaluation team, CEPF management
launched an intensive effort among staff and partners that led to the production of a document
entitled “CEPF Progress and Impact Reporting for Five Selected Regions” (included as Annex 2).
The five regions, all selected by the evaluation team, were the Brazil Atlantic Forest, Madagascar,
Sundaland, Southern Mesoamerica and Tropical Andes. The main criteria for selection were: (i)these were mainly areas visited by the evaluation team (only Brazil was not); (ii) that CEPF had
been active in the hotspot for at least four years, leading to an expectation of relatively significant
progress; and (ii) that at least one hotspot from each major continent was included.
As agreed with the evaluation team, for each hotspot this report includes the targeted
conservation outcomes included in the Ecosystem Profile log frame and then documents progress
to date, using the specified indicators where applicable. In some cases, the information presented
is quantitative, for example in the size of areas protected, while in other cases progress is
described in qualitative terms. Naturally much of the progress that is being made is literally workin-process. Progress is being reported against 1-5 year goals as well as goals of 5-10 years or
longer periods.
The evaluation team has carefully reviewed these progress and impact reports. With the exceptionof Brazil, which was not visited and is therefore more difficult to assess, there do not appear to be
any significant inconsistencies with the findings of our field visits. These recently-prepared
progress and impact reports are heavily oriented towards the establishment and strengthening ofprotected areas and do not capture much of the impressive work that is being done in otherarenas, as discussed in Chapter 3. However, these reports do represent a useful starting point forassessing progress in those areas where it can most easily be measured, i.e., in relation toprotected areas. Progress made throughout the CEPF program in establishing new or expanded
protected areas is summarized in Table 5.1.
Assessing Performance
The CEPF approach to performance monitoring has evolved and improved since the program waslaunched in 2000, and it is recognized by the organization that the achievement of a satisfactory
monitoring approach is a work in process. As explained in the following section, monitoring
performance of biodiversity conservation projects at a portfolio level is an extremely difficult
undertaking; both CEPF and CI deserve considerable credit for taking this challenge on asseriously as they have.

36

The work completed thus far demonstrates that CEPF does have the capacity to systematicallymeasure performance at a hotspot level, but this information is not being generated through theexisting monitoring and evaluation system. Instead, a special effort had to be made to collect andcompile this information from project reports and the observations of the Grant Directors andCUs. One constraint of the current approach is that although the project log frames play animportant part in ensuring that planned projects are consistent with the strategic directions of the
Ecosystem Profiles at the project selection and approval stage, the reporting of progress throughthe project log frames during and after implementation is not being aggregated to provide largerscale performance indicators and impacts.
Portfolio-level performance monitoring requires a somewhat different approach, which CEPF has
begun developing through the Grant Directors overviews as well as the more recent reports on
progress and impacts, although this still has considerable potential for improvement. A priority
for the next phase of operations will be to build on this work, in two specific directions. First,
both the Grant Directors and CUs need to be more involved in portfolio performance reporting ona regular basis, internalizing this as a standard management procedure. Second, the use ofconservation outcomes as long-term operational targets should be complemented by thedevelopment and adoption of socio-economic, political and civil society measures and indicatorsthat will provide more feedback on CEPF’s interim progress towards these outcomes through its
grant-support projects.
Most conservation outcomes are largely unattainable within a five year period. Effective
management of protected areas and especially large corridors must continue indefinitely as there
are always new threats and conflicts. Active civil society involvement in governance is essential
for equitable and transparent decision-making and accountability, even though conservation
outcomes may not be these organizations’ immediate or major priority. Therefore, to improve
performance and evaluation, targeted conservation outcomes require an explicit subset of shortterm benchmarks and targets that can track progress towards the species, site and corridors
outcomes. While aiming for these long-term conservation outcomes, the process andimplementation of CEPF grants generates considerable socio-economic, governance, livelihood
and related impacts that are not effectively captured to date in the current performance andevaluation framework.
Further observations on portfolio monitoring are as follows:•

The more recent CEPF programs have done good work in incorporating conservation
outcome approaches that establish ecological baselines and clear and transparent grant
making priorities, with strong technical support from CI/CABS.

•

The quality of the Ecosystem Profile log frames was initially low. The contents were often
superficial and showed some confusion between activities and outputs. The quality has
generally improved over time but is still not one of the stronger aspects of the overall CEPF
approach.

•Lessons learned are not emerging at the portfolio level, probably because of the general lackof emphasis on portfolio-level performance reporting and because of reluctance toacknowledge or document problems and difficulties, even if these eventually became
important learning experiences that have led to a stronger program.

•

The three midterm reviews conducted in 2003 were very general, covered known ground anddid not contribute significantly as a management tool. There is little sign that the findings

37

influenced the future direction of the portfolios concerned, and the decision not to continue
these appears sound.
•An emphasis on planning and grant making rather than portfolio and project performancemonitoring and reporting, plus the absence of a clear strategy for ongoing or ex postmonitoring, seems likely to make it difficult to assess whether gains have been sustained after
CEPF funding ends.

Challenges to Performance Measurement
There are several reasons why comprehensive performance measurement at a portfolio levelshould not be expected at this stage:•

No conservation program to our knowledge has yet developed and applied a practical set ofindicators that can provide convincing measures of intermediate progress towards
biodiversity conservation at a portfolio level, and not many have done it even at a projectlevel. Several of the international conservation NGOs, including CI, have begun collaborating
on efforts to develop improved tools for measuring progress (a very positive development
after considerable investments by each of these organizations in developing their own
approaches), although this work is still at a relatively early stage. The GEF has invested
billions of dollars in biodiversity conservation over almost 15 years, much of this throughWorld Bank, without either of these organizations yet being able to unambiguously document
concrete conservation success at a national or multinational level. Even in the hotspots, thecumulative GEF/World Bank investments in biodiversity, almost entirely through national
governments, have been an order of magnitude larger than those of CEPF.

•

Conserving biodiversity is an unusually challenging endeavor that requires a broad range oflarge scale changes in the behavior of individuals, communities, firms and governments, with
the impacts of these changes often difficult to measure and almost impossible to aggregate.
This measurement difficulty is compounded by the need for continual action. Despite theworthy use of targets to plan and guide programs, only very rarely can biodiversity
conservation be expected to reach some state where it can be described as having beenachieved. Species, sites and ecosystems are constantly subject to natural or human-inducedchanges that threaten their continued existence and virtually no protected areas in adeveloping country can realistically be described as secure, let alone the vast mixed-use areas
outside that are essential for effective biodiversity conservation. In this sense the achievementof biodiversity conservation is both as worthy and as imminent as the eradication of poverty,
although measuring progress in conservation may be harder. The task of conserving
biodiversity in the hotspots will not be “completed” in 5, 10 or 50 years, and progress
towards identified goals cannot easily be expressed in terms of percentage completion, as
would apply to infrastructure development or a single development target like literacy. As aresult, while a strong dose of optimism linked to positive communications is needed andjustified, considerable care and realism is needed when translating this optimism into
ambitious targets against which conservation programs are to be evaluated.

•

CEPF is explicitly emphasizing support for civil society, which is a more subtle, longer-term
type of intervention than many other conservation programs are attempting. Changes in thecapacities and actions of civil society organizations are extraordinarily difficult to measure
and rarely lead to instant gratification. After wrestling with these issues since 1992, the GEF
Small Grants Program – with its 12 years experience in over 70 countries and a $75 million
annual budget – has recently concluded that the long-term indirect impacts of its civil society
grants may be considerably more important than the immediate, direct impacts, as discussed

38

in Chapter 3. To give an example, who can estimate what it will take for the emerging NGO
movement in China to reach a critical mass and pass a tipping point where it becomes a major
influence on environmental governance, but surely there can be no doubt about the value oftrying; what a bargain it would prove if some tangible progress could indeed be made through
CEPF’s impressive local staff and a modest investment of several million dollars over a
decade. Impacts along the way could be described, but how could these be measured? In
Madagascar, decades of conservation investments had remarkably failed to build the capacityof national NGOs. Now CEPF and its partners have made considerable investments intraining, hiring and supporting national and national civil society organizations (mainly
through some rather large grants to international NGOs) that can be expected to produce, forthe first time, a generation of home-grown environmental leaders. The potential value or
impact of these initiatives are hard to measure and assess as short-term investments.
•

CEPF is still a very new program in conservation terms. None of the grant programs havebeen active for five years: three have been active for 4.5 years, seven for 3-4 years and fivefor less than 2.5 years. In practice, we have not observed that the longest-established CEPF
hotspots have necessarily delivered the most value, although we have observed that lessons
from these original programs have been effectively applied in the more recent ones. If the
CEPF investments are compared with previous conservation investments in some of thehotspots, a pattern starts to emerge. In Sundaland for example, official donors andinternational NGOs had been investing hundreds of millions of dollars for more than adecade, with relatively little tangible achievements until recently. As CEPF began, many ofthese donors had significantly reduced conservation funding during a critical transition ofIndonesian decentralization that shifted major responsibilities onto its under-equipped local
governments. Four years later, CEPF has contributed to enhanced integrated efforts and a
growing conviction among local organizations that significant change is possible throughinnovative alliances. The beginnings of similar shifts can also be detected in the Cape
Floristic Region and the Succulent Karoo – both explicitly 20-year programs, and in
Madagascar, Northern and Southern Mesoamerica, and Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena.

•

CEPF is addressing large scale issues with its partners and has a budget that is only generous
by previous NGO conservation standards. Expectations on what can be achieved at the
hotspot level within relatively brief periods should therefore be kept within modest bounds,
despite the relentlessly success-driven discourse of the conservation and development
communities. It is extremely difficult to determine how specific investments or projects of
CEPF affect long term conservation outcomes in a corridor, protected area, nation or region
because such outcomes are usually the result of efforts of numerous government agencies,
communities, NGOs and donors over an extended period and are not easily attributed to a
specific short-term investment by one program. With CEPF support, CI may well have playeda significant role in convincing the President of Madagascar to commit to a radical expansion
and upgrade of his country’s protected area network, changes that will require considerable
time, resources and political will to implement. In the long term, this may prove a pivotal
transition point in Malagasy conservation and an extremely good investment of CEPF
resources, but how can that impact be measured now? These kinds of investments are noteasily planned and assessed with log frames. Similar questions can be asked about the valueof CEPF’s excellent work, again with partners, in supporting the establishment of a multicountry trust fund in the Caucasus that would be a truly pioneering cooperation between
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, or about CEPF’s strategic participation in multistakeholder alliances and partnerships in Southern and Northern Mesoamerica that have been
critical for the expansion and consolidation of protected areas, often spanning two or morecountries.

39•

Unless national governments, local authorities, land owners and those with resource accessrights take steps to effectively protect certain areas and to implement policies that promotesustainable development, then longer term conservation goals are unlikely to be realized.
Even working through civil society, changing the way governments do business is critical toconservation success. This kind of concrete progress will take time. Particularly promisingprogress has been made in the Atlantic Forest, Cape Floristic Region, Succulent Karoo,
Southern Mesoamerica and Sundaland through governmental and private sector
collaborations with civil society and NGOs. Among the newer CEPF programs such as
China, the Caucasus and Northern Mesoamerica, the strategic orientation of the grant
portfolio, the excellence of the CEPF staff and partners, as well as the pioneering, if verysmall-scale, activities of emerging civil society grantees all look promising, even if the gains
seem fairly fragile at this early stage.

•

An overemphasis on generating short-term (e.g., less than 10 year) conservation successes on
a broad front can be hazardous insofar it tends to constrain risk and innovation, and restrict
the freedom needed to explore more risky undertakings or those requiring more time. A
variety of credible stakeholders interviewed during this evaluation are also concerned that thepressure from the prevalent level of expectations to achieve short-term success inconservation is resulting in some overoptimistic reporting of gains in protected area
management. We see no sign of CEPF or CI being particularly susceptible to this trend, butthere is a continuing need to emphasize more balanced analyses of successes as well as
failures based on solid science, together with clear documented evidence of learning fromexperience among conservation organizations.

•

We endorse the observation from the mid-term evaluation that a great deal of emphasis isbeing placed upon defining outcomes and measuring progress to achieve them. While CEPF
funding and the activities of individual grantees may contribute to the conservation of agiven ecoregion or corridor in the long run, drawing a causal connection between their
specific actions and the ultimate preservation or degradation of the ecoregion will be difficult,at best. The definition of outcomes and indicators of progress is a very useful and necessary
exercise that should be used to refine approaches, but not to lay claim to victories that may
only be attributable to multiple causes.

Project Monitoring
CEPF requires its grantees to complete routine project performance monitoring reports during
implementation and appears to have been diligent in ensuring that these are submitted by
grantees, with some allowances for the kinds of delays that smaller organizations often
experience in responding to such requests. These reports are structured so that updates are
required on each major output defined in the original project log frame each quarter.
Several issues were encountered in connection with project monitoring:•

Monitoring in the form of site visits by the CUs appears inconsistent across the hotspots. The
CUs do not perceive their performance monitoring roles clearly, mainly emphasizing
conservation actions and management of grant funds. The overall responsibility for projectmonitoring as a support function as well as monitoring of progress towards outcomes does
not seem consistently clear. Some CUs are in regular contact with their grantees and routinely
visit their project sites, such as Southern Mesoamerica and Sundaland which regularly visit
and monitor at least 90% of CEPF projects and partners as well as providing technicalassistance and mentoring, while others have little contact. Most CUs have assumed thatproject monitoring is within their terms of reference even if CEPF in Washington has not40insisted upon this, while other CUs either consider that they have minimal responsibility for
project monitoring or that additional resources would be required to do this (e.g., both
hotspots in Southern Africa). In Madagascar, where there is no CU, and Tropical Andes,
where the CU grant has expired, while monitoring and visits by the Grant Directors are muchappreciated and valued, it was clear that CEPF partners and processes initiated by CEPF
would benefit from more frequent direct contact with CEPF.
•

The role and responsibilities of the Grant Directors in monitoring and evaluation of projects
and portfolios was also unclear. In many regions, the Grant Directors review and sign off on
grantee financial and progress reports, taking corrective measures as necessary, but routine
project progress monitoring and site visits are primarily the responsibility of CUs. Several
smaller grantees in different hotspots indicated that they would benefit from more regularmonitoring visits to help them address project implementation issues. On the other hand,some grantees reported that they appreciated not being overburdened by onerous reporting
obligations. A balance needs to be found that ensures that those who will benefit most from
more hands-on monitoring are given that support.

•

CEPF requires grantees to use Grantwriter, a grant application system, to prepare and submit
proposals. An online system, Grant Tracker, tracks the progress of applications, and thenrecords financial and progress reporting and disbursements once grants are approved. There isno comparable system for monitoring and evaluation, however, and no automatic or othercompilation of project site visit observations or the progress reported by individual projects
against the targeted outputs at the portfolio level. The viability of developing and introducing
an integrated monitoring and evaluation system should be assessed. Particularly interesting
projects that could inform such a process include the participatory, community-based
monitoring work in Southern Mesoamerica and the proposal to articulate community-levelmonitoring with corridor-level biological monitoring and modeling in Tumbes-ChocóMagdalena.

•

Many grantees experienced difficulty in preparing log frames, as discussed in Chapter 3.
These difficulties often extended into performance reporting, with grantees feeling they were
locked into inflexible indicators that did not capture the essence of what they were actually
doing. While it is difficult to come up with general solutions to such issues, there does seemto be a need to revisit the process of designing log frames and indicators for projects,
especially the smaller projects that exceed the $20,000 log frame requirement limit. What
seems to be missing are the tools to report against what CEPF actually tries to do, i.e., change
the civil society landscape to enable progress towards conservation outcomes.

•

The process and responsibility for monitoring the performance of the relatively large multiregional grants (Chapter 3) and coordination grants (Chapter 4) was not consistently clear andthere was confusion among the CUs on how this should be addressed. The level and type ofmonitoring appropriate for projects of different sizes with different types of grantees should
be carefully assessed.

•

Impressive biological monitoring projects are being supported by CEPF grants in most of thehotspots, mainly directed towards refining conservation outcomes. This is important for theoverall CEPF mission and should be continued, although the results of these projects should
be tied back more clearly to the rest of the grant portfolio and contribute to overall
performance monitoring.

•

Since many of the most important impacts of CEPF projects are likely to occur some timeafter the projects themselves are completed, CEPF should systematically keep track of and41

maintain contact with its grantees. This would also have additional benefits in providing an
expanding network and environmental constituency within each hotspot. Eventually, asample of ex-post project evaluations may be useful to understand the results and impacts ofgrant-supported activities completed some years previously. This would contribute to thegeneral understanding of the sustainability of CEPF grants to civil society.
•

On the completion of projects, a succinct summary of achievements against objectives should
not only be made available, but compiled and aggregated as a contribution to the assessmentof portfolio-level performance.

Future Priorities
The CEPF performance to date at a portfolio level is generally very impressive, although thisneeds to be appreciated more in terms of building a foundation than having achieving concrete
results that have had a material impact on the most significant threats to biodiversity. Whileworthy efforts have been made, the overall efforts to monitor impacts and progress have not been
not particularly convincing so far; however, they are at least as good as any comparable program
we are aware of and are much better than most. It should be stressed that the groundwork has
been laid to move forward and make pioneering progress in the next phase. Care needs to betaken, however, not to try to impose such a monitoring structure that is so rigid as to inhibit thevital innovation constantly needed to push the boundaries of current approaches.
As the hotspot programs mature, the Grant Directors and CUs should increasingly dedicate
themselves to performance monitoring and evaluation. CEPF has demonstrated through its
responses to requests by the evaluation team that it does have the capacity and information to
generate regular progress reports on portfolio performance. This should be addressed early in thenext phase.
CEPF plans to conduct successive performance assessments of each of the hotspots as their initial
five year investment periods are completed, starting early in 2006. This is an important
opportunity that will probably require considerable resources and it needs to be planned andimplemented with considerable care if it is to prove of significant value to the program. Some of
the key issues that should be taken into account are:•Connecting such assessments to any updates of the Ecosystem Profiles in funding regions
where CEPF plans to re-invest.

