Ecosystem-Based Integrated Ocean Management: A Framework for Sustainable Ocean Economy Development

Box 6. SMART objectives

methods, as well as through expert- and stakehold- er-driven processes, which can draw from estab- lished practices within IEAs (section 3.4.4) or the expert elicitation approach developed for State of the Marine Environment (SOME) reporting (Harris et al. 2017). At a minimum, this stage should aim to identify the marine activities in the region (includ- ing past, current and future operations), their social and cultural context, and assess the status and trends of the marine ecosystem within this area. In the vast majority of cases, this will include collat- ing spatial datasets, (for example on EBSAs), spatial footprints of marine activities, and economic and cultural values linked to different areas, with data sources ranging from satellite data to stakeholder knowledge captured through participative map- ping (Appolloni et al. 2018, Vespe et al. 2016). Box 7. Steps of a results chain for results-based management in EB-IOM Inputs: for example, funding, staff, resources, etc. Inputs are easy to control and quantify. Activities: such as planning workshops, technical work to support planning, communication and information dissemination, or any activities related to implemen- tation, monitoring and evaluation. Fully controllable, describable and quantifiable. Outputs: for example, reports, maps and data analysis results. Fully controllable, describable and quantifiable. Immediate outcomes: for example, a given number of people with improved skills or knowledge following a training event, or an area of sea where damaging activ- ities no longer occur. While less tangible than outputs, immediate outcomes are still relatively controllable, and can often be quantified and measured. Intermediate outcomes: trust and social capital, cultural and institutional changes needed to make integration mechanisms sustainable, and behavioural changes in stakeholders. Generally hard to quantify and measure. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 6. Ultimate outcomes: the blue doughnut.

1.

Specific: objectives should be concrete, detailed, fo- cused, and well defined in terms of defining desirable outcomes of the MSP process (have you specified what you want to achieve?); Measurable: objectives should allow measurement of the outcomes and progress toward their achievement— preferable in quantitative terms (can you measure what you want to achieve?); Achievable: objectives should be attainable within a reasonable amount of effort and resources (are the re- sources required to achieve the objective available?); Relevant: objectives should lead to a desired goal, either on its own or in combination with other objectives; and Time-bound: objectives should indicate a start and fin- ish date in relation to what is to be accomplished (when to you want to achieve the specific objective or objec- tives?).

2.

3.

4.

5.

process). The early steps in the chain are fully con- trollable, meaning that SMART objectives can be effective in ensuring processes are accountable to donors, measuring progress, and evaluating the immediate outcomes of specific actions. Later steps require more broadly formulated longer-term goals that are increasingly impacted by system dynamics and become harder to measure, though these are the goals that matter the most. Progress against these should be assessed using a combination of SMART indicators for key system components com- plemented by qualitative assessments to capture different human values and perspectives, including through narratives and storytelling (Bennet 2018, Bennet & Satterfield 2018). Working towards the vision of the blue doughnut is a human value-based endeavour in which “not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted” 16 . To map out a pathway towards the overarching goals, ocean managers must understand their starting point, meaning they must analyse the sta- tus quo of the socio-ecological system they are dealing with, including the governance context as well as the social, economic, and environmental characteristics, issues and trends within the plan- ning region. This social, economic, and environ- mental baseline can be established using scientific 4.2.3. Assessment of the status quo

16 This quote is commonly attributed to Albert Einstein, although there is no documentary evidence that he said or wrote it (see https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/26/everything-counts-einstein/#note-455-1)

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