MANAGEMENT SUCCESS SemiAnnual Report Year3 July 2007

II. MANAGEMENT

In planning for the upcoming Annual Partners meeting it was decided to use a new format to allow in-depth thinking on Program direction, including critical thinking about what SUCCESS is doing and achieving and how this links to biodiversity conservation and the broader ICM practice and learning at national, regional, and global scales. This would include looking to the longer term, through to and past the SUCCESS life-of-Program. It was also decided that the team should discuss reducing the level of effort and budget for field activities and increasing those focused on regional and global initiatives including certification, knowledge generation and outreach. The initial thrust of SUCCESS Program was on livelihoods and characterization of the “place” through development of governance baselines, threats assessments, etc. Today, three years into the SUCCESS Program, the emphasis has shifted towards building on vs. abandoning this work, and focusing more on identifying priority actions directed at more classic natural resource management and ICM goals, including linking SUCCESS activities to biodiversity conservation threats. However, this mid-course shift or re-balancing of emphasis presents some challenge for the field sites and CRC will work closely with the sites during this transition period. Our initial premise that we could start with a livelihoods approach to build support for and demand for ICM has proven successful, the main caveat being the need to keep the field programs focused on the larger ICM issues of concern, and leveraging the livelihood activities into initiatives with more emphasis on resource management and conservation issues. An external mid-life-of-Program assessment has been suggested. While this presents an opportunity to demonstrate the achievements of SUCCESS, it is also a chance to receive a fresh assessment of adaptations SUCCESS might make to reap even more significant results over Life- of-Program. The cost of such an assessment, however, will stress what is already in a relatively small budget for the Program activities planned for Year 4. Budget scenarios are underway to identify where the monies may be shifted to accommodate the cost of the assessment. 41

III. UPCOMING CHALLENGES, CONSTRAINTS, AND OPPORTUNITIES