•

Linking these reviews with the development and testing of new performance monitoring
methodologies and systems, including indicators to reflect the nature of and changes inducedin civil society to complement the conservation outcomes.

•

Ensuring that portfolio-level lessons are identified and disseminated.

•

Ensuring the reviews are participatory by involving grantees and other partners, while
recognizing that this will considerably increase the complexity and length of time required forthese exercises.

•

Exploring opportunities for cross-learning between portfolios, by involving staff and partners
from other hotspots.

42

These issues suggest a strategic and programmatic approach is needed to the successive hotspot
performance assessments that should constitute a major activity of the second five years for
CEPF.

Table 5.1. New or expanded protected areas
Total hectares: 7.4 million
•
•

•

•
•
•
•

•
•

•

•

Atlantic Forest: 59 hectareso 59 hectares: 3 Private Natural Heritage Reserves created by landowners and declared bygovernment as part of Brazil’s national protected area system
Cape Floristic Region: 13,721 hectareso 2.5 hectares: Tokai Forest, a core Cape Flats Flora Conservation Site, expanded from 1
hectare to 3.5 hectares.
o 13,719 hectares: Baviaanskloof Mega-reserve expanded from 213,937 to 227,656
hectares.
Guinean Forests of West Africa (Upper Guinean Forest): 86,268 hectareso 72,700 hectares: Sapo National Park expanded from 107,3000 to 180,000 hectares
o 13,568 hectares: Nimba Nature Reserve declared out of the former Nimba East National
Forest.
Madagascar: 72,000 hectareso 72,000 hectares: Loky-Manambato Forest Station, encompassing the Daraina main
forests and immediate neighboring areas, designatedMesoamerica: 60,000 hectares
o 60,000 hectares: Maquenque National Wildlife Reserve declared
Mountains of Southwest China: 40,000 hectares
o 40,000 hectares: Two new protected areas established in Sichuan
Philippines: 320,939 hectareso 206,875 hectares: Quirino Protected Landscape declaredo 113,972 hectares: Peñablanca Protected Landscape and Seascape expanded from 4,136
hectares to 118,108 hectares
o 32 hectares: Wildlife Sanctuary established in San Mariano, Isabela.
o 60 hectares: in the Municipality of Puerto Princesa, Palawan
Succulent Karoo: 2.63 million hectareso 2.6 million hectares: Sperrgebiet National Park declaredo 30,000 hectares: Namaqua National Park expanded
Sundaland (Sumatra): 186,576 hectareso 108,000 hectares: Batang Gadis National Park declaredo 38,576 hectares: Tesso Nilo National Park declaredo 40,000 hectares: Adat managed forests in Seulawah receive protection and serve asmodel for adat/community-based resources/forest management in Aceh
Tropical Andes (Vilcabamba-Amboro Corridor): 3,994,736 hectareso 183,000 hectares: Manu National Park expanded to 1.7 million hectareso 402,336 hectares: Amarakaeri Communal Reserve declaredo 2.7 million hectares: Alto Purus Restricted Zone declaredo 709,400: Ashaninka and Matsiguenga Communal Reserves and the Oitishi National Park
created, providing new levels of protection to the former Apurimac Restricted Zone
Tumbes-Chocó Magdalena (Chocó-Manabí Corridor): 34,800 hectares
o 4,600 hectares: El Pangan Bird Reserve declaredo 2,200 hectares: Declaration of the Civil Society Reserve connecting Tatamá National
Park and Serranía de los Paraguas (composed of the El Cairo, El Águila and San José delPalmar Municipalities in Colombia)
o 7,000 hectares: Great Chachi Reserve established in the buffer zone of Cotacachi
Cayapas Ecological Reserve, Ecuador.

43

o
o

11,000 hectares: Awacachi Biological Corridor established connecting the Cotacachi
Cayapas Ecological Reserve with the Awá Indigenous Territories in Ecuador.
10,000 hectares: Added to the Munchique-Pinche Biological and Multicultural Corridor,
which connects Munchique National Park with Serranía del Pinche.

CEPF investments have also helped prompt governments to make important commitments to create newprotected areas. These include, for example:•

142,000 hectares in the Caucasus Hotspot:
o 10,000 hectares: Arevik National Park, Armenia
o 10,000 hectares: Zangezur Nature Reserve, Armenia
o 50,000 hectares: Tlyratinsky Nature Reserve (based on an existing sanctuary) Russia
o 12,000 hectares: Expansion of Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park, Georgia
o 60,000 hectares: Expansion of Erzi Strict Nature Reserve, Russia•

4.3 million hectares: tripling the protected area network in Madagascar from 1.7 million hectares
to 6 million hectares. The protection of Daraina forest (detailed above) was the first step toward
implementing this commitment.

44

6: Relationship with Conservation International
Conservation International’s multi-faceted relationship with CEPF includes the following
elements, which together provide very substantial benefits to CEPF:• CI co-initiated, co-launched, administers and manages CEPF on behalf of the donor partners.
• The CI Board of Directors has fiduciary responsibility for CEPF, including responsibility for
CEPF’s audited financial statements.
• The CI Center for Applied Biodiversity Science provided scientific and technical support to
the Ecosystem Profiles and the development of conservation outcomes.
• Several CI country offices or regional Centers for Biodiversity Conservation serve as local
coordination units for CEPF implementation.
• CI country programs implement projects with CEPF grants• CI provides management, administrative, legal and information technology services to CEPF.
• CI committed $25 million to CEPF as an initial investment• Two CI funds, the Global Conservation Fund and Verde Ventures, as well as CI country
programs have provided funding for grant applicants that CEPF was unable to support andhave co-financed certain CEPF grants (Annex 4).
This chapter focuses on the overall financial flows between CI and CEPF, then comments on the
difficulties that have arisen as a result of CI’s dual role as manager of a grant fund while
competing with other grantees for the same funds. Finally, options for adjusting the relationshipare assessed.
Financial Flows between Conservation International and CEPF
CI committed $25 million to the first 5 years of CEPF in common with each of the other donors.
CI had received a total of $29.7 million from CEPF through June 30, 2005, for Ecosystem Profile
preparation ($3.8 million), grants awarded ($20.8 million) and management fees ($5.2 million).
Although some of these financial flows are relatively complex, they appear to have been reported
transparently.
Management Fees
The purpose of the management fees is to allow CI to recover an equitable share of its own
indirect costs that can be attributed to support for CEPF. CI’s calculation of indirect costs
includes its administration, human resources, finance, information technology, legal andcommunications functions in Washington, DC (Annex 5).
The management fee paid by CEPF to CI consists of 24% of CEPF’s own operational costs(primarily CEPF management and staff in Washington, D.C.), plus 24% of the ecosystem profile
preparation costs, plus 13% of the grants to CI for CEPF coordination and project implementation(detailed in Annex 6). These calculations are consistent with the provisions of the Financing
Agreement. In addition, grants to all NGOs, including CI, for coordination and implementation
within the hotspots include the NGO grantee’s local management costs, either as a percentage oron a specific line-item basis.
Funding Model Projections6This section draws from an analysis prepared by CEPF at the request of the evaluation team. CEPF refers
to the management fees paid to CI as ‘indirect recovery’.
645

The current CEPF funding model spans 10 years (from FY 2001 to FY 2010) and assumes that
CEPF achieves the target of a $150 million grant fund. To date, CEPF has secured $125 million
in commitments and is negotiating with a sixth partner to meet the original $150 million funding
goal. This model assumes no refinancing but is useful in demonstrating the timing of the financial
flows based on existing donor commitments to the CEPF start-up phase.
This model allocates the $150 million fund in four categories (Figure 6.1):• Grant Funds: $124.5 million (both to CI and to external grantees)• Business Development and Management (Operations): $15.4 million (net of indirect, i.e.,
excluding management fees)• Ecosystem Profile Preparation and associated stakeholder processes (Preparation): $5.2
million (net of indirect)• Management Fee (Indirect) on Operations and Preparation: $4.8 million
Table 6.1 summarizes the total CEPF funding received by CI to June 30, 2005 and the total
amount expected to be received based on the model, while Figure 6.1 illustrates the actual andprojected trends in CI grant awards relative to total grants, preparation costs (also largely paid toCI) and CEPF operations. Grants awarded to CI through June 30, 2005 amounted to $23.4
million including management fees or 35% of the total grant funding (versus the limit of 50% set
by the Donor Council). As the model shows, the funding for CI grants is expected to decline inlater years while preparation fees have already peaked. Management fees on both of thesecategories will also therefore decline. The model projects final cumulative CI grants of about$31.5 million or 25% of the $124.5 million total grant funds.
Table 6.1 Estimates of total CEPF payments to Conservation International ($US thousands)
ActualProjected
Category
FY 01-05
FY 06-10
Grants awarded, excluding management fee
Ecosystem Profile Preparation Services by CI, excluding
management fee
Management fees
Total

46

Total

20,758
3,772

7,119
110

27,877
3,882

5,190
29,7203,253
10,482

8,443
40,202

Figure 6.1. Financial model showing grants to Conservation International

Grants to Conservation International
CI has received significant CEPF grants both for local coordination and for project
implementation (Table 6.2). These grants are also discussed in Chapter 4, which should beconsidered in conjunction with the observations made here.
CI has been awarded total grants amounting to $6.6 million in the three initial CEPF hotspots(Madagascar, Guinean Forests and Tropical Andes). Apart from these, the largest support hasgone to the three single-country programs in East Asia: China, Sundaland (Indonesia) andPhilippines, which have been awarded a combined $9.0 million. CI did not receive more than $2
million in any single region apart from these.
The evaluation has found that CI has generally done very effective, high quality work with the
grants it has received from CEPF. This includes impressive leadership as the local coordination
unit in more than half of the CEPF hotspots as well as the design and implementation ofnumerous convincing projects, as documented elsewhere in this report. Local coordination work
has gone beyond the effective management of grant making programs to develop strong,promising portfolios of vertically-integrated conservation activities reaching from the grassroots
level to national policies and international collaboration, all based on the development andencouragement of a variety of innovative partnership arrangements. There is no doubt that CI
country and regional programs have played a full and constructive role in helping CEPF to makea strong start.
A key issue is what CI (and the other NGOs awarded significant CEPF grants) would have donein the absence of their CEPF grants, and this question was examined in each region studied by theevaluation team. The results were generally very clear. CEPF has not been paying for “businessas usual” and simply providing funds that substitute for CI (or other NGO) funding. Rather, theactivities carried out by CI with CEPF support have either initiated or substantially accelerated
the overall conservation effort within each of the hotspots by consistently emphasizing theeffective mobilization of civil society and working through partnerships. Even while recognizing

47

that this is a process that is only a few years old, the significant potential and early impact ofthese approaches was emphasized consistently by a diverse range of stakeholders and observers.
Table 6.2 Grant data ($ thousands)
Coordination
Unit

Total
Grants to
CI7

All Hotspot
Grants to June30, 2005%
toCI

Spending
Authority

Grants/Authority toJune 30,
2005

CI

1,365

6,287

22

8,000

79%

Cape Floristic Region

Non CI

482

5,036

10

6,000

84%

Caucasus

Non CI

5

2,699

0

8,500

32%

Eastern Arc & Coastal Forests

Non CI

191

3,865

5

7,000

55%

Eastern Himalayas

Non CI

0

500

0

5,000

10%

Guinean Forests

No CU

2,464

5,714

43

6,200

92%

Madagascar

No CU

1,536

3,899

39

4,250

92%

CI

2,488

5,565

45

6,500

86%

Northern Mesoamerica

CI1,5508

1,981

78

7,300

27%

Southern Mesoamerica

CI

1,367

4,073

36

5,500

74%

Succulent Karoo

CI

1,203

3,628

33

8,000

45%

Sundaland

CI

3,253

9,367

35

10,00094%

The Philippines

CI

3,207

6,068

55

7,000

87%

Tropical Andes

CI

2,593

4,859

54

6,150

79%

Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena

CI

1,753

4,281

41

5,000

86%

23,457

67,822

35

100,400

Funding Region

Atlantic Forest

Mountains of Southwest China

CI’s Center for Applied Biodiversity Science has also been an important resource for CEPF,
providing and helping implement the scientific methodology underpinning the more recent
ecosystem profiles, supporting the development of biological monitoring systems, and analyzing
CEPF’s contributions to poverty mitigation. Although staffed by very capable people, CEPF does
not have the technical resources to carry out this type of work itself. In future it would be
advisable to explore whether at least some equivalent services could be provided more costeffectively by national and regional scientific and cartographic institutions.
The experiences with CEPF may have contributed to easing a significant transition taking place
within CI, particularly linked to CEPF’s focus on re-granting and partnership building. CI has
grown very rapidly for a conservation organization and has mobilized considerable resources.
This has led the organization to assess whether it should concentrate mainly on developing its
own conservation field programs operated by its own staff, or whether it should move towards amanagement model that is based more on science, policy and strategic interventions that involve
re-granting significant resources to local, national and international partners. CI’s Board recently
decided that 50% of resources should be re-granted by 2012 and the organization is going throughthe process of realigning itself towards this model, which seems to reflect some of the key
characteristics of CEPF.
The Evolving Relationship7

8Including management fees
This coordination grant was suspended during the evaluation, see Chapter 4.

48

CI’s dual role as manager of the grants program and as a potential grantee presents a potential
conflict of interest. Recognizing this issue, CEPF grants to CI are regulated by two key
requirements:
1. The CEPF Financing Agreement specifies that “whenever CI considers that it has acomparative advantage in carrying out project activities under a specific Ecosystem Profile,CI will identify such activities at a programmatic level and disclose them within the budget
for specific approval by the Donor Council. The amount of funding to be allocated toactivities in this manner will not exceed fifty percent (50%) of the relevant budget categories,
or as may be otherwise agreed by the Donor Council.”
2. The Operations Manual specifies “all proposals, whether from Conservation International orexternal groups, will be submitted to CEPF using the approved application forms andprocesses and will be subject to the same decision-making process, including programmaticand risk analysis.”Start-Up Phase
As originally required by the Donor Council, the initial CEPF Spending Plan attached to the
Financing Agreement included grants to CI that equaled 50% of the available resources of $11.6
million allocated to the first three hotspots, without the projects concerned having been specified
or developed in detail. According to the CEPF management response to the midterm evaluation,
this “resulted in a perception of entitlement by CI programs and an uneven distribution of grant
resources” at that time. With approval from the Donor Council, CEPF’s policy was then modified
to request that CI submit a description of their “intended role” in the regions where (a) CI
operates and (b) where CI intends to apply for grants.
There was considerable pressure on CEPF staff to support funding for relatively large CI
proposals, particularly during the first few years of CEPF. It was not at all clear how the principlethat CI should follow the same application process as other potential grantees when seeking
funding from CEPF, as required by the Operations Manual was being applied. These factors
contributed to a widely-held perception that CI was being awarded significant CEPF grants
without other options or considerations being fully explored, to the detriment of the overall
program.
From CI’s perspective, they were successfully engaging a range of new donors in supporting
valuable conservation initiatives with an exciting new focus on civil society. Furthermore, CEPF
had made a strategic decision to initiate work in areas where CI already had a strong presence andexisting relationships to build upon, so it was unsurprising that their country and regional
programs would lead the initial CEPF effort. However, this perception was not shared widely
among the technical staff of donor partners, many external stakeholders or the broader
conservation community.
These issues have received continual attention from the Donor Council, the CEPF Working
Group and CEPF management, who have all worked hard to overcome the negative impacts ofthese early developments.
Related to these financial issues, technical staff of the donors (especially from GEF and World
Bank) have consistently characterized their early experiences with CEPF in negative terms,
reporting that their advice on Ecosystem Profile drafts was ignored and their role was a token one
until they dropped out in frustration. There was a widespread view that CEPF grant funds would
flow to CI almost regardless of other considerations and that CI/CEPF insisted on taking “toomuch” credit for program achievements at the expense of other donor partners. These factors led
49

to CEPF starting out with an uneven reputation among some major constituent groups.
Fortunately, virtually all of these people now appear genuinely willing to explore opportunities
for future collaboration based on CEPF’s subsequent achievements.
Subsequent Developments
Subsequent developments related to these issues were examined closely during the evaluation andsome important trends became clear:•

The share of CEPF grants to CI fell from the initial 50% level to a cumulative 35% by June30, 2005, and continues to decline. This trend is largely explained by CEPF expanding into
new areas where CI does not have experience or a comparative advantage, and theconsequent need to engage with and support new partners and Coordination Units (Figure
6.2).
Figure 6.2. Cumulative actual and projected percentage of CEPF grants awarded to CI
Month)(18
FY 01/02

FY 03

FY 04

FY 05

FY 06

FY 07

FY 08

FY 09

FY 10

0%
10%

Non CI

20%
30%
40%
50%
60%

CI

70%
80%
Cumulative CI vs. Non-CI Grants•

The evaluation team has concluded that CI has generally done an excellent job with the funds
it has received from CEPF. The coordination and project implementation services from CI
regional programs and Centers for Biodiversity Conservation, the scientific and technicalsupport from CABS, as well as the administrative, management and information technology
services from CI’s headquarters have all been of high quality and provided essential support
to CEPF’s civil society grant making. CI’s role as coordination unit is discussed in Chapter 4.

•

The size and justification for some of the early coordination and implementation grants to CI
in Latin America and in parts of Asia have attracted criticism from local stakeholders as well
as staff of both CI and CEPF, as discussed in Chapter 4. Many of these grants appear
generous, and some would have been higher but for extensive negotiations between CEPF
and CI staff. While the pressure on CEPF staff to support CI grant proposals as well as the
expectation among CI staff that they should have priority access to CEPF funds has clearly
reduced over time, it has not been eliminated.

