Significant contribution to nature conservation in Germany, financial and political strengthening as well as clear strategic focus necessary – This is the summary of the evaluation of the Federal Program for Biological Diversity currently conducted by us, together with adelphi consult and the Planning Office for Applied Nature Conservation (PAN).
After ten years of existence, the evaluation of the federal program and its projects was commissioned for the first time in 2021 with the aim of making evidence-based statements on the success of the funded projects and the quality of the federal program, and to provide recommendations for action for further funding practice.
The result is based on an evaluation of the successes, potentials and weaknesses of 35 completed and ongoing projects on the basis of a comprehensive document analysis and empirical data collected by interviews with experts. In order to evaluate data from the individual projects in aggregated form, our staff developed a complex evaluation grid. Furthermore, operational and strategic program management as well as funding practices were systematically analyzed on the basis of interviews.
The results of the study show that while the program succeeds in providing impetus for the implementation of the national biodiversity strategy, it lacks a clear strategic direction. While capacity building and knowledge building promote collaboration among numerous projects and actors, there is no systematic networking, coordination and communication with other actors. Accordingly, a financial and political strengthening as well as a clear strategic focus of the federal program are recommended.
The Federal Agency for Nature Conservation and the program office plan to implement the recommendations for action developed on the basis of the evaluation results and to incorporate findings on success and failure factors for project implementation into project consulting in the future.
