Landscape strategy with targets (long-term)

Once a shared vision has been crafted, stakeholders can devise the ‘how’—a long-term strategy for pursuing their vision. In the strategy, pathways for sector or area development mutually reinforce one another. For example, the sustainable landscape vision inspires eco-friendly tourism, which sources from local sustainable farmers, enables forest product sellers to enter ‘zero-deforestation’ markets, and together all undertake investments to reduce water pollution that protects human health, aquatic biodiversity, and sustainable community fisheries.

Strategy development starts with more clearly specifying the targets. Stakeholders agree in more concrete terms on what results they want to achieve in the landscape. This means going beyond a general vision for ‘improved well-being’ with specifics like ‘universal primary school for indigenous groups’ and ‘diversified livelihoods for smallholder farmers’; beyond ‘healthy nature’ to specifics like ‘100,000 hectares of forest restored by 2030’ or ‘year-round river flow restored by 2040’; beyond ‘a regenerative economy’ to specifics like ‘new markets established for sustainably produced crops’ or ‘at least five new investments by corporations with sustainability commitments’; beyond ‘inspiring collective action’ to specifics like ‘increased civic participation in landscape governance’ or ‘perverse public incentives for degradation eliminated.’

Many of these medium and long-term targets need to be spatially explicit about the natural resources and the human communities involved. Stakeholders may also designate priority areas for natural habitat protection, for sustainable agricultural production, and for sustainable human settlements, industry and infrastructure. These measurable medium to long term targets can later be used in developing indicators to track progress (5.1).

The Strategy then outlines a broad roadmap for moving from the present situation to reaching the targets and realizing the long-term vision. This involves designing and evaluating different approaches, their feasibility, and their benefits and risks for different stakeholders. The process can build on previous Scenario outputs (2.3) to compare different strategies. Formal scenario modeling can test strategies against different assumptions about population and market trends, and impacts of change in land use and management.

The strategy can be communicated as a table or diagram that presents a rough timeline linking specific components of the strategy to key outcome targets. This can be accompanied by more detailed descriptions of the main strategic components and why they were chosen.

Landscape strategy with targets (long-term) Tools

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4 Returns Theory of Change Template

  • Template

This template provides a series of questions to help LPs set up a Theory of Change for their landscape. A Theory of Change is essentially a comprehensive description and illustration of how and why the desired change is expected to happen within a particular context. It is focused in particular on mapping out or “filling in” what has been described as the “missing middle” between what a program or change initiative does (its activities or interventions) and how these lead to desired goals being achieved. It does this by first identifying the desired long-term goals and then working back from these to identify all the conditions (outcomes) that must be in place (and how these relate to one another causally) for the goals to occur.

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A Landscape Perspective on Monitoring and Evaluation for Sustainable Land Management

  • Guide

This manual (also mentioned in output 5.1) contains guidance and resources to assist trainers of adult sustainable land management professionals in organizing and conducting effective courses on monitoring and evaluation from an integrated landscape management perspective. It is organized into units and modules that enable the training team to select content they consider most relevant to the programs, training needs and learning objectives they seek to address. Units 2, Landscape Planning & Monitoring for Sustainable Land Management, and 3, Landscape Leadership for Sustainable Land Management, are most helpful for the long-term strategy development process as they provide context and guidance on understanding key stakeholders and developing ILM interventions.

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Climate Action Planning Guide

  • Guide

This guide introduces the concepts behind climate action planning and provides the framework for developing a successful Climate Action Plan (CAP) to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. An effective CAP provides a comprehensive strategy for reducing GHG emissions across all sectors while supporting community goals for environmental health, economic prosperity, and quality of life. This guide can help LPs integrate climate considerations and targets into their strategy for the landscape.

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Four Quadrants of Change Framework

  • Co-design

The aim of this tool is to help participants consider what kind of change strategies are being used in the MSP, and which strategies might be missing. This tool can be used in different stages of an MSP, but particularly at a moment when strategies for change are discussed. It helps to generate conversations which bring out the essence of participants’ notions of change.

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Make a Visual Theory of Change

  • Co-design

This tool provides guidance and examples to help stakeholders visualize a Theory of Change. It intends to help partnerships visualize their goals and determine the steps and actions needed to achieve them.

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USAID Learning Lab: What is this thing called ‘Theory of Change’?

  • Article

This article defines a Theory of Change, explains the general steps for developing one and explains its key features. It also includes additional resources and graphics to advance learners’ understanding of different types of Theories of Change.