•

Grant proposals from CI are generally being subject to more rigorous examination than they
were previously, sometimes leading to the rejection of CI proposals.

50•In some hotspots it is difficult to assess whether certain program activities carried out by CIstaff with CEPF grant support “should” have been paid for by CI or CEPF, with viable
arguments on both sides.

•

While CI has generally done an excellent job with the grant funds it has received, it would be
hard to argue convincingly that CI has been treated like any other potential grantee, as
required by the CEPF Operational Manual.

•

All transactions and financial flows with CI appear to have been transparently reported, eventhough some of these are relatively complex.

•

CI itself has recently committed to shifting towards a strategy of re-granting substantial
proportions of its revenues to support strategic partnerships, rather than trying to “do it all”
with their own field offices and personnel. This style of operating is much closer to the CEPF
model, which gave CI one of its first experiences of an explicit focus on making grants tocivil society with an emphasis on partnerships and alliances.

Despite these generally very positive developments, external perceptions continue to be
negatively shaped by the earlier developments. Furthermore, the rules and disclosure
requirements governing CEPF grants to CI have not so far overcome the potential conflict ofinterest when CI competes with other organizations for grants from a fund which it manages.
Options for Changing the RelationshipOur conclusion is that that a significant reorientation of the CEPF-CI relationship is needed, to set
further limits and to further improve transparency. The result should be to strengthen thecredibility of the arrangement in both reality and perception.
Major realignments in the CI-CEPF relationship were considered by the evaluation team,including making CEPF independent of CI or making CI ineligible for CEPF grants. However,such extreme measures do not appear necessary and it is evident that such changes would have anenormous negative impact on CEPF’s capacity to operate effectively and to continue developing
the highly promising model that has emerged. Recommended steps are discussed in Chapter 8.

51

7: Governance and Complementarity with Donor Programs
The governance arrangements for CEPF are defined in the Financing Agreement andMemorandum of Understanding between the donor organizations signed in 2000 and amended in
2003.
Donor Council
CEPF is under the supervision of a Donor Council with the following powers and duties:• Providing general guidance to CI on the operations of the Fund
• Reviewing and approving: Annual Spending Plans; the priority list of Ecosystems Profiles tobe prepared; proposed Ecosystem Profiles; amendments to the Operational Manual; andprocurement procedures.
• Creating and approving the conditions for new donors• Reviewing and approving the fund-raising strategy• Electing the chairperson of the Donor Council
The Donor Council membership reflects the current donors (i.e., CI, GEF, Government of Japan,
MacArthur Foundation and World Bank) and has generally met twice a year. So far the WorldBank President has filled the role of chairperson.
A main finding of this evaluation is that CEPF is doing valuable and effective work that supports
the goals of the donor organizations and complements their own operations in geographic andthematic areas and on scales where they do not find it easy to work themselves. This is asignificant achievement of the Donor Council. We concur overall with the mid-term evaluation inits view that the Donor Council has played an active role in accordance with its assigned role. The
guidance and oversight provided by the Donor Council with the support of the Working Groupappears to have been effective and timely, and the Donor Council has played an active role infundraising.
The diversity in organizations represented is a major strength of the Donor Council. The
combined knowledge and experience of these organizations, all of which except the Governmentof Japan are represented by their president or chief executive officer, represent an extraordinary
resource for CEPF.
We have noted some uncertainty over the exact role of the Donor Council itself in supervisingand being responsible for CEPF-funded activities in the context of CI’s fiduciary role, thesupervision responsibility of CI’s Board of Directors and the World Bank’s oversight role. Theremay be benefits from revisiting and clarifying these respective roles.
CEPF Working GroupThe Donor Council established a permanent Working Group in December 2000 to facilitate
coordination and communication between the donor partners and CEPF staff and to provide
technical review and guidance on behalf of the partners. Technical staff from each of theparticipating organizations sit on this Working Group along with key CEPF staff and the CEPF
Executive Director (who continues to report to the Donor Council). These Working Group
members also act as advisors to their respective Donor Council representatives
Again we concur with the mid-term evaluation that the Working Group has played an active rolein several of the improvements to CEPF and provided useful input and guidance to the CEPF on
important issues, including playing an active role in reviewing Ecosystem Profiles. Working

52

Group members have also participated in supervision visits to CEPF field operations. The
Working Group members’ continuing efforts to catalyze or facilitate operational collaboration
between their own organizations and CEPF are essential, as discussed below.
CEPF Management
Conservation International is responsible for CEPF administration and financial management. CI
has a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that projects and other activities are financed and carriedout in accordance with the guidance of the Donor Council and the Operational Manual.
Compliance with the World Bank’s Safeguard Policies and GEF’s Operational Policies are alsoemphasized. The CEPF Financing Agreement specifies CI’s responsibility for preparing andsecuring the approval of Ecosystems Profiles and for identifying, preparing, appraising, selecting
and supervising projects and activities carried out under each of the approved Profiles.
CI houses CEPF management and staff within its own headquarters. CEPF is an autonomous
division within CI, led by an Executive Director who is also a CI Senior Vice President. CEPF
staff work closely with the CI hotspot programs, including both the country programs and theregional Centers for Biodiversity Conservation, while technical support is received from CI’s
Center for Applied Biodiversity Science.
CEPF management maintains a considerable degree of independence within CI, although therelationship is complex and takes different forms depending on which individuals or regional
programs are involved. Within the CI organization, the CEPF Executive Director reports to the CI
Executive Vice President for Programs and Science who in turn reports to both the CI President
and the Chief Executive Officer. The CEPF Executive Director’s operational equivalent within CI
is the Senior Vice President of the Regional Programs Division, who also reports to the Executive
Vice President for Programs and Science.
We concur with the mid-term evaluation that strong and responsive CEPF leadership andmanagement has very ably guided the program through its start-up phase and expansion into 16
hotspots while helping the organization evolve in response to changing needs. Strong, strategic
decision making informed by earlier experiences have been particularly evident.
Management Team
Within CEPF, the management team reporting to the Executive Director consists of three staff
groups: external affairs; finance and information; and grant programs. Grants programs are led bya senior managing director overseeing five regional grant director positions and a grants
management unit, which provides initial monitoring of required reports, handles financialtransfers, and maintain data entry to the CEPF information system. The grants management unit
establishes and enforces consistent policies and procedures, provides internal legal review for
grants under $250,000, and supports both the grant directors and the CUs in resolving contracting
and compliance issues.
Each Grant Director is responsible for a small group of hotspot programs (the Africa Grant
Director is also supported by a Grant Manager). All CEPF staff have been based in Washington
with the exception of one former Grant Director who was based for a few years in Rio de Janeiro
and another recently relocated in Massachusetts.
The Grant Director’s role includes supervising all aspects of grant making to ensure that the
Ecosystem Profiles for their hotspots are fully implemented. This includes responsibility forsupervising the Coordination Units, building alliances among CEPF grantees, communications,53

and leveraging CEPF grants with other donors. All CEPF grants require approval in Washington(with the exception of those made by small grant funds) and, in the case of larger grants, theGrant Directors are also usually involved in direct negotiations with grantees on the substantive
content, delivery mechanism and budget of proposed projects. This is a significant set of
responsibilities and these positions are highly demanding.
The precise nature of the Grant Director-CU relationship varies with the locations and thepersonalities involved and a certain amount of adaptation is required on both sides for theeffective and efficient interactions which were evident in most regions. While the quality of workand leadership being provided by the Grant Directors has generally been of a very high quality,
there appear to be a few cases where there is a duplication of effort with the Coordination Units.
This raises the question of whether both Grant Directors and Coordination Units are essential
throughout the program on a long-term basis, or whether it will become possible to reduce theselevels of management.
Decentralization
The evaluation team was initially concerned at the number of layers of management between thedonors and the ultimate grantees, particularly as approval in Washington is required for all grants(except for those within local re-granting programs). Having now interacted with the Grant
Directors and the Coordination Units in several locations, it is evident that both have played avery important role during the CEPF start-up phase. However, there appear to be opportunities togradually decentralize responsibilities to at least some of the Coordination Units once they havebecome well established, successfully carried out initial rounds of grant making and demonstrated
the capacity to take on additional responsibilities. This would seem consistent with CEPF’s
commitment to promoting broad participation in decision making and to promote national
program ownership.
As a counter-argument, some of the CUs report that they appreciate having an approval process
above them as this makes it easier for them to explain rejection of a grant from a localorganization that CEPF cannot support. While this is a valid argument, especially in early roundsof grant making which tend to attract many more ineligible proposals, it does not seem a
sufficient reason to avoid decentralizing authority and responsibility.
As capacity builds in the regions, CEPF should seek opportunities to decentralize decision
making from Washington to the Coordination Units. As capacity building efforts among local
civil society organizations start to pay dividends, it should also be possible to devolve at least
some of the CUs responsibilities to local NGOs, for example as intermediaries between the CUs
and the least experienced or most geographically remote grantees. The expanded use of local
advisory committees and expert panels to guide grant making would be an important element ofsuch decentralization. Grant Directors will almost certainly continue to be needed in the start-up
phase of new hotspot programs.
As noted in the mid-term evaluation, this issue “….is complicated by the arm-length relationshipthat CEPF seeks to maintain when it comes to funding CI programs in participating regions, andalso by the confusion that still exists among outsiders about the role that CI itself plays in the
CEPF grant making process. If responsibilities for grant-making are to be decentralized further tothe field, the lines between CI and the CEPF funding process must be drawn ever more clearly
and the autonomy of the CEPF Coordinating Unit made crystal clear.”Complementarity with Donor Priorities and Activities
This section considers two principal questions regarding CEPF and its donor partners:54

1. Is CEPF providing strategic value to the donors in areas which they cannot address aseffectively themselves? In summary, our view is that for GEF, World Bank and theGovernment of Japan, the answer to this is clearly yes. To the MacArthur Foundation theanswer is also yes, although the issues are more complex.
2. Are opportunities for collaboration between the donors and CEPF being fully exploited? For
all of the donors, the answer seems to be that the opportunities for collaboration are probably
even greater now than they were when CEPF began, but that so far these opportunities have
hardly begun to be exploited. There are specific opportunities for more effective informationexchange and operational collaboration between CEPF and each of the MacArthur
Foundation, World Bank and GEF (the latter primarily through the GEF Small Grants
Programme).
Some of the value-adding features of CEPF apply to most of the donors. As an investment, CEPF
provides the World Bank, the Government of Japan and GEF with a relatively agile, flexible andfast-moving funding mechanism that supports civil society organizations in areas of global
biodiversity significance by disbursing funds in smaller amounts than these organizations are
generally comfortable dealing with. CEPF’s effective emphasis on employing good science,
engaging stakeholders, building local capacities, mainstreaming biodiversity and harmonizing
donor investments in biodiversity is also of considerable strategic value to these sameorganizations. CEPF’s activities are also consistent with and supportive of the poverty mitigation
focus of both World Bank and the Government of Japan. It is difficult to envision how any of thedonor organizations could deliver a comparable program more cost-effectively themselves. The
extent to which MacArthur Foundation derives comparable benefits is considered later in thischapter. For all of these donors, CEPF appears to be an effective and well-leveraged investment.
World BankWorld Bank finance and procurement staff were actively involved in the development of CEPF’s
management systems, grant-making procedures and operational manual. Serious efforts were also
made to ensure that CEPF staff and principal partners understood and had the capacity to follow
the Bank’s Safeguard Policies. Being able to rely on the Bank’s diligence in these areas appears
to have encouraged at least some other donor partners to participate.
As CEPF was being established, the potential for operational collaboration with the World Bank
was highlighted as one of the key opportunities provided by CEPF’s innovative donor
partnership. It was argued that CEPF could provide important lessons in biodiversity strategicplanning (based on CI’s scientific expertise) and that CEPF’s grassroots conservation and civilsociety programs would inform and influence the Bank’s broader-scale project and policy work.
Operational collaboration between CEPF and World Bank projects was anticipated, even if themeans of facilitating this were not specified. There was also an expectation that CEPF’s
experiences could encourage further internalization or mainstreaming of biodiversity
conservation experiences within the Bank that could in turn be translated into dialogues withgovernments on policy reforms and other measures that could support CEPF’s own biodiversity
conservation goals.
In terms of the potential for collaboration, many of these arguments appear as valid today as they
were 4-5 years ago, even if the expectation that CEPF would significantly affect World Bank
operations should probably be scaled back. The potential for collaboration appears much greater
today, because CEPF has started to accumulate a series of convincing field programs and canshare knowledge about what it is doing and has learnt, not just about what it aims to do.

55Potential aside, however, to date there has been very little effective operational collaboration
between the World Bank and CEPF. While information has flowed between CEPF and the WorldBank at the level of senior management and through the Donor Council and Working Group,
genuine cooperation or operational interactions at the field level have been few and far between.
One notable exception is the excellent collaboration in the Cape Floristic Region, where CEPF,
Bank and GEF supported programs have all complemented one another, thereby demonstrating
what is possible.
Knowledge or awareness of CEPF programs within World Bank is very limited, even within the
Bank’s Country Offices in the hotspot regions where CEPF is active. Some Bank technical staff
were alienated early in the process of CEPF’s establishment, when they saw little sign that theirtechnical inputs and suggestions were being taken seriously, and became convinced thatsignificant CEPF resources would flow to CI regardless of other considerations. Nevertheless,these same Bank staff now appear willing to build bridges with CEPF, and some have very
recently started to do so.
World Bank and CEPF held a series of regional workshops in 2005 to share information andexperiences, but these came too late to have a significant impact on the initial phase of CEPF
operations. These regional workshops did identify some promising leads for future collaborationthat are now being followed up in a few countries, notably in the Philippines. But it was clear
from the relative lack of regional participation and discussions at these workshops that Bank
country offices do not feel “ownership” of CEPF and often have no knowledge of CEPF activities
being undertaken in their countries. For example, CEPF resources for Sumatra are $10 million yet
Bank country staff are unfamiliar with the activities being supported by CEPF or opportunities
for synergies with other Bank-funded activities, even when both are contributing to the tsunami
relief effort in Aceh. An equivalent $10m GEF project would certainly have attracted more
attention. The perception is that the CEPF is a CI program and not part of the Bank's country
program. Consequently, the Bank and CI are missing opportunities to build linkages and bettersynergies and to strengthen CEPF’s impact. Closer integration with Bank programs would also
respond to the recommendations of a recent, high-level evaluation of the Bank’s numerous global
programs, including CEPF, by the Bank’s Operations Evaluation Department (OED).
While the CEPF Working Group members should continue to encourage and facilitate operational
collaboration, it will probably only become effective with more attention to communications
within CEPF’s hotspot regions. Several starting points can be considered. The senior managers of
CEPF’s Coordination Units should be encouraged to establish regular information exchanges
with the Bank’s relevant country operations, with facilitation if needed from the Bank’s
Environment Department. Linkages could be strengthened by actively involve regional Bank staff
in CEPF planning workshops and project supervision so that Bank country offices take more
ownership. Another entry point could be through the Bank’s community-driven development(CDD) projects, especially those that include small grant mechanisms.
Other potential areas for building more effective collaboration between CEPF and World Bank
staff include:• Updating and further development of the Ecosystem Profiles as a useful planning tool for
donor coordination.
• Information sharing during the identification and preparation phase of World Bank projects
with civil society or biodiversity components in overlapping geographic areas.
• Policy dialogues with governments and regional bodies to seek opportunities to improve theenabling environment for biodiversity conservation, and to highlight linkages between
biodiversity conservation, economic growth and poverty mitigation.

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•

Exchanges of information on planned infrastructure developments that could pose potential
threats to biodiversity conservation.

Global Environment Facility
Some of the points made regarding World Bank are also applicable to GEF, particularly given the
GEF’s relative importance in financing World Bank biodiversity projects. CEPF also offers theopportunity to demonstrate regional, multi-country initiatives which have not always been easy
for GEF to deliver convincingly.
From the GEF perspective, global benefits arise from the increased national and local capacity to
manage and deliver small conservation initiatives in an efficient and effective manner tostrategically integrate biodiversity conservation into development and landscape planning acrossthe hotspots. CEPF’s strategic interventions based on a common and agreed strategic framework
are expected to lead to generation, adoption, adaptation, and application of lessons related tobiodiversity conservation for more effective implementation and improved biodiversity outcomes,
relevant both to the CEPF but also to the broader GEF biodiversity portfolio.
As with the World Bank, GEF supports most of its programs through governments. GEF does,
however, have two funding windows providing resources directly to NGOs that can usefully becompared and contrasted with CEPF: the GEF Small Grants Program (SGP), a corporate GEF
program managed by UNDP; and GEF Medium-Sized Projects (MSPs).
GEF Small Grant Program
The SGP operates in 80 developing countries and has disbursed over $175 million in grants
averaging $20,000 to more than 5,000 projects since 1992. The maximum grant size for small
NGOs is $50,000. At the national level, SGP is led by a National Coordinator with strategic
guidance from a voluntary National Steering Committee composed of senior representatives from
NGOs, government agencies, academic and research institutions, donors and other stakeholders.
The global program is managed by a staff of nine in New York. SGP receives logistical services
from the UN Office for Project Services and program support from UNDP Country Offices. Each
National Coordinator works with potential NGO partners to develop project concepts into project
proposals for presentation to the National Steering Committee, and actively supervises project
implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Over 50% of the grants have been for biodiversity
conservation, and the grantees have ranged from emerging community groups to national NGOs.
SGP is widely regarded as one of the most successful GEF initiatives.
So far there have been surprisingly few interactions between CEPF and SGP, although SGP
management did participate in some of the early CEPF consultations with the GEF. CEPF and
SGP Ecuador discussed the possibility of co-managing a small grants program in the ChocóManabí Corridor (Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena), but Southern Mesoamerica appears to be the only
region where CEPF and SGP have an active partnership, having collaborated on at least fiveprojects in Costa Rica. Apart from the obvious overlaps of interest in making civil society grants
to conserve biodiversity, there are some important distinctions and complements in theoperational models of CEPF and SGP which could provide the basis for exploring collaboration
options:• While SGP grants are generally limited to $50,000 and are often closer to $20,000 or less,
CEPF can make both small and larger grants to achieve an integrated portfolio.
• While SGP primarily works in single countries, it has recently gained experience insupporting transboundary conservation projects involving two or more countries, thereby
sharing at least some elements of CEPF’s regional approach.

