Environment and development in coastal regions and in small islands

Coastal region and small island papers 12 Annex V

Project assessment guidelines

Background

Assessments are conducted to advance field projects and university chairs, not to rate them. Those involved in assessments are expected to adopt an open mind when considering the various activities, and to look for the positive wherever possible, rather than adopting too rigorous an approach.

Guidelines

(i) To advance the field project/university chair, by reviewing the actions already undertaken and planning future activities; (ii) fostering exchanges between different projects and chairs; and (iii) disseminating information about the project/chair through the CSI website.

Assessments should be done by a team including at least one qualified person from outside the project who has never been directly involved with the project or its implementation. The team should always include the field project leader(s) and other key people as appropriate. An ideal team size would be four people. Wherever possible a person from a complementary field project or UNESCO university chair should be part of the team.

The external team member takes the lead in conducting the assessment, preparing the first draft of the assessment report, circulating the report to other team members, incorporating the comments into further drafts, and preparing the final report.

Assessments must include visits to the project area by the entire project team and usually lasting two to four days. The purpose of the site visit is to talk to as many people involved or peripheral to the project as possible, to view activities in progress or completed, and in general to gain an on-theground sense of the project.

The site visit should be carefully planned in advance with the field project leader taking the lead, and with the full involvement and agreement of the assessment team members.

Copies of all relevant project documents, including drafts, and audio-visual material should be made available to the assessment team at least one month in advance of the site visit, so that they have adequate time to review the documentation before the site visit. The project summary has proved to be very useful in assessments.

The seventeen wise practice characteristics (Chapter 4) are the main criteria. Other criteria may also be used where appropriate, as long as they are defined during the preparations for the assessment.

During or towards the end of the site visit, the assessment team, led by the team leader, discusses the project activities in light of the wise practice characteristics(1). A categorization for each characteristic (slightly, partially, fully) is determined, and observations and comments are noted (the observations and comments being more important than the categorization)(2). At the end of this exercise a short synthesis of the key issues (maximum five) emerging from the assessment is discussed. Future activities are then designed to address these key issues. All or some of the future activities become the nucleus of the terms of reference for a future CSI contract, which should always include revision of the project/university chair summary, and the preparation of at least one contribution to the WiCoP forum. The assessment team leader produces the first draft of the assessment report, either during the field visit or on return to his/her home office. This is then circulated to other team members by e-mail for comments. The process works most efficiently if comments are requested by a certain date. It may take several drafts before all the outstanding points are agreed.

The completed assessment is posted on the CSI website and the field project summary is then revised.

Projects should ideally be assessed every two to three years.

It may take six months to complete an assessment, from the initial planning stage to the posting of the finished assessment text on the website.

1 Only those project activities undertaken to date are the subject of this discussion, not those planned for the future.

2 For more advanced projects, a numerical scale may also be used, none = 0, slightly = 1–3, partially = 4–6, fully = 7–9) 

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