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14 Summary of lessons learned
In the attempt to focus on larger long-term projects,
GRID-Arendal committed significant effort and funds to
participate in projects financed significantly by the Global
Environment Facility. Although we were aware of compli-
cated processes and risks involved, we underestimated
the amount of time and effort required to participate in
the grant application process.
One lesson learned is the need for relatively long-term en-
gagement and patience in both the development and sub-
mission of GEF-funded projects, which unfortunately do
not happen overnight. Nomadic Herders is one example.
The potential for the project to deliver real impact is high,
with extensive government and community ownership of
the process and valued activities. However, GRID-Arendal
is also vulnerable to a number of high risks. This includes
slow response from one of the governments, which may
jeopardize the financial support from the GEF Secretari-
at for the project proposal if it is not delivered within an
agreed time frame. GRID-Arendal is leaning on UNEP to
apply pressure in order to minimize this risk. However,
GRID-Arendal is also vulnerable to risks, which are effec-
tively out of its control, especially in Russia. The challenge
for GRID-Arendal will be to minimise these risks in the
future.
Following from the above, challenges related to GEF pro-
ject development were also encountered in the marine
work of GRID-Arendal. In particular, there is now a bet-
ter understanding of the need, in the project preparation
phase, to rely more predominantly on consultants with
proven experience with GEF document preparation. Al-
though GRID-Arendal has internal expertise on content
delivery, the GEF process emphasises the value of docu-
ment style and organization. Despite higher than an-
ticipated efforts and costs to complete the preparation
phase, the Blue Forest GEF remains a key project that will
deliver results within our marine strategy in the long term.
Another lesson learned comes from the knowledge and
experienced gained in our relations with specific national
governments for which we deliver large-scale, complex
outputs. Before projects start, it is important to properly
evaluate and acknowledge how consultants with key cli-
ent experience can ensure effective project implementa-
tion. We should not shy away from large scale, complex
projects serving the needs of a national government;
we should however take the time to understand on-the-
ground realities and factor those more effectively into our
project planning.
Within GRID-Arendal‘s ongoing efforts to focus on
UNEP’s Plan of Work, we have learned that the most re-
quested services we provide for UNEP can be summarized
in the following four themes:
• Adaptation to climate change
• Marine and coastal resources
• Environmental crime
• Transboundary waters
We therefore plan for future programme cooperation
agreements with MoFA to cluster our activities, where we
best can serve UNEP, under these themes.
154
154. See annex 5: Flyer
‘Environmental strategic outlook’