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•
•
•

SGP grant eligibility criteria are not identical to those of CEPF and there may be
opportunities to refer viable funding opportunities to one another.
SGP has considerable experience in supporting relatively long-term small projects thatmobilize civil society while linking community development and alternative livelihood
programs with conservation.
SGP has permanent in-country institutional links to its often-influential National Steering
Committee and to the UNDP Country Offices, both of which have extensive experience ofparticipating in national policy dialogues and could be useful CEPF allies.

Medium-Sized Grants
MSPs are a special category of GEF project with a total budget of up to $1 million. In contrast to“full-size” GEF projects with funding going almost exclusively through governments, a wider
range of stakeholders are eligible, including NGOs, research organizations and regional bodies.
While MSPs have not proven to be as fast moving and flexible as originally anticipated, they
have represented an important opportunity for NGOs to access GEF resources and resulted insome very highly-regarded projects. In some cases MSPs have been used to scale up promisingsmaller initiatives, while some successful MSPs have in turn been scaled up to larger projects
supported by GEF or other donors. There may be opportunities to scale up promising CEPF
grants with MSPs.
Significance of CEPF for GEF
The recent adoption of the Resource Allocation Framework (RAF) is expected to significantly
change the nature of GEF operations, although it is too early to predict the impact of thesechanges. Funding for biodiversity will certainly be concentrated in fewer countries. Recipient
governments will, for the first time, be allocated multi-year funding ceilings that may make someof them reluctant to share resources with NGOs (this was not an issue pre-RAF). As a result,
there may be an overall and possibly dramatic reduction in GEF funding to NGOs under RAF as
well as fewer opportunities for MSPs to be developed. Meanwhile, pressure has been building on
SGP to ‘graduate’ some its most successful, well-established programs, which may also disrupt
the flow of funds to NGOs already making key contributions to biodiversity conservation in the
hotspots. These factors suggest that CEPF is unlikely to decline in terms of its relative importance
to GEF as an NGO funding delivery mechanism, and may represent an increasingly valuable
opportunity to support civil society with an approach that complements but certainly does not
duplicate SGP.
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
The Foundation’s Conservation and Sustainable Development Program focuses on the problemsof endangered tropical ecosystems. The geographic areas where the Foundation works are chosen
for their richness of species diversity, endemism, limited institutional capacity and levels of
threat. The geographic areas currently supported by both the Foundation and CEPF are limited to
the Tropical Andes and Madagascar, soon to be joined by the Eastern Himalaya. Elsewhere,
CEPF works in the Upper Guinean Forest while MacArthur was previously in the Lower Guinean
Forest, and there may be future overlaps in Choco and in Melanesia. MacArthur has granted
about $8.5 million in Madagascar since 1986 and about $26 million in the northern and southern
Andes since 1989 (CEPF operates only in the southern Andes). Grant making in the Guinean
Forest so far has been $3.1 million in 2000 and 2001. MacArthur has discontinued grant making
in the Philippines and Sundaland.

58Given MacArthur Foundation’s close thematic and geographic overlaps with CEPF it is important
to ascertain whether there are inefficiencies due to both programs making similar investments.
While the evaluation team has not studied MacArthur’s grant portfolio in detail, our strong
impression is that the grants made by the Foundation and CEPF complement one another. We
noted a few examples of sequential funding to the same grantees, usually where a pioneering,earlier grant from MacArthur was consolidated or expanded by a subsequent CEPF grant. The
Caucasus Regional Council for Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Resource Use is agood example. While there may be a few examples of similarities and overlaps, we are not awareof any clear examples of redundancies. Nor would we expect to find any, as both the Foundation
and CEPF are still relatively modest players in terms of financial contribution in their common
hotspots, and where the conservation resources these two are bringing to bear are small relative tothe scale of the challenges they are confronting.
We have noted some key differences between CEPF programs and the Foundation’s model ofgrant making. First, the Foundation does not have an on-the-ground presence corresponding to
CEPF’s coordination units. As noted in Chapter 4, while these CUs have not worked perfectly in
all locations, we consider that these institutional arrangements – combined with the scientificinputs of CI’s Center for Applied Biodiversity Science – are one of the strongest and mostimpressive features of the initial phase of CEPF. Second, the Foundation has gradually moved
towards larger grants than previously, and supports few projects corresponding to CEPF’s
smallest grants to emerging civil society organizations; CEPF, as a result, generally supports
projects across a broader range of size scales than the Foundation.
We understand that the Foundation would have liked to have seen tighter coordination and moreevidence of fruitful collaboration between CEPF and World Bank (and perhaps GEF), thereby
increasing the value of their own investment. As noted above, while such coordination has notbeen exploited so far, there appear to be solid reasons for expecting it to become more effective
and to generate tangible results in the future.
The Foundation bases its planning upon an internal strategic planning document known as a‘working drawing’, which bears some comparison to CEPF’s Ecosystem Profile. The Foundation
understandably does not share this document with potential grantees, and CI is a prospective (andactual) grantee. CEPF staff are therefore unable to review MacArthur’s grant making plans. If
the Foundation could find a way to share elements of its strategy while still meeting the needs of
its own internal policies, the potential for collaborating with CEPF could well be enhanced.
While recent staff contacts between the organizations have been productive, some of theFoundation’s staff have been doubtful about CEPF. At a site-specific level, there are continuingdebates about the effectiveness and sustainability of CEPF’s Tropical Andes program. The othermajor site where MacArthur operates that was visited by the evaluation team was Madagascar,
where CEPF has an excellent program that has demonstrated innovative and productive
approaches. We were given confidential access to MacArthur’s strategic plan (its ‘working
drawing’) for Madagascar grant making and we saw no obvious signs of redundancy, while
opportunities for greater collaboration are more clearly evident among the wealth of priority
conservation sites and desperate need for local capacity building. Both the Foundation and CEPF
offer a refreshingly innovative approach to conservation funding in Madagascar in contrast to themuch larger official donor investments that have had mixed results over the last two decades.
Government of JapanThe Government of Japan appears to value its investment in CEPF for many of the same reasons
as the World Bank and GEF. The Japanese Ministry of Finance has also been particularly59concerned that CEPF grant programs demonstrate a positive contribution to poverty mitigation,
an issue that is addressed specifically in Chapter 3.

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8: Conclusions and Recommendations
Overview
The overall objective of CEPF is to provide strategic assistance to civil society organizations forbiodiversity conservation in geographic areas where biodiversity is both concentrated andthreatened. Since launching in 2000, CEPF has progressively established active grant making
programs in 16 biodiversity hotspots covering 34 countries.
The three original donor partners, CI, GEF and World Bank, were joined by the MacArthur
Foundation in 2001 and the Government of Japan in 2002, and these donors are all represented on
the Donor Council that supervises CEPF. Each of these donors committed $25 million for 5
years, generating overall funding of $125 million, while negotiations have recently taken placewith potential new donors. Additional funding in excess of $100 million has been leveraged fromexisting grants.
Grants for biodiversity conservation to over 500 civil society organizations with a total value of$68 million had been committed by June 30, 2005, of which $47 million had been disbursed froman overall grant making budget of $100 million. About 15% of CEPF’s grant funds support theactivities of local Coordination Units in each hotspot, a role generally played by one or morewell-established NGOs. Other major CEPF expenditure categories include the preparation of
Ecosystem Profiles ($6.4 million through June 30, 2005), and operational and management costs($9.9 million).
CEPF is managed as a semi-autonomous unit within CI, which is also CEPF’s single largest
grantee. CI provides a variety of coordination, implementation, scientific and administrative
services to CEPF at both headquarters and field levels. The CI Board of Directors has fiduciary
responsibility for CEPF. Grants to CI through June 30, 2005 amounted to $23.5 million or 35% of
total CEPF grants. Total payments to CI for grants, Ecosystem Profile preparation services andmanagement fees amounted to $29.7 million through June 30, 2005.
Even though CEPF has completed five years of operations, the program is still developing.
Slightly less than half of the available grant funds had been received by grantees when thisevaluation began, while projects amounting to slightly less than $20 million or 20% of the total
grant funds had actually been completed. Of the 15 active grant making programs, three had been
active for 4.5 years, seven for 3-4 years and five for less than 2.5 years.
Overall Findings
CEPF has made strong progress overall during its first five years. While achieving gains in
biodiversity conservation within hotspot regions is a long-term challenge, a solid foundation has
been laid for the future. The overall performance from a global perspective has been excellent,even though there is some variation in the performance of individual hotspot programs.
Particularly significant progress has been made in the following areas:•

A coherent planning process to guide grant making at the hotspot level has been developed
and applied. The Ecosystem Profile methodology has improved significantly over the life of
CEPF after a variable start, with strong scientific support from CI. The more recent Profiles
have included thorough analyses of threats and opportunities, identified the key elements ofan ecological baseline for measuring progress, and provided clear strategic directions to guide
grant making. The later Profiles have been strengthened by broader and more effective
stakeholder consultations. In some cases the Profiles have been used successfully to61encourage the participation of other donors and coordinate the resulting additional
investments.
•

The hotspot grant portfolios are well aligned with the strategic priorities set out in the
Ecosystem Profiles, most of which are expressed in fairly general terms. The portfolios
typically consist of a few relatively large grants for program coordination and leadership,
several medium-sized grants to relatively capable national and international NGOs forstrategic, high-priority projects, and a larger number of smaller grants (many under $20,000)
to emerging civil society organizations carrying out an impressive range of grassroots
activities, some of which are thematically clustered. While the aggregate early gains fromsuch diverse initiatives are difficult to assess, the overall picture that emerges is that the
projects fit together in a coherent way and that most of the hotspot portfolios are wellintegrated and of significant strategic value for biodiversity conservation. While individual
projects were not a primary focus of the evaluation, design and implementation generally
appears to be sound.

•

The characteristics and capacity of the civil society constituency being supported by CEPF
vary significantly between the hotspot regions, with the result that the term ‘civil society’embraces a very broad range of organizations. The evaluation field visits provided ample
evidence that the CEPF model is sufficiently flexible to effectively identify and support a
range of civil society organizations of different types in varying contexts. Few of thesegrantees, particularly the less experienced emerging organizations, have access to alternative
sources of funding.

•

The most significant direct impacts from grant making to civil society have been: (i) capacity
building among local and national conservation NGOs; (ii) contributions to extending andstrengthening protected area networks: (iii) broadening environmental awareness througheffective communications; (iv) enabling local, national and international partnerships to
support biodiversity conservation; (v) effective advocacy by grantee organizations inconnection with infrastructure and other development projects; and (vi) contributions tosustainable financing for conservation. The portfolios also contain a significant number ofprojects that combine community development and livelihood opportunities with biodiversity
conservation, thereby contributing to poverty mitigation.

•

Significant indirect impacts should also result from grants, notably when a particularapproach tested or demonstrated successfully by a CEPF project is replicated or scaled up.
Other indirect impacts can be expected to include: (i) policy changes by governments or new
approaches by donors inspired by grantees; (ii) NGO grantees going on to more influential
activities as a result of capacity building and experience gained during a CEPF project; (iii)
local communities initiating new environmentally-friendly activities or obtaining services or
action from government as a result of increased self reliance and organizational skills
acquired during a CEPF project; (iv) institutional project partners such as research
institutions, local governments and national environmental funds adopting CEPF approaches
and introducing them to larger communities. Some of these benefits may not become evident
until several years after the activity that stimulated them and are difficult, if not impossible tomeasure. That does not diminish their value, however.

•

The Coordination Units, CEPF’s representatives and grant managers on the ground, haveprovided high quality local program implementation services. The Coordination Units haveeffectively identified and supported emerging civil society organizations, especially thosewith little previous proposal development or project management experience, many of which
are scattered widely in remote locations. CI provides the Coordination Unit at 9 of the 15

62hotspot programs, although 4 of the last 5 programs activated have drawn on other NGOs in
an impressively diverse range of local institutional arrangements. Although thesearrangements have not been problem free, they have worked very well overall.
•With roles that go well beyond grant program administration, the Coordination Units haveemerged as one of the key strengths of CEPF. With support from CEPF in Washington, theseUnits have been particularly effective in linking smaller grassroots activities, larger projects,
policy initiatives, international collaboration, sustainable financing and other key elements ofcomprehensive, vertically-integrated conservation portfolios. The CUs have been particularly
adept at pursuing constructive partnerships with governments – in some cases multiple
governments – while simultaneously supporting civil society organizations which sometimes
have uneasy relations with their governments as a result of their conservation advocacy
activities. The label of Coordination Unit does not do justice to the contribution of these key
strategic partners.

Performance Measurement
The approach to performance monitoring has evolved and improved since CEPF was launched in2000 and it is a continuing work in process. CEPF is addressing large scale issues with its
partners and has a budget that is only generous by previous NGO conservation standards.
Expectations on what can be achieved at the hotspot level within short time periods should
therefore be kept within modest bounds, despite the relentlessly success-driven discourse of theconservation and development communities.
It is extremely difficult to determine how specific investments or projects of CEPF affect longterm conservation outcomes in a corridor, protected area, nation or region because such outcomesare usually the result of efforts of numerous government agencies, communities, NGOs anddonors over an extended period and are not easily attributed to a specific short-term investment
by one program. An overemphasis on generating short-term (e.g., less than 10 year) conservation
successes on a broad front can be hazardous insofar it tends to constrain risk and innovation, andrestrict the freedom needed to explore more risky undertakings or those requiring more time.
CEPF does not regularly assess or report progress at a hotspot level against either theconservation outcomes or the other goals identified in the log frames within each of theecosystem profiles. While the CUs have done very good work, they have not focused on
analyzing the overall performance of their hotspot grant portfolios. Exceptional work has been
done in communications, but the overall impacts of the portfolios and progress towards theconservation outcomes had not been systematically compiled and assessed. CEPF does plan tocompile a formal report on progress against the log frames for each funding region at the close of
the initial five-year funding period, starting early in 2006.
Most conservation outcomes are unattainable within a five year period. Effective management ofprotected areas and especially large corridors must continue indefinitely as there will always be
new threats and conflicts. Active civil society involvement in governance is essential for
equitable and transparent decision-making and accountability, even though conservation
outcomes may not be these organizations’ immediate or major priority. Therefore, to improve
performance and evaluation, targeted conservation outcomes require an explicit subset of shortterm benchmarks and targets that can track progress towards the species, site and corridors
outcomes. While aiming for these long-term conservation outcomes, the process andimplementation of CEPF grants generates considerable socio-economic, governance, livelihood
and related impacts that are not effectively captured in the current performance and evaluation
framework.

63

Monitoring in the form of site visits by the CUs appears inconsistent across the hotspots. The
CUs do not perceive their performance monitoring roles clearly, mainly emphasizing
conservation actions and management of grant funds. The overall responsibility for projectmonitoring as a support function as well as monitoring of progress towards outcomes requires
further clarification. While CEPF has developed impressive grant management and grantapplication software, there is no comparable system for monitoring and evaluation, and noautomatic or other compilation of project site visit observations or the progress reported byindividual projects against the targeted outputs at the portfolio level. The viability of developing
and introducing an integrated monitoring and evaluation system should be assessed. Care needs tobe taken, however, not to impose a monitoring structure that is so rigid as to inhibit the vital
innovation needed to push the boundaries of current approaches.
Relationship with Conservation International
The relationship with CI provides substantial benefits to CEPF. CI co-initiated, launched andmanages CEPF, its Board of Directors has fiduciary responsibility for CEPF, its Center for
Applied Biodiversity Science provides technical services, and several of its regional programs
and Centers for Biodiversity Conservation are local coordinators for CEPF. CI also provides arange of management, administrative and information technology services in addition to having
committed $25 million to CEPF as an initial investment. Two CI funds, the Global Conservation
Fund and Verde Ventures, as well as CI country programs have provided funding for grantapplicants that CEPF was unable to support and have co-financed certain CEPF grants. CI
therefore has an extremely close relationship with CEPF on several different fronts.
Start-Up Phase
CI’s dual role as manager of the grants program and as a potential grantee presents a potential
conflict of interest. CI is the largest grantee of CEPF and by June 2005 had received a total of $29
million in hotspot coordination grants, project implementation grants and management fees.
Recognizing this issue, CEPF’s Financing Agreement limits grants to CI to 50% of the total
available, with specific Donor Council approval, and the CEPF Operations Manual requires all
grant proposals, whether from CI or from external groups, to be subject to the same decisionmaking process.
As originally required by the CEPF Donor Council, the initial CEPF Spending Plan attached to
the Financing Agreement in 2000 included grants to CI that equaled 50% of the available
resources of $11.6 million allocated to the first three hotspots, without the projects concerned
having been specified or developed in detail. Subsequently, there was considerable pressure on
CEPF staff to support funding for relatively large CI proposals, particularly during the first few
years of CEPF. Although the pre-allocation requirement was subsequently changed by the Donor
Council in 2001 at the request of CEPF management, these factors contributed to a widely-heldperception that CI was being awarded significant CEPF grants without other options or
considerations being fully explored, to the detriment of the overall program.
From CI’s perspective, they were successfully engaging a range of new donors in supporting
valuable conservation initiatives with an exciting new focus on civil society. CEPF had made astrategic decision to begin work in areas where CI already had a strong presence and existing
relationships to build upon, so it was not surprising that their country and regional programs
would lead the initial CEPF effort. However, this interpretation was not shared widely among thetechnical staff of donor partners, many external stakeholders or the broader conservation
community.

