Ch. 1— Summary and Options for Congress • 29 



projects are not well established, however. Be- 

 cause funding is minimal, it is all the more im- 

 portant to devise a strategy that allows priority 

 initiatives to be defined. 



Environmental expertise within AID is slim. 

 In recent years, in-house expertise in this area 

 has declined, and that which does exist has been 

 severely overextended. Addressing biological 

 diversity will, therefore, require both increas- 

 ing the number of AID staff with environmental 

 training and an increased reliance on exper- 

 tise outside AID, in other government agencies 

 and in the private sector. AID has already taken 

 steps to cultivate this environmental expertise, 

 but further actions could be taken. 



Option 9.1: Direct AID to adopt a more strate- 

 gic approach in promoting initiatives for 

 maintenance of biological diversity. 



The U.S. Strategy on the Conservation of Bio- 

 logical Diversity: An Interagency Task Force 

 Report to Congress was delivered to Congress 

 in February 1985, in response to provisions in 

 Section 119. A general criticism of the docu- 

 ment was that although it contained 67 recom- 

 mendations, it lacked any sense of priority or 

 indication of funding sources to undertake 

 these recommendations. In an attempt to ap- 

 ply the recommendations to specific agency 

 programs, AID drafted an Acton Plan on Con- 

 serving Biological Diversity in Developing 

 Countries (January 1986]. Comments received 

 from AID overseas suggest that problems exist 

 in translating the general principles and rec- 

 ommendations of an agency plan into specific 

 initiatives at the country level. 



A more refined approach to addressing diver- 

 sity interests within the agency may be re- 

 quired. Such an approach would seek to incor- 

 porate biological diversity concerns into AID 

 development activities at different levels of the 

 agency, ranging from general policy documents 

 at the agency level to more strategic efforts at 

 the regional bureau and mission levels. 



At least two efforts could be considered at 

 the agency level. First, Congress could direct 

 AID to prepare a policy determination (PD) on 



biological diversity. A PD would serve as a gen- 

 eral statement that maintaining diversity is an 

 explicit objective of the agency. In developing 

 a PD, AID should review provisions contained 

 in the recent World Bank wildlands policy 

 statement. 



Existence of a PD could mean that consider- 

 ation of diversity concerns would, where appro- 

 priate, become an integral part of sectoral pro- 

 gramming and project design. Further, it would 

 require that projects be reviewed and evaluated 

 by the Bureau of Program and Policy Coordi- 

 nation for consistency with the objectives of 

 the PD. Because of the increase in bureaucratic 

 provisions this would create, the formulation 

 of a PD on diversity probably would not be well 

 received within AID. 



A second effort is to establish a centrally 

 funded project within AID's Bureau of Science 

 and Technology. AID has already developed 

 a concept paper along these lines as a prelude 

 to a more concrete project identification doc- 

 ument. As conceived, the concept paper exam- 

 ines the possibility of establishing a biological 

 diversity project. One major benefit of such a 

 project would be the establishment of a focal 

 point for coordinating funding and technical 

 assistance on biological diversity. The Science 

 and Technology Bureau's emphasis on techni- 

 cal assistance, research, training, and institu- 

 tional development would make it the appro- 

 priate bureau for such a program. A constraint 

 to this approach is that biological diversity proj- 

 ects may continue to be separate rather than 

 an integral part of development programs. 



The three regional bureaus of AID (i.e., Af- 

 rica, Asia and Near East, and Latin America 

 and the Caribbean] could also prepare docu- 

 ments that identify important biological diver- 

 sity initiatives in their regions. The Asia and 

 Near East Bureau, in fact, has already prepared 

 such a document that could be used in high- 

 lighting regional priorities. A reluctance to di- 

 rect scarce funds to diversity projects, at the 

 expense of more traditional development proj- 

 ects, has limited the utility of the document to 

 date. Nevertheless, the development of such 

 reports for each regional bureau is considered 



