Exchange programmes - IUCN

Implementation of an Exchange Programme for Protected Areas in East Asia
did not take into the account the staff time and funds needed to prepare and follow-up on
these visits.
Other sources
Adequate funding, whether from international funding sources, national funding
sources, or commercial sponsorship, is essential for exchange programmes to work.
However, in many countries there is limited government funding available for sponsoringstaff
exchange visits abroad. EUROPARC found that even European parks could
not sustain the programme themselves and the need for additional funding was evident.
EUROPARC suggests that one option to counter this lack of funding may be to
integrate exchanges with other conservation initiatives, for example to include exchanges
as components within the capacity building parts of protected area projects.
This calls for protected area managers to develop good contacts with donors, which may
in practice be difficult when protected areas are far from the capital city where the
donors usually have their office.
Lessons learned
Several key lessons can be drawn from EUROPARC’s experience with their ambitious
exchange programme:
� it is important to have continuity with the people involved (as opposed to allowing
different people to participate at each stage of an exchange);
� effective planningis vital, and so is good follow-up;
� other requirements are to invest effort in communications between partners,
concentrate the partnership on a few topics, and demonstrate and communicate the
benefits of co-operation to the public and politicians;
� the best results come from participatory problem identification, availability of
appropriate expertise and cultural sensitivity in the conduct of the exchange;
� an active co-operation committee is needed to generate a work plan, agree
cost-sharingarrangements and identify contact persons;
� the perception of mutual benefits is crucial for the continuation of co-operation
activities and needs to be conveyed to relevant government authorities
(Brüggemann, 1999).
The main problems were found to be:
� the difficulty of obtaining adequate, secure and long-term funding;
� the scarcity of human resources available;
� the time commitment and the financial cost of exchanges;
� the lack of ownership (few people want the responsibility to plan and run it);
� language barriers.
Besides conservation benefits, partnerships brought positive social, economic and
cultural spin-off effects:
� social benefits, in that they emphasised the need for better co-operation between
protected areas and local communities;
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