64

These issues have received continual attention from the Donor Council, the CEPF Working
Group and CEPF management, who have all worked hard to overcome the negative impacts ofthese early developments.
Recent Developments
Subsequent developments related to these issues were examined closely during the evaluation andsome important trends became clear:•

The share of CEPF grants to CI fell from the initial 50% level to a cumulative 35% by June30, 2005, and continues to decline. This trend is largely explained by CEPF expanding into
new areas where CI does not have experience or a comparative advantage, and theconsequent need to engage with and support new partners and Coordination Units.

•

The evaluation team has concluded that CI has generally done an excellent job with the funds
it has received from CEPF. The coordination and project implementation services from CI
regional programs and Centers for Biodiversity Conservation, the scientific and technicalsupport from the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, as well as the administrative,
management and information technology services from CI’s headquarters have all been ofhigh quality and have provided essential support to CEPF’s civil society grant making.

•All transactions and financial flows with CI appear to have been transparently reported, eventhough some of these are relatively complex.

•

The pressure on CEPF staff to support CI grant proposals as well as the expectation among
CI staff that they should have priority access to CEPF funds has clearly reduced over time,
although it has not been eliminated.

•

While CI has generally done an excellent job with the grant funds it has received, it would be
hard to argue convincingly that CI has been treated like any other potential grantee, as
required by the CEPF Operational Manual.

•

In some hotspots it is difficult to assess whether certain program activities carried out by CIstaff with CEPF grant support “should” have been paid for by CI or by CEPF, with viable
arguments on both sides.

•

CI itself has recently committed to shifting towards a strategy of re-granting substantial
proportions of its revenues to support strategic partnerships, rather than trying to “do it all”
with their own field offices and personnel. This style of operating is much closer to the CEPF
model, which gave CI one of its first experiences of an explicit focus on making grants tocivil society with an emphasis on partnerships and alliances.

Despite these generally very positive developments, external perceptions continue to be
negatively shaped by the earlier events. Furthermore, the rules and disclosure requirements
governing CEPF grants to CI have not so far overcome the potential conflict of interest when agrantee is competing with other organizations for grants from a fund which it manages. Our
conclusion is that a reorientation of the CEPF-CI relationship is needed, to set further limits andto further improve transparency. The result should be to strengthen the credibility of thearrangement in both reality and perception.
Major realignments in the CI-CEPF relationship were considered by the evaluation team,including making CEPF independent of CI or making CI ineligible for CEPF grants. However,65such extreme measures do not appear necessary and it is evident that such changes would have anenormous negative impact on CEPF’s capacity to operate effectively and to continue developing
the highly promising model that has emerged. Instead, the Donor Council may wish to consider
the following elements:•

A global limit for CI grants that is lower than the current 50%.

•More systematic and independent peer reviews of all grant proposals from CI, including
Coordination Unit grants (this should apply to all international NGO proposals).

•More consistent use of local independent advisory committees to advise on grant proposals(this should apply to all international NGO proposals).

•

The Executive Director of CEPF to report to the Chairman and CEO of CI, who represents CI
on the CEPF Donor Council.

Governance
Donor Council
The Donor Council has played an active role in accordance with its assigned responsibilities. The
guidance and oversight provided by the Donor Council with the support of the Working Groupappears to have been effective and timely, and the Donor Council has made important
contributions to fundraising.
CEPF Working Group
The Working Group has played an active role in several of the improvements to CEPF andprovided useful input and guidance to the CEPF on important issues. Continuing efforts tocatalyze or facilitate operational collaboration between their own organizations and CEPF need to
be strengthened, as described below.
CEPF Management
CEPF management has faced a challenging set of strategic and operational issues during the first
five years. Most of these challenges have been met with great skill and there is clear evidence ofmanagement’s capacity to learn from experience and adapt to new situations, notably in theselection and management of local coordination units. CEPF is clearly a responsive organizationthat appears to operate efficiently. During the evaluation management and staff demonstrated an
exceptional capacity to respond to a myriad of requests for data and to rapidly generate products
for review. The people engaged as staff, partners and grantees are, almost without exception,
capable and impressive.
CEPF communications is exceptionally strong, particularly at a global level. For example, during
the 12 months to June 30, 2005 visitors to the CEPF Web site downloaded over 65,000 copies offinal project reports, probably drawn by the marketing of these reports in the CEPF newsletter.
These visitors came from at least 130 countries and in total downloaded more than 418,000 CEPF
documents and reports.
Engagement with Donors

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As an investment, CEPF provides all of its donors with a relatively agile, flexible and fastmoving funding mechanism that supports civil society organizations in areas of global
biodiversity significance by disbursing funds in smaller amounts than these organizations
generally deal with. CEPF’s emphasis on employing good science, engaging stakeholders,building local capacities, mainstreaming biodiversity and harmonizing donor investments inbiodiversity is also of considerable strategic value to these organizations, while the capacity tosupport regional environmental collaboration involving multiple countries provides an important
contrast to the more prevalent single country donor model.
CEPF’s activities are consistent with and supportive of the poverty mitigation focus of the WorldBank and the Government of Japan as well as the sustainable development focus of GEF. Thereappears to be a strong overlap between the CEPF hotspots and concentrations of rural poverty,
suggesting that those projects supporting alternative livelihoods are likely to be benefiting thepoorest of the poor, many of whom depend directly on the services provided by the same
ecosystems that CEPF is helping to conserve. It seems evident that conservation programs such as
CEPF are considerably more cost-effective than the massive investments that would be needed torestore such ecosystems if they were to become degraded and lose the ability to provide essential
services to the poor (e.g., water, fuelwood, fodder, and flood protection, etc.).
World Bank
The potential for operational collaboration with the World Bank was originally highlighted as oneof the key opportunities provided by CEPF’s innovative donor partnership. The potential for suchcollaboration has not diminished, and appears even greater now that CEPF has implemented aseries of convincing field programs and can share knowledge and lessons learned. Potential aside,
however, there has so far been little effective operational collaboration between the World Bank
and CEPF at the field level. CEPF is perceived a CI program and not part of the Bank's country
programs. Consequently, some important opportunities to build linkages and to broaden CEPF’s
impact are being missed, although there are recent signs that this may be starting to change.
Global Environment Facility
GEF has two funding windows providing resources directly to NGOs for biodiversity
conservation: the GEF Small Grants Program (SGP) and the GEF Medium-Sized Projects(MSPs). So far there have been surprisingly few interactions between CEPF and SGP. There aresome important complements in the operational models of CEPF and SGP which could provide
the basis for productive collaboration and cross learning. The MSPs have represented an
important opportunity for NGOs to access GEF resources and there may be opportunities to scale
up promising CEPF projects through MSPs.
GEF’s recent adoption of the Resource Allocation Framework is expected to significantly change
the nature of GEF operations. There may be a reduction in GEF funding to NGOs as well as
fewer opportunities for MSPs to be developed. This suggests that CEPF is unlikely to decline interms of its relative importance to GEF as an NGO funding delivery mechanism, and may
represent an increasingly valuable opportunity to support civil society with an approach thatcomplements but certainly does not duplicate SGP.
MacArthur Foundation
Grants made by the Foundation and by CEPF tend to be broadly complementary. In a few cases,
earlier grants from MacArthur have been consolidated by subsequent CEPF grants. While there
may some similarities and overlaps, redundancies are not apparent. There are some key
differences in grant making. For example, the Foundation does not have an on-the-ground67

presence corresponding to CEPF’s coordination units. Also, the Foundation has gradually moved
towards larger grants, and currently supports few projects corresponding to CEPF’s smaller
grants. At present, there is limited information flow between the Foundation and CEPF, although
Foundation staff have provided valuable inputs to Ecosystem Profile drafts. Opportunities for
improved information sharing should continue to be assessed and Foundation staff should be
encouraged to participate where appropriate once collaboration between the World Bank and
CEPF starts to take off.
Government of JapanThe Government of Japan appears to value its investment in CEPF for many of the same reasons
as the World Bank and GEF. The Japanese Ministry of Finance has also been particularly
concerned that CEPF grant programs demonstrate a positive contribution to poverty mitigation.
As CEPF analyses have suggested and the findings of this evaluation have confirmed, CEPF is
supporting long-term poverty mitigation efforts on several fronts.
Program Priorities
The CEPF model of support to civil society for biodiversity conservation in hotspots has made avery promising start and the experience to date does not suggest any need for radical changes instrategy or approach. Assuming that CEPF receives further financial resources to continue
beyond the five year start-up period, priorities do need to be determined for the next phase.
The evaluation findings suggest a cautious approach. While the progress made in CEPF’s firstfew years has been very positive, it is still too early to assess the sustainability of impacts.
CEPF’s ambitious long-term goals cannot be met in one or even a few five-year periods. Even
though CEPF works mainly with and through civil society, many of the challenges being
addressed by CEPF programs will ultimately require major changes in policies and behavior by
governments and other actors, none of which can be brought about rapidly or without continued
attention.
This suggests that consolidation and gradual expansion should be the strategic priorities for the
next phase, to ensure that: (i) the benefits gained so far are nurtured and sustained; (ii) lessons
from experience to date are identified and reflected in continuing operations; (iii) the tools andmethodologies for monitoring performance are developed further; (iv) the relationship with CI is
optimized and (v) operational collaboration with donor partners is strengthened.

Recommendations
Allocation of Resources
Broad decisions will need to be made on how and where new financial resources for grant making
are to be allocated across the global program. Key decisions will include: (i) whether to reinvest
in the initial CEPF funding regions, (ii) whether to expand the number of active hotspots and by
how many; (iii) the level of resources to be allocated to individual hotspots; (iv) whether toexpand the scope of CEPF to include new geographic areas or land use designations beyond thecurrent focus on terrestrial hotspots.

68Following the proposed principle of consolidation and gradual expansion, considerable careshould be taken not to dilute the clear and transparent mission of CEPF, which is relatively easy
to communicate and provides clear direction and inspiration to staff, partners and grantees.
Discontinuing support for any region does not seem warranted at this early stage in thedevelopment of CEPF, particularly as many of the conservation outcomes have an anticipatedtime frame of considerably more than five years. As this report has emphasized, significant, longterm progress towards these outcomes requires sustained investments.
The evaluation team was asked to consider the option of concentrating significantly morefinancial resources in individual hotspots with the aim of achieving greater impacts. While suchdecisions should be made on a case-by-case basis, we have concluded that there are somedisadvantages to such an approach:•

CEPF’s ability to use resources effectively is limited by the absorptive capacity of local civilsociety grantees. In the hotspots visited, even though some grant funds appeared to beoversubscribed after their initial call for proposals, there seemed to be a reasonably good fit
between the available CEPF grants resources and the viable project concepts being put
forward by local civil society organizations.

•

CEPF’s influence appears to owe more to its excellent people, astute decision making,leverage and flexibility rather than the sheer amount of financial resources that it can bring tobear. A significant increase in grant resources would require more staff and a greater
management effort from the Coordination Units to maintain the current high levels oftechnical support provided to grantees – one of the clear strengths of the program. While theCUs are proving very capable in their current role, to significantly and suddenly upgrade their
grant management capacity could place excessive demands on these organizations.

•

Increasing the duration of the program, i.e., going well beyond five year periods, would
appear a more productive investment and one more consistent with the time frame likely to beneeded to generate sustainable gains at a significant scale.

Conversely, an alternative approach which spreads resources over more regions than at present
also has drawbacks. It is evident that CEPF senior management spends a considerable amount oftime refining strategies, making critically-important decisions and providing other inputs to eachhotspot region, especially during the start-up phase. Senior management also invests considerable
effort in seeking new donor partners, negotiating global grants, securing cofinancing andsupporting new trust funds. This level of effort per hotspot seems related to the number of
hotspots and the diversity of institutional and management challenges they represent rather thanthe level of financial resources available for grant making. In other words, a significant elementof fixed management costs are incurred by operating at each hotspot site. It can therefore be
anticipated that a rapid and significant expansion in the number of hotspots would require at least
a proportional expansion in CEPF’s senior management capacity.
Performance Monitoring
A priority for the next phase of operations will be to strengthen performance monitoring at a
hotspot level in two specific directions. First, both the Grant Directors and CUs need to be more
involved in portfolio performance reporting on a regular basis. Second, the use of conservation
outcomes as long-term operational targets should be complemented by the development andadoption of socio-economic, political and civil society measures and indicators that will provide
more feedback on CEPF’s interim progress towards these outcomes.

69

The performance assessments of each of the hotspots that are planned to start in 2006 represent an
important opportunity that will probably require considerable resources, and this needs to beplanned and implemented with considerable care if it is to prove of significant value to theprogram. A strategic and programmatic approach is needed to these assessments, that should
constitute a major activity of the second five years for CEPF. Some of the key issues that should
be taken into account are: (i) connecting these assessments to updates of the Ecosystem Profiles
for programs that are to be refinanced; (ii) linking these reviews with the development and testingof new performance monitoring methodologies and systems, including indicators to reflect thenature of and changes induced in civil society to complement the conservation outcomes; (iii)
ensuring that portfolio-level lessons are identified and disseminated; (iv) ensuring the reviews are
participatory by involving grantees and other partners; and (v) exploring opportunities for crosslearning between portfolios to help achieve global program synergies.
Ecosystem Profiles
The Ecosystem Profiles have proven to be an effective tool for planning and guiding grant
making, and have improved over time as lessons from the earlier experiences have been applied.
The Profiles are reviewed carefully by the CEPF Working Group and eventually approved by the
Donor Council, thereby providing these bodies with their most important opportunity to influencesite level grant making.
The completed Ecosystem Profiles have strategic priorities expressed in fairly general terms. Thishas so far proved to be an advantage, by providing the flexibility to make decisions on the groundas local grant making knowledge and experience accumulates and the capacity of each
Coordination Unit grows. Now that the existing CUs have greater capacity and an enhanced
understanding of local civil society grant making, consideration should be given as to whether
strategic priorities should: (i) become more specific and targeted based on a better understandingof the local grant making opportunities; or (ii) remain more general to encourage decentralized
decision making. Site-specific, case-by-case solutions will probably be required, based on a clear
appreciation of the capacities of both the CU and local civil society organizations.
Updated Ecosystem Profiles and revised strategic directions and investment priorities may
indicate the need for grant portfolios to be realigned. Future Ecosystem Profile preparation
processes should include consideration of poverty issues, payments for ecosystem services andthe value of ecosystem services, reflecting the findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
and consistent with the U.N. Millennium Project.
Coordination Units
The CUs have been highlighted as a major strength of CEPF, demonstrating the viability of an
innovative range of institutional arrangements and providing services that go well beyond grant
program administration. The role and functions of the CUs could still be defined more explicitly,
however, including their responsibilities for project monitoring and portfolio performance
reporting. The CU selection process should be opened up further to consider more nationalorganizations, and consideration should be given to the use of more open bidding processes for
new coordination grants. The coordination arrangements in the first three funding regions(Guinean Forests, Madagascar and Tropical Andes) should be reassessed as their initial five year
funding cycle is completed in 2006 and, in the case of Tropical Andes, should be reestablished.
It will become increasingly important to consider the long-term future of the CUs once they
emerge successfully from the early phases of grant making. There is a clear need to develop thecapacities of local and national NGOs, as CEPF is already doing, and to seek opportunities to70delegate increasing authority and responsibility to these organizations to increase the local
ownership of conservation programs. On the other hand, a too-rapid wind down by the CU canjeopardize the sustainability of the gains made to that point.
Integration with Donor Partners
Strengthening the operational collaboration with donor partners should be an explicit and earlypriority of the next phase of CEPF. In order to be effective, this will require considerable efforts
on behalf of both CEPF and the donor partner organizations.
Grants to International NGOs
Within the current portfolio, international NGOs have made important contributions not only as
CUs but also by implementing strategic projects and managing small grant funds asintermediaries between the CUs and some of the smaller and more scattered or remote grantees.
In total international NGOs had received 59% of CEPF’s grants through June 30, 2005 (including
CI’s 35% share). CEPF management and some of the donor partners have expressed theimportance of gradually reducing the proportion of grants going to international rather than local
and national NGOs. Having studied the grants data, the evaluation team concurs. However, thisissue has some complex aspects and care needs to be taken before imposing arbitrary limits on
CEPF grant making to international NGOs. The international conservation NGOs often havesignificant capacities and experience in organizational management, communications, fundraisingand negotiating transboundary issues. In some contexts, they can also negotiate more effectively
with governments and large private sector firms than national organizations. While we strongly
support further decentralization of decision making within CEPF as the capacities of local andnational organizations grow, there are clear conservation benefits to be derived from theparticipation of the international NGOs. Such decisions should again be made on a case-by-casebasis.
Sharing Knowledge and Lessons
Although excellent work has been done in developing and disseminating communicationmaterials for non-technical and non-specialist audiences, more attention needs to be given to thesystematic analysis and documentation of CEPF results and experiences. Lessons learned are not
emerging at the portfolio level yet, probably because of the general lack of emphasis on portfoliolevel performance reporting at this early stage in the majority of portfolios and because of
reluctance to acknowledge or document problems and difficulties, even if these eventuallybecame important learning experiences that have led to a stronger program.
While CEPF is exceptionally strong in communications, it has not found it easy to identify anddisseminate lessons. While CEPF has clearly adapted its approach and learned from experience,
this has taken place as a result of informal information sharing within the organization combinedwith skillfully adaptive management. Either through CI or independently, CEPF should enhance
its capacity to conduct more balanced analyses of its experiences that is distinct from
communicating conservation successes.
Operational Recommendations
Certain operational areas have been identified where improvements can be made:•In some hotspots there is some duplication of effort between the tasks carried out by the local
Coordination Units and those of CEPF’s US-based Grant Directors, most of which could be
addressed by further decentralization of decision making to the local level. In general, there71appear to be good opportunities for decision making to be further decentralized once hotspot
grant programs have demonstrated their capabilities by successfully progressing beyond theirstart-up phase, although such delegation of authority and responsibility should be approachedcautiously on a case-by-case basis.
•

CEPF headquarters negotiates and arranges multiregional grants to single donors that are
intended to complement grant made locally through the Coordination Units. Such grants havesometimes been able to provide comparable services to multiple hotspots or to take advantage
of significant cofinancing opportunities, particularly with the private sector. However, insome cases the cost-effectiveness of these grants is not evident and key management
information has not always been communicated effectively to the respective local
Coordination Units. In such cases the CUs are unclear about their responsibilities formonitoring and supervision, and there is a lack of integration with the rest of the hotspot
portfolio.

