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Based on the findings and the conclusions, the following recommendations have been made:
Given that the Department has committed to an ecosystem approach, the lead of the Priority Ecosystems (PE) OPG along with the leads of the other ecosystem OPPs including GBAP should:
Establish clarity on strategic planning and structural issues of the ecosystem approach. This should include clear articulation of the roles and responsibilities across OPGs, OPPs and unbundled OPPs, direction setting, methodology, outcomes, results structure and communications. The results should be reported to the Ecosystem Sustainability Board for approval by January 2008.
Undertake a management review of all ecosystem initiatives to ensure appropriate performance measurement, reporting and associated accountability. This should be reported to the Ecosystem Sustainability Board for approval by December 2007
The PE OPG and, specifically, the GBAP OPP need to seek greater precision on the vision as well as a tightened operational definition of what specific results are being sought by using an ecosystem approach, and put the vision and expected results into an operational program. This needs to be completed prior to consideration of the initiation of any new program development.
As well, the unbundling exercise has resulted in many projects no longer being reported as part of the GBAP OPP. The results of those now unconnected projects still do need to be monitored for results delivery. The need for the current structure and role of regional ecosystem initiatives as well as their functions with respect to the coordination of unbundled ecosystem initiatives' activities/results therefore needs to be closely re-examined. Given that the Department has a complete results-based management system, the unbundling exercise leaves only the governance issue under the PE OPG. The governance role with respect to the individual ecosystem OPPs and the OPG needs to be examined for possible streamlining and efficiencies.
The OPG should examine these results for the GBAP initiative in light of the other five ecosystem initiatives under its direction. This will be important given the development of a National Ecosystem Framework in EC (ES Board Deck March 2007) and fundamental to the design of departmental RBM programs. There is active discussion of an interim two-year extension of the current ecosystem initiatives followed by a renewal process in 2009-2010. However, the conclusions and recommendations of this report need close scrutiny and reflection in the context of that approach.
The lead of the GBAP OPP, with support and coordination from the lead of the Priority Ecosystems OPG, should undertake actions to urgently deal with improvements to the planning, measuring, and reporting systems outlined below by December 2007 and report those to the Ecosystem Sustainability Board for approval.
The entire spectrum of planning, measuring, and reporting of results of the GBAP OPP needs to be rigorously documented and managed during the remaining timeframe of the GBAP (April 2008) whereby close tracking of all projects, results, and deliverables becomes readily available and actively used in program decision-making. A comprehensive listing of results achieved at the conclusion of GBAP is required so as to allow for a post-mortem assessment of value for money invested.
Given that the population being targeted by a program is crucial to achieving successful outcomes and that this was problematic for the GBAP, the OPP should do an in-depth analysis of reach and report on whether its planned versus actual reach was well-aligned and achieved during program delivery. Such an examination of reach by GBAP may also benefit other ecosystem OPPs as well as the overall OPG.