Planning for long-term sustainability of interventions should be a focus from the start of program design and implementation, with particular efforts directed towards establishing or capacitating institutions that will exist beyond the compact. The ENRM Project sought to establish an environmental trust overseen by a mix of public and private sector stakeholders, and to institute a sustainable financing mechanism through the electricity tariff that could support continued interventions in sustainable land management beyond the life of the compact. The process of operationalizing sustainability mechanisms requires significant investments in time and appropriate expertise, and should begin in the early stages of implementation. Setting up a new institution operationalizing a novel funding approach (in this case, a payment for ecosystem services model) took considerable effort to get support and buy-in, even from the MCA. Critical time for setting up the institution was lost by carrying out a feasibility study after the compact had entered into force. This should have been done before entry into force to ensure MCA and stakeholder buy-in; instead, one year of implementation was lost in the process. In addition, the project set out to test the viability of the trust model but encountered challenges in fully capacitating the trust due to early delays in agreeing on the optimal vision to support sustainability.
MCC will incorporate this lesson by endeavoring to complete critical studies and analyses related to sustainability planning during compact development, and before implementation begins. In addition, MCC will work with its partner countries to identify key sustainability issues during early stages of project definition, achieve consensus on core strategies, and document agreed-upon approaches at the time of compact approval.