•

CEPF’s grant application procedures are demanding, so much so that they represent a severe
challenge to many potential grantees. Although the application procedures have been
simplified, there is room for further streamlining.

•

The use of CEPF’s grant management system by the CUs is variable and appears to face avariety of technical constraints that require continued attention.

Overall Message
The donors have launched a very promising and special program in CEPF. This innovative model
fills a unique niche in international biodiversity conservation and is being implemented by a very
professional global team plus partners who have made excellent early progress towards theirlong-term goals. We have no hesitation in recommending that the donor partners continue
funding the program and seeking further expansion opportunities.

72

Annexes
1. Evaluation Terms of Reference
2. Progress and Impact Reporting for Five Selected Regions
3. Active vs. Completed Grants by Hotspot Strategic Direction
4. Parallel Investments from Conservation International Affiliates
5. Conservation International Costs Recovered Through CEPF Management Fee
6. Calculation of CEPF Management Fees to Conservation International

Annex 1 Evaluation Terms of Reference (June 2005)9
Background: Conservation International (CI), the World Bank and the Global Environment
Facility (GEF) launched the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund in August 2000. The John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation joined the partnership in 2001, followed by theGovernment of Japan in 2002, bringing the fund to a total of $125 million in pledges (with eachpartner committing $5 million annually for five years). The purpose of the initiative is to createan agile funding mechanism focused on conserving the biodiversity hotspots by working throughnongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
CEPF now provides grants to civil society organizations in most of the areas identified as
biodiversity hotspots – ecosystems with high levels of species diversity, endemism and threat.
CEPF has supported in excess of 250 NGOs and other civil society groups in undertaking projects
since its inception. $61 million has been committed and at least $100 million leveraged fromother donors for hotspot conservation to date.
CEPF’s grantmaking is guided by Ecosystem Profiles, strategic planning documents that identify
the priorities, biodiversity outcomes and the niche for the fund within each hotspot. CEPF has
undergone planning and preparation work in 16 hotspots resulting in the creation of 15 Ecosystem
Profiles approved by the CEPF Donor Council to date. The active funding regions in Africa
include the Cape Floristic Region, Eastern Arc Mountains & Coastal Forests of Tanzania and
Kenya, Guinean Forests of West Africa, Madagascar and the Succulent Karoo; in Asia, theCaucasus, Mountains of Southwest China, the Philippines, and Sundaland; and in Latin America,
the Atlantic Forest, Choco-Darien-Western Ecuador, Northern Mesoamerica, Southern
Mesoamerica, and the Tropical Andes. CEPF is also preparing to launch grantmaking in the
Eastern Himalayas.
CEPF’s institutional architecture consists of a Donor Council, Working Group, Management
Team, and Coordinating Units. The governing Donor Council is comprised of executives fromthe five partner organizations. It is responsible for strategic guidance, approving Ecosystem
Profiles, and fundraising. The Working Group includes senior management from the five groups,
and provides orientation on technical and program issues. A subset of the Working Group will
provide guidance on this evaluation. Conservation International is the Administering Partner andhosts the Management Team, responsible for CEPF’s day-to-day operations. The Coordinating
Units are housed with a locally based NGO in each region where CEPF is actively making grants.
They provide advice on delivering the conservation outcomes identified in the ecosystem profiles
and are tasked with helping to build strategic grant portfolios.
Further information on CEPF can be found at www.cepf.net.
Purpose of Evaluation: During the Seventh Meeting of the Donor Council held on November 1,
2004, the Council Members agreed to participate in a donor retreat to discuss a continuation of
the CEPF partnership. A consensus formed that a continuation of CEPF ultimately should be
guided by an independent external evaluation.
The preliminary ToR were approved by the Donor Council on 26 March, subject to final
modification and agreement by the Working Group. The Working Group met on 31 March tomodify the TOR based on Donor Council advice. This third revision now incorporates the advice
and input conveyed during these various meetings and subsequent discussions.

9

Sections on consultant qualifications and request for proposals omitted.

1

Scope of the Evaluation: The evaluation will be undertaken as a global review coupled with an
in-depth analysis of a minimum of three to six of the 15 active regions. However, the emphasis of
the evaluation should be on the initiative as a whole, not on the effectiveness of the respective
field programs. The evaluation team will report to the Council, and will be provided strategic
guidance by the CEPF Working Group. The CEPF Management Team will facilitate access to
information and stakeholders. The evaluation will require visits to these hotspots to talk to the
CEPF Coordination Units, select grantees and other partners and collaborators. The evaluation
should not assess the effectiveness of independent projects but rather the strategic orientation of
the portfolios vis a vis the larger strategic mission of CEPF.
Evaluation Process
Review of external and internal CEPF documents, including MOU and Financing Agreement(December 2000), project design documents, supervision reports, the Ecosystem Profiles andWorking Group reviews of the Ecosystem Profiles, Working Group documents, Donor Council
reporting documents, annual plans and spending plans and CEPF grantee reports as well as
information available through the CEPF grants database. Management will provide all documents
at the start of the contract period and throughout, as necessary.
Consultations will be held with the Management Team, Coordination Units, grantees, external
partners and members of the Working Group.
Field visits will be taken to fully assess performance against Ecosystem Profile objectives in aminimum of three hotspots. These visits will include interviews with CUs, grantees, and otherstakeholders.
A draft report will be submitted to the Working Group and Management Team, accompanied byan in-person debriefing.
Scope: The evaluator should focus on evaluating progress to-date regarding the main objectivesof the CEPF on an initiative-wide level, particularly examining the role/niche CEPF is fulfillingin enabling civil society to engage in biodiversity conservation in the hotspots. The
evaluator/evaluation team should determine the degree to which CEPF has fulfilled the objectives
outlined below among others, using both qualitative and quantitative analysis.
Overall assessment of CEPF’s niche in enabling civil society to engage in biodiversity
conservation in the hotspots.
This should include an evaluation of CEPF’s ability to:§ Provide resources to civil society, community, grassroots groups, NGO’s and the private
sector to enable them to engage in advancing biodiversity conservation.
§ Build awareness, support and momentum to conserve critical biodiversity conservation
outcomes.
§ Utilize in-region coordination mechanisms to expand networks of partners, informationexchange, programmatic and operational strengthening to accomplish CEPF’s strategies, as
defined in the ecosystem profiles.
§ Contribute to people’s livelihood and/or reduce poverty.
Assess strategic underpinnings of CEPF’s grant portfolios and overall fulfilment of theniche defined in the Ecosystem Profiles.
This includes assessment of:§ Whether CEPF is filling the overarching donor niche of CEPF, the specific regional niches ineach hotspot and fulfill the defined strategic directions and investment priorities, in the CEPF
ecosystem profiles;§ Portfolio alignment against explicit strategies of the ecosystem profiles;§ Whether CEPF’s regional, hotspot portfolios add up to more than the sum of their parts;
2

§
§
§

Whether CEPF has catalyzed financial leverage for the partnership as a whole and also
regional leverage towards the objectives in the regional ecosystem profiles;
If CEPF’s grants are contributing to the conservation of the biodiversity outcomes and/or
helping to mitigate threats to conservation.
The strategic rationale for grantmaking, including grants to internal (CI) vs. external
recipients.

Assess whether CEPF is enabling each of its donor partners to reach a distinct civil society
constituency and/or maximizing the reach of each of the donor partners in a unique way.
This can include an evaluation of CEPF’s effectiveness in:§ Developing a participatory, consensus-derived strategy.
§ Reaching and financing projects in a flexible and agile way.
§ Reaching a unique conservation constituency.
§ Enhancing or maximizing the CEPF donor partners’ reputation among civil society.
§ Providing grants within the donor marketplace in a manner that is distinct from the fivecurrent donor partners.
Assess CEPF’s institutional and governing infrastructure. Assess CI’s effectiveness as the
managing partner and as a grantee to the fund. Determine if there could be improvements
factored into the design and management of a CEPF continuation to increase effectivenessand impact. This can include an evaluation of the following:§ Strategic guidance and oversight provided by the CEPF Donor Council.
§ Technical and operational guidance provided by the CEPF Working Group, including theefficiency of the working group members at harnessing or utilizing the CEPF network fortheir own institutional benefit.
§ The efficiency of CEPF’s management team and processes.
§ CEPF’s grant-making process, including its interaction with CI.
§ The advantages/disadvantages of housing CEPF within Conservation International andthe pros and cons of having CI as the administering partner.
§ Whether CEPF has influenced any of the donor partners’ practices, procedures orloan/investment strategies.
Assess CEPF’s influence on any major development, infrastructure projects or policies forthese types of projects that impact biodiversity.
Recommendations: Recommendations should be provided for strengthening CEPF. These
recommendations could cover the following areas, among others:
1. Strategic orientation (Did CEPF set out to do the right things? Is CEPF achieving what it
originally set out to achieve? Could its strategic orientation be improved?)
2. Selection of grantees (Are they the right partners? Are they being provided with the rightkind of conservation guidance via the ecosystem profiles?)
3. Selection of projects (Are the projects being funded the right kind of project to achieveconservation? Are they reaching the niche defined in the profiles?)Institutional arrangements (Is CEPF’s institutional arrangement effective? What could be done toimprove it? How can the unique assets of the partnership (each of the five donors) be capitalized
upon more effectively?)3Annex 2. Progress and Impact Reporting for Five Selected Regions
Prepared by CEPF
Atlantic Forest (Brazil)
Targeted Conservation Outcomes
1-5 years
1.1 Immediate Priorities- One Biological Reserve/Ecopark (13,000 ha) under effective
management

Progress- The creation of a management plan for the Una Ecopark was supported
through the RPPN sub-grants program. IESB’s institutional strengthening
sub-grant program also supports agroforestry and sustainable forest resource
use projects with farmers living around the Una Biological Reserve.

- Serra das Lontras (5,000 ha) under protection- The Flora Brasil Institute project aims to implement a task force to support
the creation of 16-18 new protected areas in Southern Bahia. This includes
plans for the management of a mosaic of protected landscapes in the region
surrounding the Lontras State Park.

- Camaca private reserve (2,000 ha) under protection- The Serra Bonita Private Reserve was proposed through the RPPN
program for improved infrastructure and the establishment of an
Environmental Dissemination Center. The same is also taking place in the
Serra do Teimoso RPPN.

- Pau Brasil and Discovery National Parks (33,000 ha) under effective
management- Farming communities living in the buffer zone of the Discovery National
Park will be encouraged to adopt sustainable agroforestry techniques. The
Flora Brasil Institute’s project, described above, also includes the area of the
Pau Brasil and Discovery National Parks aiming to involve them in a land
management strategy consistent with the corridor approach.

- Conduru State Park (9,000 ha) under effective management- A public information campaign was conducted to raise awareness of theimportance of the Conduru State Park. Support was also harnessed toresolve land tenure conflicts as well promote the implementation of Park’s(and its buffer zone) management plan.

- Nova Lombardia Biological Reserve, Santa Lucia Ecological Station,- An evaluation was conducted as to the effectiveness of the state and1Espirito Santo State (4,400 ha) under effective management

federal reserves of Espírito Santo State protected areas. As a result, plans
have been put in place to subsidize a monitoring plan to measure the longterm and ongoing changes to the management and institutional capacity of
the responsible organizations for these areas.

5-10 years
Long-Term Priorities- Minas Girais, Bahia border (20,000 ha) under protection- The potential creation of a new protected area in Cariri (region bordering
the States of Minas Gerais and Bahia) is currently being assessed by the
Flora Brasil Institute’s project.

- Espirito Santo/Bahia border (20,000 ha) under protection- The area bordering the states of Bahia and Espírito Santo wasrecommended as a top conservation priority during the “Defining areas andpriority actions for the conservation of the Atlantic Forest in Espirito Santo
State” workshop. This was one of IPEMA’s project deliverables.

- Sooretama/Linhares, Espirito Santo State (40,000 ha) under effective
management- Negotiations are ongoing for a project to promote the consolidation of aprotected area system and improved management for all Natural World
Heritage Sites in the region. This includes all areas under legal protection in
the Discovery Coast, as well as those in the Sooretama and Linhares region.

- Paraiso Ecological Station/Primate Center (5,000 ha) under effective
management- A project to “Defend the Waters and Protect Life in the Tres Picos State
Park” will be launched next month. This project aims to develop an
integrated management plan for all protected areas within the Atlantic Forest
Corridors, Central Fluminense, including the Paraíso Ecological Station- Três Picos, Rio de Janeiro State (60,000 ha) under protection- The same project (described above) will help to develop and implement asocio-economic assessment for all municipalities around the Rio de JaneiroTrês Picos State Park. This includes developing a pilot program for theparticipatory management of the region’s watershed, and implementing acapacity building program for formal educators of the region.

- To double the number of official private reserves called “Natural
Patrimony Private Reserve”- Through the Incentives Program for RPPNs in the Atlantic Forest we arepromoting the following actions: 1) An 80% increase in the number of
RPPNs created (50 new RPPNs have been established) within both
Corridors; 2) A 50% increase in the area protected under private reserves;and 3) Support for the implementation of 30% of the RPPNs in the both2

corridors (Central and Serra do Mar). In addition, landowners have been
assisted to improve the management of 29 existing RPPNs.

Extinctions Avoided
1.2 This region contains arguably the largest concentration ofendangered and endemic taxa of the Atlantic Forest, including 19
mammal species, 32 bird species. Therefore, the maintenance ofgenetically viable populations of key and endangered species such as:
the Golden-headed lion tamarin, Kuhli's Marmoset, the capuchin,
Spider monkey, White-winged cotinga, Acrobat bird, Banded cotinga,
and Geoffroy's marmoset are key targets.

- The Endangered Species program supports projects in all states of the
Atlântic Forest biome. This includes 32 projects working with 39 different
endangered species, of which 17 are listed as Critically Endangered, and 19
are listed as Threatened.
- An additional 12 endangered species are the focus of our sub-grants
program, involving research, protection, and management of these species.
- Considering all projects, there are 51 endangered species involved in ourconservation activities (20 are listed as CR and 27 are listed as EN, per
IBAMA and IUCN’s red lists).
- We are also increasing our knowledge regarding the distribution and levelof endemism of the family, genus, and species of vascular plants andAtlantic Forest bromeliáceas. These studies are being conducted through the
Botany Department of the Federal University of Minas Gerais State andthrough the Margaret Mee Foundation.

3

Madagascar
Targeted Conservation Outcomes
1.1 Long-term-By 2010, areas protected will increase from 1.7 million to 3 million
hectares-Zero Species loss over the next decade-By 2010, a series of representative fresh-water protected areas based onrecommendations of priority setting exercise conducted in November
2001 is established

Progress

In September 2003, President Marc Ravolomana, at the 5th IUCN World
Parks Congress, agreed to increase the surface area of Madagascar’s
protected area network from 1.7 million ha to 6 million hectares.
Subsequently, much work has been conducted to determine where these
new areas should be, such that species will not be lost. This work has been
undertaken by the Durban Vision Group, compiling species distribution
data into maps of priority areas as tools in the planning process.
To date, one protected area which encompasses the Daraina main forestsand immediate neighbouring areas (72,000 ha) has been declared: theLoky-Manambato Forest Station via decree N°5862-05-MINENVEF. By
the end of 2005, more than one million hectares of primary forest will haveprovisional protection status conferred through an inter-ministerial decree,as the initial stages in the creation of co-managed protected areas. This will
give communities and regional authorities time to conduct detailed
consultation on management rules that will conserve threatened species andhabitats and ensure that long-term benefits will accrue to the communities.
The Durban Vision Group, under the guidance of the Ministry ofEnvironment, Water and Forests, has identified the priority areas forinclusion in the expanded protected area system, through analysis of
species and habitat distribution. Thereby contributing to achievement ofzero species loss.
CEPF has supported freshwater conservation via two projects, one focusing
on three lakes (Befotaka, Soamalipo, and Ankerika) in the Antsalova regionof western Madagascar, and the other in the Mahavavy-Kinkony wetlandcomplex, including lakes, rivers and mangroves will shortly become aprotected area also in western Madagascar. Alaotra Lake was declared a
RAMSAR Site in 2003.

1-5 years41.2 Immediate Priorities- Zahamena-Mantadia Corridor (50,000 ha) under protection and corridor
created (100,000 ha)

1.2
Zahamena-Mantadia corridor. A Vision for the Conservation of the
Mantadia-Zahamena corridor was developed in collaboration with local
authorities based upon an agreed vision that combined biodiversity andenvironmental data in planning the corridor. In early 2005 this zonation
was agreed at the regional level. Around 450,000 ha in this corridor will begiven Provisional Protection Status by the end of 2005 as part of theprocess of creating a co-managed Protected Area.

- Ranomafana-Andrigitra Corridor (25,000 ha) under protection andcorridor created (100,000 ha)

Ranomafana-Andrigitra. Establishing this corridor was modelled on theprocess used for the Zahamena-Mantadia corridor. The Planning
Committee working with the new Regional Chiefs developed andimplemented regional development plans that include the vision for theconservation of the corridor. More importantly, lessons learned from theseapproaches above have been incorporated in the planning activities in
Menabe Forest and Bongolava and Andavakoera. Around 250,000 ha ofthis corridor will be similarly protected early in 2006.

