Sustainable Aquaculture 2015 The Preparatory phase towards the Improvement Program is a one year follow-up program based on the Gap Analysis/ Shrimp Assessmentphase supported in the period of December 2010- November 2011, (A-380-02). The assessment, as well as this follow up program is implemented as part of the collaboration under the Responsible Shrimp Culture Improvement Program - Indonesia (hereafter: RSCIP-IDO). The overall goal of the RSCIP-IDO is to improve the ecological and socio-economic responsibility of shrimp aquaculture and ensure it does no harm to the surrounding communities and ecosystems while optimizing its economic potential. The partners to the RSCIP-IDO are: WWF-Indonesia, Telapak, Wetlands Indonesia, and two Dutch organisations supporting the program in the past years, IUCN NL and Oxfam Novib (ON). A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been drafted to inform joint fundraising effort and general principles for cooperation in more detail (for more information, see referred document).
This RSCIP initiative has also been replicated in Vietnam.Due to its growing importance, the shrimp program has been accepted as a Special Project in Oxfam Novib, and a coordinator has beenappointed to assist the fundraising effort. To date, several fundraising efforts have been carried out, i.e. the Nationale PostcodeLoterij (NPL), EU SWITCH 2011 (ON lead) and EU SWITCH 2012 (IUCN lead). These efforts were not positively rewarded. Next to this process, the RSCIP-IDO consortium, in particular ON and IUCN NL have been seeking cooperation with players with similar interest, i.e.shrimp companies/importers in the NL (Heiploeg), as well as the IDH.
The assessment phase for the RSCIP-IDO has successfully been concluded. A report was  compiled on the performance of small scale farmers in six sites, Lhokseumawe (Aceh), Lamongan and Banyuwangi(East Java), Bone (South Sulawesi), Bulungan and Delta Mahakam (East Kalimantan) towards Shrimp Aquaculture Dialogue Standards (ShAD-Aquaculture Stewardship Council) and GLOBAL GAP standards. The report in overall has captured the performance of the assessed farms against each criterion followed by a specific recommendation for improvement.
Based on these findings, three business cases for Mahakam,Tarakan and Banyuwangi  have been developed for the improvement program. In general, there are remaining issues to be addressed  to prepare an enabling environment for a full-fledged Improvement Phase. This preparatory phase intends to better equip the partners of the consortium to implement the next phase thus creating a better position with regards to approaching external funding. Three areas to be covered under the preparatory phase are as follows:
- Component 1: Compliance towards P1 criterion for sites in Mahakam and Tarakan: farms located in these two sites are given local permits to operate their farms; however the sitting locations of these farms are under jurisdiction of the State Forests, managed by the Ministry of Forestry, whom stipulates forest-related activitiesare eligible in this area. Thus the farms in these two sites are technically considered as illegal. A mediation process is needed to start a dialogue around these issues.
- Component 2: Compliance towards P2 criterion for all sites: related closely to criterion P1, the technical design and ownership issues will need to be dealt with. GIS mapping as well as ownership data for each farm (SIUP/operational permit, land conflict dynamics) will need to be compiled to fast track the implementation of a full-fledged improvement phase.
- Component 3: Compliance towards P3 criterion and piloting a cooperative in Banyuwangi: social mapping will be compulsory throughout all sites if improvement is foreseen. This requires significant time investments, and to ensure smooth implementation of theimprovement phase, it is considered necessary to start with this process. The participatory Social Impact Assessment (p-SIA) will contribute to jump start the social assessment planned in improvement phase. Alongside this process, the farmers in Banyuwangi have been showing a serious interest to be assisted further in forming cooperatives. A specific work on this, which is part of an implementation work, will be piloted in this program.

Component 1, 2 and 3 above will be carried out by the following partners respectively; WWF Indonesia for component 1, WIIP for 2 and Telapak for 3. As of the agreement with IUCN NL, ON will support the work of the existing partners already involved in the earlier gap assessment assignment, WWF-ID and Telapak, while WIIP activities was hoped to besupported by IUCN NL.
For component 1 and 3, supported in this appraisal, WWF-ID will become the key partner/contract holder, with TELAPAK to be subcontracted by WWF-ID.

The total budget for the preparatory work is IDR 1,689,100,000 or EUR 145,612. Oxfam Novib will provide support to the preparatory work in particular for the Component 1 and 3, for the period of 1st of September 2012 to 31stof August 2013 to WWF Indonesia and Telapak with a total amount of  90,547 (currency rate 1 EUR= IDR 11,600, plus training for oneTelapak colleague and one farmer representative to Bangkok amounting to EUR 5,000). The intention of this appraisal is multi-year, the following commitments however will be reviewed on annual basis informed by the progress towards the outcomes (milestones) set onthis Product I, as well as successful outcomes on external funding efforts.