Concern-Focused Evaluation for Ambiguous and Conflicting Policies: An Approach From the Environmental Field

International audienceEnvironment and sustainable development show how policies are becoming ever more complex and ambiguous. This trend calls for new evaluation approaches. They need to be more clearly focused on specific, explicit concerns. They must be driven by a strategic concept of use to overcome the vulnerability to manipulation of many integrative, essentially procedural, approaches to policy making and evaluation. This article presents a conceptual framework for such evaluations and a four-step approach: defining the focal concern; developing criteria and synthesizing observations on the extent to which the focal concern is met; identifying and assessing all policies contributing to this outcome; and complementing this with the evaluation of policies specifically aimed at meeting the focal concern. Examples are taken essentially from wetland-related policies in France and Senegal. The article discusses how this approach tackles some crucial issues in evaluation research and practice and advocates closer connections between evaluation and critical research on policies

Improving Decisions with Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Information: A Theory-based Practical Context Diagnostic for Conservation

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment – the most comprehensive assessment to date of the status and trends of Earth’s ecological systems – warned us that 60% of the benefits nature provides to people (‘ecosystem services’) are being degraded or used unsustainably. This triggered widespread efforts, by research groups, conservation organizations and think tanks, to design and use ecosystem services assessments and tools around the world. These efforts aim to integrate the ‘value of nature’ in decision-making, policies, business operations and ultimately to change society’s development trajectory to be sustainable.Yet, recent studies point out that not all new tools and scientific knowledge on ecosystem services are effectively used as a basis for decision and action leading to positive social and environmental outcomes. To create change, new scientific and expert knowledge, even when worrying, robust and empirically grounded, is not enough. It needs to be mobilized by leaders and change agents – researchers, conservation NGO practitioners, motivated policy makers or business – who use the information systems and knowledge as part of a strategy of communication, advocacy and action.Context matters. A good understanding of the context for biodiversity and ecosystem services approaches often determines whether a project has impact or not. Such understanding can be gathered quickly and easily using ‘context diagnostic1’ tools. These can be used by practitioners who are agents of change in real world situations.This report introduces such a context diagnostic tool for conservation and Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Assessment and Valuation (BESAV) practitioners. The tool includes five approaches based on well-established social science theories. Each approach gives a contrasting perspective and raises a set of thought-provoking questions on social, organizational, institutional and political aspects of context. The tool is illustrated throughout by examples inspired by real- world case studies, gathered through interviews and participatory workshops. The tool can be used at different stages of BESAV projects (scoping, implementation, evaluation and debriefing).We have grounded this context diagnostic method on well-established social science theory to build on their rich insights and empirical studies. The five theories were chosen for their relevance to the management of ecosystems:• institutionalizing treatment of new environmental issues• strategic analysis and strategy development• knowledge and innovation as a lever of change• the mobilization and articulation of multiple values•the well-being of local communities who use the natural environment and the role of institutions and rules in enabling them to do soThese theoretical frameworks can enrich the way practitioners reflect on and understand the dynamics of change that they are part of

Creating successful valuing nature initiatives: A guide to analysing local context and developing strong theories of change

The guide aims to help practitioners understand local context and external pressures – the formal and informal institutional, political, legal, economic and social setting of conservation – to guide action for better ecosystem management

Correlated evolution of structure and mechanical loss of a sputtered silica film

Energy dissipation in amorphous coatings severely affects high-precision optical and quantum transducers. In order to isolate the source of coating loss, we performed an extensive study of Raman scattering and mechanical loss of a thermally-treated sputtered silica coating. Our results show that loss is correlated with the population of three-membered rings of Si-O$_4$ tetrahedral units, and support the evidence that thermal treatment reduces the density of metastable states separated by a characteristic energy of about 0.5 eV, in favour of an increase of the states separated by smaller activation energies. Finally, we conclude that three-fold rings are involved in the relaxation mechanisms only if they belong to more complex chain-like structures of 10 to 100 tetrahedra.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Les paradigmes contradictoires de l’action organisée en matière de conservation de la biodiversité

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Pro-environmental strategies in search of an actor: a strategic environmental management perspective on environmental NGOs

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Managing Complexity

International audienceLet a researcher open the file of a negotiation that did not lead to agreement and interview participants in that negotiation, and he is likely to be offered too many explanations for comfort rather than too few: interpersonal relations were unusually bad; the politics were intractable; party x or y was just unamenable to reason; small procedural incidents had major effects; the difficulties in the science and the technicalities of the topic being negotiated were too complicated or controversial; and so forth. Each such explanation seems sufficient alone to explain the absence of agreement. Paradoxically, however, since each one seems..

Que peut-on encore attendre de la concertation pour l’action environnementale?

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L'ambivalence et l'ambiguïté, fondations mouvantes de la négociation

International audienceLa négociation, comme pratique ou comme concept, ne va pas sans un certain flou. On montre ici qu’il tient à l’ambivalence relationnelle et à l’ambiguïté des contenus qui sont inhérentes à la négociation, du fait de son caractère mixte, à la fois intégratif et distributif. Le texte en explore quelques conséquences. Pour la pratique, ambivalence et ambiguïté sont sources de fierté pour le professionnel de la négociation et de stress pour le négociateur occasionnel. Du point de vue de la recherche, le flou fondamental de la négociation explique sans doute en partie l’indifférence ou le rejet que le concept et le phénomène suscitent chez de nombreux chercheurs. Pourtant, parce qu’elles sont au fondement même de la négociation, l’ambivalence et l’ambiguïté méritent de revenir au centre des recherches spécialisées sur la négociation. Surtout, dans un contexte politique et managérial marqué par la montée des usages stratégiques de l’ambiguïté, il y a là un rôle important à jouer pour la recherche en négociation

Les infrastructures naturelles : statut, principe, concept, ou slogan ?: Compte rendu d'une partie des travaux du colloque Quelles politiques pour les zones humides françaises réuni à Carentan du 27 au 29 octobre 1994

International audienceSi la contagion est la mesure du succès, celui-ci ne s'est pas refusé à l'idée d'« infrastructure naturelle ». Depuis un an et demi, elle a été évoquée dans presque tous les débats sur les zones humides. Elle se trouve en bonne place dans les conclusions de l'évaluation des politiques publiques en matière de zones humides (cf. Zones Humides infos n°5). Elle a été longuement débattue à Carentan (ateliers 3 et 4). Comme toute contagion, elle est à la fois difficile à éviter et un peu irritante. On a vu aussi, au fil des débats, que si l'idée semblait évidente en première apparence... à la réflexion, elle ne manque pas d'ambiguïtés - ce qui permet aux uns de la proposer comme un statut, aux autres de la cantonner dans un rôle d'outil de communication (une manière polie de dire un « slogan »)