178 farmers have gained national eco certification in the project areas. The average value of the 79 businesses that had won support through the Green Business Support Programme has come to $100,000, of which the average programme contribution has been $12,000.38 The loans to projects (on basis of 50 percentage guarantee scheme) have come to $990,000. No fishermen were recorded to have adopted sustainable practices as a result of the project. Overall, there has been good progress with the county development agencies but only limited results have been observed with regard to the level of banking investment. Outcome 3: Compliance with biodiversityrelated legislation, regulations and guidelines relevant to the agricultural, fisheries and tourism has increased in all four counties. While there are no evaluable hard data for assessing this outcome, county development agencies reported that the project increased their awareness of these issues and promoted a more active approach on their part towards compliance. This is particularly so where COAST project staff have been seconded to the agency to enhance expertise and human resources in the field. Outcome 4: National, county and local-level enabling environments (policy, legislation and regulations, planning, and institutional) are strengthened to support more biodiversityfriendly development in Dalmatia. Two local development strategies applying project-supported approach in final draft form have been prepared and six guideline documents have been published and the ‘Q label’ by-law for rural tourism has been adopted in the project area as has been the Strategic Guidelines for Green Business Development. There has been good production and dissemination of inventory and guideline documents. Also, active engagement in national and, particularly, county-level efforts to support biodiversity-friendly development was observed. Progress in commercial support
for biodiversity-friendly development has commenced but so far is on a limited scale. In terms of effectiveness, the COAST project has been a catalyst in promoting biodiversity-friendly activities in agriculture and, to a lesser extent, in tourism. It has strengthened the enabling environment, particularly through a number of highquality studies and reports. County development agencies have been convinced of the importance of the issue and are actively promoting it, including with regard to ensuring that development is in keeping with legislation, regulation and guidance. Commercial banks have made modest inputs to support appropriate business initiatives. A continuing bottleneck concerns the supply of good quality green business project proposals from appropriate business operators. The emphasis has moved towards a broader concept of sustainable development, with less emphasis on biodiversity. Indeed, the project decided to stop using biodiversity indicators, since it did not prove possible to directly link any changes on this dimension to project activities, in view of the magnitude and complexity of external factors beyond project control. To provide some indication of its contribution towards biodiversity, the project focused on business sectors with demonstrated positive impacts, such as organic olive orchards and vineyards. Given the long trajectory of change in the biodiversity sector, major results would not yet be expected. To date, the project has been moderately effective in promoting biodiversity-friendly approaches to development, which are so far on a limited scale in the project areas, but offer potential for replication elsewhere in the country. 4.3.3 EFFICIENCY The Energy Efficiency project has overcome earlier challenges to its managerial efficiency and has also achieved substantial programmatic efficiency by adapting its focus to the most productive areas. The COAST project
38 Data at the time of the evaluation.
34
CHAPTER 4. UNDP’S CONTRIBUTION TO DEVELOPMENT RESULTS