-Makira Corridor (100,000 ha) under protection and corridor created(300,000 ha)

Makira Biodiversity, land use and socioeconomic studies have been carriedout and the limits of the Makira Conservation Area have been proposed andagreed upon at the national, regional, and local levels. At the end of 2005,
around 350,000 hectares of primary forest will be given Provisional
Protected Status as the first stage in the creation of a co-managed protected
area. Ten community-based resource management contracts have been
completed. This amounts to 38,800 hectares of land and 28,800 hectares offorest under community control, and affects a population of 10,800
inhabitants. Around 350,000 hectares- Zahamena Protected Area (63,500 ha) under effective management

Zahamena – CI transferred management of Zahamena to ANGAP in 2002,
and has since provided technical support.

-Daraina Forest (25,000 ha) under protection and corridor created (15,000ha)Daraina - 72,000 hectares has been declared the Loky-Manambato Forest
Station via decree N°5862-05-MINENVEF.

-Menabe Forest (10,000 ha) under protection and corridor created (40,000ha)

Menabe – In Sept 2004 Fanamby signed an MOU with the government tocoordinate institutions and activities on the path to declaring this area to bea protected area. By the end of 2005, approximately 95,000 hectares ofprimary forest will receive Provisional Protection Status.

5

-Kinkony Mahavavay complex (10,000 ha) under protection and corridor
created (250,000 ha)-Eastern River Basin Complex (6,000 ha) under protection-Mikea-Fiherenana Complex (15,000 ha) under protection and corridor
created (55,000)
5-10 years
1.3 Long-Term Priorities-Litorral Forest Complex (25,000 ha) under protection and corridor
created (75,000 ha)-Ibity-Itremo Complex (1,000 ha) under protection

Kinkony-Mahavavy – BirdLife International is implementing a projectfocusing on local community and private sector involvement. Early in2006, around 150,000 hectares of lakes, rivers, forests and mangroves will
receive Provisional Protection Status as the first step in becoming a comanaged protected area.
- Eastern River Basin Complex – no CEPF action.
- Mikea-Fiherenana Complex – no CEPF action.

1.3 Long-Term Priorities- Littoral Forest Complex – Many of these small, fragmented forests are thesubject of conservation action, for example by QMM, a mining company,
in southeastern Madagascar, and at the French Mountain near Antsiranana
in northern Madagascar.
- Ibity-Itremo Complex – this complex received special attention from
Missouri Botanical Garden in its project to identify priority areas for plant
conservation. The project identified gaps in the nation’s protected areasystem. CEPF supported Missouri Botanic Gardens to implement
conservation measures in these mountain massifs that are known as orphansites, often overlooked because of the poor faunal community.

6

Sundaland (Sumatra)
Targeted Conservation Outcomes

Progress

Area Protected
1-5 years
1.1 Immediate Priorities-Seulawah (700,000 ha) under protection-Leuser National Park (1,000,000 ha) under effective management-Leuser Ecosystem/lowland forest (1,700,000 ha) protected area
expanded-Angkola (100,000 ha) under protection-Teso Nilo (120,000 ha) under protection-Bukit Rimbang Bukit Baling Wildlife Preserve (150,000 ha) underprotection-Bukit Tigapuluh National Park (140,000 ha) under effective
management-Siberut Island National Park (200,000 ha) under effective management-Siberut Conservation Concession (200,000 ha) protected area expanded-Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park (360,000) under effective
management

Northern Sumatra Corridor (NSC) that includes Seulawah, Leuser andAngkola under protection. With the newly declared 108,000 ha of Batang
Gadis National Park in Angkola, it received legal protection. Leuser
Ecosystem that includes Leuser National Park received funding extension
from European Unit through Leuser Management Unit due to CEPF/CI
intervention, hence it continues to receive significant protection. 40,000 haof adat managed forest in Seulawah receive protection and serve as model
for adat/community-based resources/forest management in Aceh that
potentially be used to save remaining forest in Seulawah. All logging
concessions in Seulawah revoked so remaining natural forest is legally
protected.
Central Sumatra Corridor that includes Tesso Nilo, Bukit Rimbang Baling,
Bukit Tigapuluh under protection. With the declaration of Tesso Nilo
National Park (TNNP) 38,576 ha in 2004, discussion to extend it to total
120,000 ha, and the discussion to expand Bukit Tigapuluh to total 210,000
ha, those 2 protected areas receive attention and protection.
Siberut Island National Park is under effective management with economic
and community development initiatives in the buffer zone of the park andpolicy and advocacy work to revoke logging 200,000 logging concessions
in the remaining forest of Siberut.
Bukit Barisan Selatan (BBS) under effective management with megafauna
patrol units led by International Rhino Foundation (IRF) and collaborative
management initiatives led by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

7

Extinctions Avoided
1.2 Maintenance of genetically viable populations of key and endangered
species such as:
Sumatran elephant
Sumatran tiger
Sumatran orangutan
Sumatran rhino

Tesso Nilo holds the largest Sumatran elephant population in low land
forest. Declaring 38,576 ha of low land forest in Central Sumatra as Tesso
Nilo National Park in 2004 is maintaining population of Sumatranelephants.
Sumatran tiger populations in Bukit Tigapuluh and BBS with extensive
patrols from WWF in Bukit Tigapuluh and IRF in BBS
BBS holds the largest rhino population in Sumatra. With patrols from IRF,
no more poaching of large animals occurred in the past 3 years.
Northern Sumatra holds significant population of Sumatran orangutan.
With the work of CI in Sibolangit increased people’s awareness of theimportance of this species, and hence maintain its population.

Mesoamerica (Southern)
Targeted Conservation Outcomes

Progress

Area Protected
1-5 years
1.1 Immediate Priorities-

La Amistad Biosphere Reserve - Costa Rica (422,655 ha)under effective management and protection of indigenous lands(254,204 ha)
La Amistad Biosphere Reserve - Panama (389,851 ha) undereffective management and protection of indigenous lands(15,000 ha)
Corcovado/Piedras Blanca National Parks (56,525 ha) undereffective management and corridor created (80,000 ha)

1.1 Immediate Priorities--

CEPF is helping over 200 indigenous and non-indigenous groups
sited across 1.2 million hectares in the La Amistad Biosphere
Reserve, the Osa Peninsula, and Cerro Silva- La Selva Corridor to
adopt resource management practices compatible with biodiversity
conservation through conservation coffee, agroforestry, andecotourism.
CEPF supported improved management of 1.5 million hectares in
key PAs in the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor.

8-Indio Maiz (995,460 ha) under effective management andcorridor created (200,000 ha)
Bocas del Toro (100,000 ha)
Maquenque-La Selva- Costa Rica (39,000 ha) under protection
Talamanca-Osa Region-Costa Rica - (200,000 ha) corridor
createdAtlantic Corridor Area- Panama- (80,000 ha) under protection
and protection of indigenous lands (400,000 ha)
Gualaca- Panama (270,000 ha) under effective management--

Extinctions Avoided
5-10 years
1.2 Long-Term Priorities
Maintenance of genetically viable populations of key and endangered
species such as:
Great Green Macaw
Scarlet macaw
White Lipped peccary
Harpy Eagle
Jaguar

Leading NGOs in Costa Rica and Panama are improving protection
to reduce threats in strategic areas of La Amistad, with local
community support, to reduce forest fires, hunting, andinfrastructure development.
Panamanian environmentalists successfully opposed theconstruction of a road through the Volcan Baru National Park,
which forms part of La Amistad Biosphere Reserve.
Hunting pressure decreased significantly in Corcovado National
Park with CEPF support for procurement and patrolling.
INBIO has developed and applied biological parameters to identify
the limits of the corridor between Corcovado and Piedras Blanca
national parks.
Prospects for Indio Maiz’s improved management are strong with
CEPFfinancing of a stakeholder-driven management plan,
demarcation of the Rama indigenous territory to deter colonization,and various buffer zone development projects for surrounding
communities.
CEPF projects target the creation of four new protected areas
totaling 492,000 hectares.
The Government of Costa Rica created the Maquenque National
Wildlife Reserve based on CEPF-supported land tenure studies andcommunity outreach programs.
CEPF is strengthening land stewardship of indigenous people
through 12 grants through ecotourism, land demarcation, traditional
medicine, and rescuing traditional resource-use practices.
Two-thirds of projects surveyed demonstrated that CEPF isinvesting areas of high rural poverty and contributing to poverty
reduction through job creation, training, and civil society
strengthening.

1.2 Extinctions Avoided.
- CEPF has financed the development and implementation ofstrategies to protect the West Indian manatee, Baird’s tapir, andgreat green macaw.
- Numerous environmental education projects use flagship species toincrease conservation awareness.
- CEPF funding a meeting of regional specialists to develop a
Mesoamerica-wide tapir conservation strategy.

9

Baird's tapirWest Indian manatee-

Efforts to improve protection in Corcovado have resulted in
reduced hunting pressure on peccaries and jaguars.

10Tropical Andes

Targeted Conservation Outcomes

Progress

Area Protected
1-5 years
1.1 Immediate Priorities-Manu National Park (1,800,000 ha) under effective management-Apruimac Reserved Zone (1,700,000 ha) under protection and effective
management- Alto-Purus Reserved Zone (6,000,000 ha) under protection andimproved management-Bahuaja Sonene National Park (1,100,000 ha) under effective
management-Madidi National Park (1,924,300 ha) under effective management andcorridor created

CEPF-supported work of WWF in Manu, Amarakaeri and Alto Purus.
CEPF contributed $200,000 to WWF’s $366,667 contribution to the debtfor-nature swap between the US and Peru. This total contribution will
generate $3.5 million in local currency over 12 years (2014) that will beawarded to local Peruvian NGOs to carry out activities related to thecreation and/or effective management of Manu, Amarakaeri (see long-termgoal below) and Alto Purus. As a result , the final categorization of Alto
Purus Reserved Zone as a National Park and a Communal Reserve wascompleted. In addition, the Alto Purus Management Committee wasestablished and INRENA was strengthened to undertake concrete antiillegal logging activities along the southwestern and southeasternboundaries of the Alto Purus Reserved Zone.

-Isiboro Secure National Park (1,200,000 ha) under effective
management

Conservation results have been greatest in the Alto Purus Reserved Zone
and Amarakaeri Communal Reserve. Improved management throughsecured anti-illegal logging activities around the Alto Purus Reserved Zone
and Manu National Park; increased collaboration with local communities
and with regional governments and other important civil society institutionsin the two departments within which the Alto Purus Reserved Zone islocated. In the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, activities have contributed
significantly towards preparing indigenous community leaders andassociated representative indigenous federations for the implementation of
the co-management guidelines for the effective management of Peruvian
Communal Reserves.

-Amboro National Park (638,000 ha) under effective management

CEPF also funded, and is continuing to support through a second-phase-Pilon Lajas Biosphere Reserve (400,000 ha) under effective
management-Apolobamba Natural Area (483,000 ha) under effective management- -Pilon-Lajas-Isiboro Secure Corridor (80,000 ha) under protection andcorridor created11

project, important work in the Madre de Dios region of Peru, the buffer
region between Alto Purus, Manu, Bahuaja Sonene and Tambopata
Candamo. The Amazon Conservation Association (ACA) assisted morethan 130 pioneering Brazil nut producers in the formal establishment of 240
Brazil nut concessions and the development of appropriate management
plans for these areas. The result: more than 224,000 hectares of primarytropical forest has been legally designated for sustainable production.
Funding has also been used to support the development of the management
plans for Tambopata National Reserve and Bahuaja Sonene National Park
during 2002 and 2003. Results include a trans-boundary conservation
action plan for Tambopata – Madidi Complex that has been completed andis under review by INRENA and SERNAP. In addition, the technicalcommittee for this complex, which includes INRENA, SERNAP, CI-Peru
and CI-Bolivia, has been established and is at work.
In Madidi and Pilon Lajas, a priority activity for CI was the strengthening
and capacity building of the management committees of both Madidi and
Pilon Lajas to elaborate their own mechanisms of detection and resolutionof conflicts. CI delivered courses for both communities and park guards
and produced a study on the main conflicts occurring in each of the sevenprotected areas within the Corridor. The results of this are being used today
to improve management plans and activities within these areas. In addition
to the conflict resolution work CI implemented, it also worked directly withseveral communities in Madidi and Pilon Lajas, providing technicalassistance in sustainable agriculture techniques, commercialization of
products, ecotourism and others. While this is not something that leads tothe expansion of protected areas, it is vital for the consolidation of theseareas. In addition, the final draft of the Management Plan was completed
under WCS and CARE projects, and is currently under review by
SERNAP. CI and Partners have already begun to support implementation.
Several activities for natural resource management and tourism are under
implementation including a communication strategy that has been
completed and is being reviewed. In addition, specific regulations relating
to the Protected Area have been developed, such as regulations for tourism
and for natural resource management.
Signs of success for improved management and protection of Pilon Lajas

12

include the establishment and implementation of three ecotourism projects:
Mapajo Ecoturismo Indigena, which is now operating at self-sufficient rates
and is proving to be viable for the long-term. Revenues have even beensuch that they are investing in improvements to the water systems
benefiting the local communities; Turismo Ecologico Social, also runningat sustainable rates, and the agroecoturism site of El CEBU that is runningself-sufficiently.
The CARE-Bolivia project Prevention of Human-Induced Forest Fires in
Madidi and Apolobamba National Parks” directly impacted the core area of
this protected area complex. Specifically, CARE worked with local
communities and farmers to reduce uncontrolled burnings that pose serious
ecological and economic threats to the region. In addition, both the Madidi
and Apolobamba protected area administrations included fire control plans
into their programs, with park guards in Pilón Lajas and Madidi nationalparks and the Biological Station of Beni conducting their own workshops infire prevention.
The work of WCS, with CEPF resources, is another example of efforts
aimed at changing community behavior toward more biodiversity-friendly
management of their natural resources. This project helped to develop
natural resource management regulations in Altamarani, Carmen delEmero, San Antonio de Tequeje and Esperanza de Enapurera, providing
direct benefits to the sustainable management of Madidi and theconsolidation of the core area of this complex.
As part of their overall coordination of CEPF investments in the corridor,
both CI-Peru and CI-Bolivia played a lead role in bringing together
directors of Madidi National Park, Bahuaja-Sonene National Park andTambopata National Reserve, resulting in a landmark transnational
agreement for joint coordination and implementation of their management
efforts. These three protected areas share common borders and are priority
sites for conservation in the corridor strategy. Included in the agreement
are joint border patrols, training of park rangers in biological monitoring
methods, information exchange on biodiversity threats and the developmentof a master plan for Bahuaja-Sonene (which was later approved in late2003) and Madidi, which together constitute the largest contiguous expanseof protected rain forest in the corridor. These are important examples of13

progress toward consolidation within the Tambopata-Pilón Lajas complex.
The two CI offices also helped make consolidation of 450,000 hectares in
the Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve possible, partly by working together
with CI’s Global Conservation Fund in its design and financing of acompensation package for a company to give up its logging concession – amove that secured the immediate protection of 83,000 hectares of primary
forest. As part of the agreement, the logging company dropped a legal
dispute over an additional 100,000-hectare concession within the Reserveand Indigenous Territory of Pilón Lajas and its buffer zone. This was thelast timber concession inside the protected area.
In Apolobamba, land-use planning has been completed in two
municipalities and an indigenous district. These plans have been integrated
into the conservation and development plans.
5-10 years

Long-Term Priorities-Amarakaeri Reserved Zone (420,000 ha) under protection and effective
management

See all information above related to Amarakaeri Reserved Zone.

-Machu Picchu Cultural Heritage (1,500,000 ha) under protection andeffective management

An initiative to enhance public participation and and improved
management of the Machu Picchu Sanctuary was very successful in
involving tourism and transportation agencies, local government, andcommunities living in the area. The Institute Machu Picchu also became
involved in reviewing and revising the Master Plan for the Machu Picchu
Sanctuary as a result of the project.

-Apruimac-Alto Purus Corridor (500,000 ha) corridor created

See information above on this landscape (Alto Purus)-Tambopata-Candamo National Reserve (516,000 ha) under effective
management and corridor created

Improved management of Tambopata National Reserve & Bahuaja-Sonene
National Park through completion of the master plans for both, and theestablishment of a management committee for Tambopata. In addition, La
Nube Biological Station is established and functioning as part of the
improved management efforts.

14

-Cotapata National Park (51,000 ha) under effective management

The Management Plan has been completed and is being validated with local
stakeholders.

-Manuripi-Heath National Park (1,500,000 ha) under effective
management and corridor created-Carrasco National Park (623,000 ha) under effective management-Carrasco-Isiboro Secure Corridor (459,000 ha) under protection andcorridor createdLand tenure issues resolved in two communities within the Carrasco NP
and these lands have been titled and incorporated into PA plans.

Extinctions Avoided
1.2 Due to the immense size of this corridor there are a large number ofcritically endangered and endemic birds, mammals, rodents, and primatesthat will be targeted for protection.

Each of the areas targeted for protection or improved management provide
important habitat for a number of critically endangered and endemic
species. CEPF now supports a small grants program for threatened species
in the Peruvian part of the Vilcabamba-Amboró Corridor. The grantsupport to Asociación Peruana para la Conservación de la Naturaleza forthis program is matched by CI’s Center for Biodiversity Conservation in
the Andes, creating two years of funding for research on priority species.

* In addition:- A binational strategy for the implementation of the VA Corridor as a whole was developed and agreed to by both countries. This is also leading to the Bolivian
Government finalizing a National Policy on Conservation Corridors. The 2003 publication of the Basic Implementation Strategy for the Vilcabamba-Amboró
Conservation Corridor documents the results of workshops in Bolivia and Peru and a binational workshop to develop the strategy and represents a consensus of
the governmental and civil society participants.
- Master plan for Otishi National Park developed and approved.
- The Peruvian government declared a trio of new protected areas in the VA corridor on the Andes' eastern slopes in early 2003: Otishi National Park and theadjacent Ashaninka and Machiguenga community reserves. CI was a very active member in the long-term transition of these areas from Reserve Zones to theofficial protected area status they each carry today.

