International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

60.8 Approach to Evaluating Effects of Environmental Funds
In 1995, the OECD developed the ‘St. Petersburg Guidelines for Environmental Funds
in the Transition to a Market Economy’ which have provided a benchmark by which to
evaluate environmental funds. The main conclusions of the Guidelines include those
set out in the Box below: 1135
Effective evaluation of an environmental fund is necessary because it provides
information on whether the fund’s objectives are being successfully achieved and in
light of this whether or not the fund should be continued. 1136
This is particularly important for ear-marked funds because they can lead to
inefficient distribution of funding if areas outside the ear-marked sector are in greater
need of the funding. This point was discussed in Section 60.6, in terms of how long
funds operate for, and the ongoing evaluation that is required.
Acquiring information that covers any greater level of detailed evaluation, other than
that described in Section 60.8, has proven challenging. It seems that there is a
distinct lack of available information regarding funding evaluation. Any available
information is published by an associated organisation, rather than an independent
reviewer.
For example, WRAP explicitly state their targets for the aggregate programme, which
was funded through the ALSF. The fund was to achieve the following by 2006:
921
1. To deliver a 3 million tonne increase in reprocessing capacity for recycled and
secondary aggregates.
2. To bring about a 10% increase in the use of recycled and secondary
aggregates in higher-value (non-fill) applications.
3. To develop, agree and communicate quality protocols for the specification and
point of recovery of recycled and secondary aggregates.
4. To promote and facilitate the specification of recycled and secondary
aggregates to the point where 10% of local authorities are specifying these
materials in street maintenance contracts by 2005, rising to 20% by 2006.
5. To deliver a minimum of 50 training opportunities during the course of the
programme supported by new tools and information within the aggregates
supply chain.
Economy workshop 26-27 May 2006, Available:
http://florio.economia.unimi.it/Materiali/MEEW5/Mairate.doc
1135 Speck S., J. McNicholas and M. Markovic (eds) (2001) Environmental Funds in the Candidate
Countries, The Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe, Szentendre, Hungary
based on OECD (1995) Environmental Funds in Economies in Transition, Paris
1136 OECD (2006) Recommendation of the Council on Good Practices for Public Environmental
Expenditure Management, Available: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/10/46/38787377.pdf
International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes