Final Report on the Framework Agreement for 2008–2009

The Environmental Food Crisis: The Environment's Role in Averting Future Food Crises (February 2009) www.grida.no/publications/rr/food-crisis/

This publication achieved a high level of recognition resulting in a significant level of impact. The phrase “environmental food crisis” was not in common use prior to the publication. Today’s “google” search produces more than 55 million hits. The need for linking the food crisis (the top 2008 theme of the UN and an issue of global concern), to concrete environmental measures has at least raised the awareness of the masses. If this awareness results in concrete implementation of the recommendations outlined in the publication, then a clear and measurable link could be made to the report. As previously mentioned under the “Effectiveness” section the approach adopted leading to the production following publication resulted in the successful implementation of capacity building in Uganda:

Uganda: Atlas of our Changing Environment (June) www.grida.no/news/default/3747.aspx

There were many more GRID-Arendal publications produced in 2008 and 2009 (partly funded by MoFA under the framework agreement) that have the potential to generate real, long-term impact. In many cases GRID-Arendal has only limited capacity to monitor and assess such impacts, resulting in some difficulty tracking the real impacts back to the ideas, products and initiatives GRID-Arendal undertook. Annex 4 gives a complete overview of the publications 2008 and 2009 with some indications depicting where impacts might be expected.

12. Lessons learned Although it is in all our interest to achieve real impact with our work (“Environmental knowledge for Change” is GA’s slogan), it will never be easy to assess and monitor the impact of GA’s supportive work for UNEP. This is due to the fact that it is often not possible to relate the portion of work GA puts into projects shared with UNEP and other partners to the impact of the entire project. Further, the GA name and brand is not appearing on many of our products. Nevertheless, we have learnt that our direct work partners recognise our work and competencies. For example, GA’s competence to produce assessments on global and burning issues with a rapid turnover seems to be increasingly in demand and relates also to our flexibility and capability to use wide and relevant networks of partners for data and information supply. The need to secure and develop this strength further is an important lesson. To keep a major networking and facilitation role, GA needs to be attentive in promoting itself to increase its brand recognition by ensuring a higher degree of visibility for its name and logo. Still, the focus on impact needs to be followed and strengthened wherever possible. Some lessons learned in this context are: • Assessment and monitoring of impact should be increasingly done on UNEP’s side, including their assessment of GA’s role in it; • It is useful for GA to create titles, phrases and ideas (example “Blue Carbon” or “The Environmental Food Crisis”) which are innovative and original to the point that the related products and their impact can be traced beyond the launch phase;

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