15

Annex 3. Active versus Completed Grants by Hotspot Strategic Direction
Sum of Funding
AmountFunding Region

Strategic Direction

Atlantic Forest

1. Landscape Management initiatives
2. Improve public PA management
3. Increase private Pas

Active3,130,587
540,410674,318

4. Action fund for civil society

1,349,989
5,695,304
427,291
1,372,395

Atlantic Forest Total
Cape Floristic Region

1. Civil Society involved in PAs and management plans
2. Private sector involved in corridor landscapes
3. Institutional environment for conservation action
4. Small grants program

Cape Floristic Region Total
Caucasus

1. Support civil society transboundary cooperation
2. Strengthen mechanisms to conserve biodiversity
3. Institutional environment for conservation action
4. Increase awareness and commitment of decision makers

Caucasus Total
Chocó-Darién-Western Ecuador

Number of
Grants/Projects**

Total Sum ofFunding
Total Number ofAmountGrants/Projects

Completed Active Completed
591,618
0
0

20
4
1

6
0
0

3,722,205
540,410674,318

26
4
1

0

3

0

1,349,989

3

591,61828

66,286,922

34

938,019
280,91588

8
61,365,310
1,653,310

16
14

830,919
898,744

288,152
0

4
1

6
0

1,119,071
898,74410
13,529,349

1,507,086

21

20

5,036,435

41

2,470,000
200,000

9,238
0

1
1

2
0

2,479,238
200,000

3
1

0
20,000

0
0

1

0
0

0
20,000012,690,000

9,238

3

2

2,699,238

5

1. Establish/strengthen local corridor-level protection
2. Improved management for species and PA

2,058,443
469,361

441,884
159,881118

922,500,328
629,24220
10

3. Sustainable development practices for communities

1,109,440

41,5755

2

1,151,015

7

Chocó-Darién-Western Ecuador Total

3,637,244

643,34024

13

4,280,585

37

Eastern Arc & Coastal Forests

1,946,323
231,495
1,610,442

026,70329,898

14
8
19

0
2
2

1,946,323
258,198
1,640,340

14
10
21

19,954
0

0
0

1
0

0
0

19,95401
13,808,214
500,0000056,601
0
0
0

42
1
0
0

4
0
0
0

3,864,815
500,000
0
0

46
1
0
0

0

0

0

0

0

0

500,000

1

1. Increase ability of local populations
2. Restore and increase connectivity among fragmented forest patches
3. Improve biological knowledge
4. Small grants program
5. Develop and support efforts for further fundraising

Eastern Arc & Coastal Forests Total
Eastern Himalayas Region
1. Restore connectivity and protect species in priority corridors
2. Secure the conservation of priority site outcomes
3. Leverage partnerships to achieve conservation outcomes
4. Small grants program
Eastern Himalayas Region Total

500,000

1

1

Sum of Funding
AmountFunding Region

Strategic Direction

Guinean Forests

1. Institutional capacity building

Active2. Biodiversity monitoring system
3. Developing conservation corridors
4. Public awareness, outreach, and education
5. Small grants fund11

2,396,763

22

1
1
5

4
9
6

260,971
2,113,151
813,009

5
10
11

3

14

129,742

17

21

44

5,713,635

65

1. Integrating local groups in conservation
2. Private sector initiatives
3. Conservation and management training

301,569
304,500
543,170

1,277,448
398,513220,740

3
2
5

7
5
5

1,579,017
703,013763,91010
7
10

4. Public awareness and advocacy
5. Small grants program

9,250
281,200

307,188
5,775

1
2

2
2

316,438
286,975

3
4

1. Monitoring and evaluating

4. Biodiversity in policies and programs
5. Small grants program
Mountains of Southwest China Total
1. Foster civil society participation
2. Collaboration with other donor-funded projects
3. Support priority conservation actions
4. Support efforts to prevent extinctions
Northern Mesoamerica Total

90,024

159,7511

2

249,775

3

1,529,713

2,369,415

14

23

3,899,128

37

792,841

1,050,953

7

5

1,843,794

12

1,140,958
1,159,387

371,754
117,121

20
9

13
4

1,512,712
1,276,508

33
13

562,000
306,700

50,00012,9613
2

3
3

612,000
319,6616
53,961,886

1,602,789

41

28

5,564,675

69

0
1,834,699

0
0

0
3

0
0

0
1,834,699

0
3

146,239
0

0
0

3
0

0
0

146,2390301,980,938
1. Strengthen alliances and networks
2. Connection through economic alternatives
3. Awareness and conservation of flagship species
4. Improve management of Pas

Southern Mesoamerica Total
Succulent Karoo

11247,3292,038,159
304,833
94,927

2. Mitigation of threats
3. Civil society capacity building

Southern Mesoamerica

1,355,137

13,642
74,992
508,176

4,040,385

6. Coordination and monitoring network

Northern Mesoamerica

Completed Active Completed

1,041,625

34,815Madagascar Total
Mountains of Southwest China

Total Sum ofFunding
Total Number ofAmountGrants/Projects

1,673,250

Guinean Forests Total
Madagascar

Number of
Grants/Projects**

1. Expand PAs corridors through partnerships
2. Engage industry in SKEP objectives
3. Retain and restore critical biodiversity

2

1,980,938

6

1,113,010
1,337,923

275,683
45,752

6
3
14

4
3

1,388,693
1,383,675

7
17342,895
863,11462,943
31,917993
4405,838
895,03112
133,656,942

416,29535

144,073,237

49

1,358,430
336,755

5,500
9,850

4
3

1
1

1,363,930
346,6055
4

209,108

78,7937

4287,901

11

Sum of Funding
AmountFunding Region

Strategic Direction
4. Include conservation in planning and policy-making

ActiveCompleted Active Completed
297,376
37,0204

5. Increase awareness of Succulent Karoo
6. Catalyze the SKEP program

333,825
121,883

Succulent Karoo Total
Sundaland

47,667792,25372

7
3

381,493914,13614
52,657,377

971,08327

183,628,460

45

634,670
3,486,931

1,390,992
817,588

5
10

17
11

2,025,662
4,304,520

22
21

3. Alliance building between NGOs and private sector
4. Impact assessment of interventions

1,796,790
657,077

316,539
266,1163
3

4
6

2,113,329
923,1937
96,575,468

2,791,235

21

38

9,366,704

59

1. Multiply and scale up investments corridor wide
2. Build civil society awareness of conservation

1,512,542
316,987

1,193,825
58,1776
3

6
12,706,367
375,16412
4

3. Build capacity for better protection of Pas
4. Emergency critically endangered species program

1,551,641
1,218,111

127,040
90,08413
4

8
3

1,678,681
1,308,195

21
7

4,599,281

1,469,12626

18

6,068,4074400904,000
675,757001
2904,000
675,757

1
2

299,999
499,455
20,0001,308,454
110,297434,774

2
2
1

8
3
4

1,608,453
609,752
454,77410
5
5The Philippines Total
Tropical Andes

Total Sum ofFunding
Total Number ofAmountGrants/Projects
2334,396
6

1. Enhance stewardship of resources
2. Empower civil society to organize

Sundaland Total
The Philippines

Number of
Grants/Projects**

1. Transboundary coordination
2. Strengthening bi-national PA systems
3. Community based conservation and management
4. Awareness and education
5. Strengthening environmental and legal policy

558,784

47,336

6

1

606,120

7Tropical Andes Total

6. Electronic information exchange

1,378,238

3,480,618

11

19

4,858,856

30

Total

47,873,207 19,948,828

321

247

67,822,035

568*Footnote - the total grant count includes 17 multi-regional grants represented in each region that they cover. Therefore, the total number of grant agreements is 526.

3

Annex 4. Parallel Investments from Conservation International Affiliates

Verde Ventures Investments in CEPF Hotspots
CEPF Hotspot
Organization name
FY00-06
Eastern Arc
Wildlife Works$
150,000
Guinean Forest of West Africa Day Chocolate Company$
250,000
Mesoamerica
Flama de Oro$
100,000
Mesoamerica
Finca Irlanda$
300,000
FINCA
TriundoVerde,
S.C.
Mesoamerica$
160,520
Organización de Productores de Caféde Angel Albino Corzo
Mesoamerica$
272,658
Organizacion Regional de Productores
Agro-Ecologicos
Mesoamerica$
110,258
Comon Yaj Nop Tic, S. de S.S.
Mesoamerica$
359,053
OPERT
Mesoamerica$
120,300
Belize Lodge & Excursions
Mesoamerica$
100,000
Campesinos Ecologicos de la Sierra
Madre de Chiapas, S.C.
Mesoamerica$
203,894
Indigenas y Campesinos Ecologicos dela Sierra Madre de Chiapas
Mesoamerica$
827,117
Consultores
Financieros,
S.A.
de
C.V.
Mesoamerica$
150,000
Sundaland
Gayo Organic Coffee Association$
150,000
Sundaland
TriMaju$
150,000
Sundaland
ForesTrade Indonesia$
500,000
Central de Cooperativas Agrarias
Cafetaleras de los Valles de Sandia
Tropical Andes$
800,000
Tropical Andes
Rainforest Expeditions$
360,556$ 5,064,356

1

Global Conservation Fund Projects in CEPF Hotspots
Hotspot

Project

Grantee

FY02-05

Atlantic Forest
Abrolhos Bank
CI - Brazil
Atlantic Forest
Descobrimento National Park
CI - Brazil
Atlantic Forest
Serra das Lontras
CI - Brazil
Cape Floristic Region Baviaanskloof
The Wilderness Foundation (via CI regional program)
Guinean Forests
Gola Forest
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Guinean Forests
Protected Area Network
CI - Liberia
Guinean Forests
Southwest Forest
CI - Ghana
Madagascar
Daraina
Association Fanamby (1st grant via CI regional program)
Madagascar
Madagascar Trust Fund
Madagascar Protected Areas and Biodiversity Foundation
Madagascar
MakiraWildlife Conservation Society
Madagascar
MenabeAssociation Fanamby
Madagascar
Vohimana Forest
Man and the Environment (MATE)(via CI regional program)Mesoamerica
Coiba National Park
Smithsonian Tropical Research InstituteMesoamerica
Cojolita
CI - Conservation Economics
Mesoamerica
Guatemala Conservation Concession CI - Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Honduran Emerald / Rio Aguan Valley American Bird Conservancy
Mesoamerica
Little Water CayeFriends of Nature
Mesoamerica
Osa Corridor
Centro de Derecho Ambiental y de los Recursos Naturales

25,00025,00025,00020,877
480,800
436,800
183,144407,726
1,025,000
213,353
408,982
12,00029,00024,89093,90023,60015,00024,255

Mesoamerica
Philippines
Philippines
Succulent Karoo

12,47896,69233,491
821,500

Volcan Baru
Mount Mantalingahan
Sierra Madre
Namaqualand

The Nature Conservancy
CI - Philippines
CI - Philippines
SANParks / National Parks Trust of South Africa and CI
South Africa

2Hotspot

Project

Grantee

FY02-05

Succulent Karoo
Sundaland
Sundaland

Sperrgebiet
Batang Gadis
Bukit Bahar

Sundaland
Sundaland
Tropical Andes
Tropical Andes

Bukit Tigapuluh
Siberut Island
Alto Madidi
Condor/Cofan

Tropical Andes
Tropical Andes
Tropical Andes
Tropical Andes
Tropical Andes
Tropical Andes
Tropical Andes
Tropical Andes
Tumbes-ChocóMagdalena
Tumbes-ChocóMagdalena
Tumbes-ChocóMagdalena

Cusco Polylepis
Debt for Nature Swap
Debt for Nature Swap
Huascaran Polylepis
Otishi National Park
Pilon Lajas
Serranía las Quinchas
Vilcabamba Amboro Corridor
Awacachi Corridor

CI - Southern Africa
23,760CI - Indonesia
232,746
BirdLife International - Indonesia / Royal Society for the
24,958
Protection of Birds
WARSI
318,809
CI - Indonesia
158,988
Amazon Conservation Association (via CI regional program) 18,500
The Nature Conservancy / CI - Conservation Economics /20,000Confan Federation
American Bird Conservancy
100,000
Government of Colombia
466,666
Government of Peru
366,666
CI - Andes
199,816
CI - Andes
190,057
CI - Andes
200,000
Fundacion Para la Invastigacion y Conservation ProAves
36,500CI - Andes
13,000Fauna & Flora International - Latin America
425,000

Awa Guadilito

Federacion de Centros Awa del Ecuador

24,992ChachiCI - Conservation Economics / German TechnicalCooperation

17,2403

Annex 5. Conservation International Costs Recovered Through CEPF Management Fee(Information supplied by CEPF)
Indirect costs are expenses that benefit the whole, but cannot be attributed directly to a particular
project or activity. Examples are the expenses related to general support departments such as
Administration, Human Resource, Finance, Information Technology, General Counsel andGlobal Communications. Examples of the services provided:•

CI’s Administration Department provides various administrative functions and generaladministrative support for CEPF such as providing additional office space, ordering furniture,supplies and reconfiguring offices. It provides general security, manages employee badges
and keys, maintains the conference rooms, staffs the lobby and main phone lines and greets
guests. Administration maintains fax machines and copiers and provides mail support byprocessing the mail, including DHL, Fed-EX, and priority mail requests.

•

CI’s Global Communications Department provides regular (weekly) technical support for
maintenance and refinement of the CEPF Web site. Its online team also acts as project
manager for any major expansion or redesign requiring external contractors, conducting arequest for proposals, choosing and managing the external vendor, and ensuring functional
quality in all aspects of the project. The department provides design and production
management services for all major CEPF products, such as the annual report and the CEPF
informational brochure. It also assists in developing and distributing all media
announcements and responding to media inquiries. CEPF also benefits from institutionallyresearched and negotiated communications discounts and partnerships, such as a newpartnership with Minden Pictures that enables free online usage of any of its photos.

•

CI’s Finance Department provides services in direct support of external grants and overall
support for the CEPF department. For the external grants, the Finance Department manages
the development of all external grant policies (directly linked to CEPF’s policies), including
legal and audit requirements. When a grant is ready for processing, the Finance department
prepares financial risk assessments for each applicable grant and conducts anti-terrorist
screenings as required by the Patriot Act. Once the grant is approved, the Finance teamrecords the financial entries to track each individual grant commitment and all associatedpayments. Each quarter, the Finance team sends out wires to grantees at CEPF’s request.
When CEPF closes a grant is closed, the Finance Department reviews and checks the final
balances and prepares closeout entries in Oracle.

••

As part of the institutional support, CI’s Finance Department provides payroll processing,budget management, expense processing to include travel and visa expense reports, andmanagement of the CI wide audit and compliance requirements.
CI’s Human Resources Department supports CEPF in attracting, retaining and developing thestaff to support advancement of the CEPF mission. HR provides guidance on salary andbenefits administration, as well as, any workplace conflict that may arise. It provides
training, meeting facilitation services and conflict resolution as needed. Human Resources
has assisted CEPF with articulating roles and responsibilities and has developed methods forsetting employee’s deliverables and evaluating performance.
CI’s IT department provides network services, e-room support and structure, grant tracker
assistance, computer procurement and maintenance, and server infrastructure. IT also hosts
the CEPF Web site, provides the technology to track visitor activity, and acts as project
manager for any highly technical expansion to the site. For example, it recently acted as1

project manager for the backend merger of the Grant Tracker database and the site’s listing of
all approved grants, managing the vendor and helping design the automated interface between
the two systems.
The indirect costs pool is audited and reviewed every year and an indirect rate is calculated eachyear. CI received 24% of all direct expenses on both the CEPF Operations and Preparation
Expenses and 13% of direct expenses on the grants to CI programs through FY05. In FY06, CI’s
audited rate on Operations and Preparation will be 22.1%. CI does not receive any indirect on
the external grant expenses (0%). CI has received $5.2 million in indirect for Operations($1.9m), Preparation ($1.2m see above table) and Grant Funding ($2m) on total expenses of $84
million as of June 30th, 2005. This is an effective rate of 6% of total expenses, or 8% on cash
expenses.

2Annex 6. Calculation of CEPF Management Fees to Conservation International
The management fees are calculated according to the Financing Agreement as follows, showing
how the data can be tracked to the CEPF Financial Statements:
On Grants
Grants paid in cash to CI, excluding management fee
Management Fee* (13%***)
Grants paid in cash, including management fee
add: Grant Payable
Grants awarded to CI, including management fee
less: Management Fee (x 13/113)
Grants awarded to CI, excluding management fee$15.7 m$ 2.0 m$17.7 m$ 5.7 m$23.4 m$ 2.6 m$20.8 mOn Ecosystem Profile Preparation
Payments to CI
Payments to Other Organizations/Consultants
Cost of Ecosystem Profiles, excluding management fee
Management fee on Ecosystem Profile Preparation (24%**)
Cost of Ecosystem Profiles, including management fee$ 3.8 m$ 1.3 m$ 5.1 m$ 1.2 m$ 6.3 mOn Operations
Operational costs, excluding management fee
Management Fee on Operational Costs (24%**)
Total Operational costs, including management fee(= Business Development, etc. in financial statements)
Total Management Fees
(Referred to by CEPF as ‘indirect [costs] recovered’)$ 8.0 m$ 1.9 m$ 9.9 m$ 2.0 m$ 1.2 m$ 1.9 m$ 5.2 mNotes
* Management fees on grants are based on grant payments and not grant commitments. No
management fees are paid to CI on CEPF grants to other organizations.
**This % management fee is based on CI’s audited cost ratios for the preceding fiscal year.
*** Based on Schedule 3 of the Financing Agreement1