The single most important issue in trying to take an evidence-based approach to planning is to integrate information from analyses into the planning process. We believe that evidence-based approaches can have a significant impact on planning practice if they are effectively designed according to the needs of the users, the capacity of the users, available information, the institutional context in which decisions are made, and the technologies and skills available to the developers.
So how can analytical approaches be designed to maximise their contribution to planning?
We propose some principles for commissioning or conducting analyses that revolve around
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REGIONAL PLANNING AND THE SUGAR INDUSTRYan approach of 'a problem seeking a solution' rather than 'a solution seeking a problem'.
The principles consist of 6 steps: needs analysis; design; implementation; ensuring that the planning process can use the analysis; linking the analysis back in to planning, and monitoring and evaluation (Table 6-1).
Six steps for ensuring a positive impact of analyses on planning outcomes.
Explanation of the process 1. Needs analysis
3. Implementation
4. Ensuring that the planning process can/will use the analysis
5. Linking analysis into planning
6. Monitoring and evaluation
Many analyses suffer from inappropriate or muddled objectives. The first step is the formal development of project objectives and specifications. This ideally involves formal assessment of needs and constraints. This is difficult where the issues being tackled by the plan are complex and fluid and open to reinterpretation through time, and where a range of people and perspectives need to be involved in determining the KEY questions.
Formal approaches to needs analysis or 'requirements capture' are well developed across a range of disciplines, including public service provision, manufacturing and software engineering.
Issue or content analysis might be undertaken by the participants involved in the planning or contracted out. Regardless of who undertakes the analysis (participants or contractors), experience clearly shows that keeping it simple, ensuring clarity and retaining flexibility are important general principles for effective design. Developing clear specifications of exactly HOW the analysis will address the specified needs, before going to implementation, is an invaluable discipline.
Clearly, this isn't the place to talk about details of undertaking analysis, but it is worth emphasising the critical importance of delivering analyses back into the planning process in time to be useful.
Where complex analyses are being done, or where decision-support tools are being developed, investment may be needed to ensure that those involved in the planning process have the skills and understanding to use the tools or results of the analyses in decision-making. This might include documenting the processes used for analysis, thorough training of participants in interpretation, or investing in substantial capacity-building processes.
Capacity building is a multi-faceted task covering the development of infrastructure and building technical skills and equally, if not more importantly, it entails learning, by the targeted decision-makers, to better understand needs, opportunities and implications of the analysis.
The participatory approach to design and development is intended to ensure application of the analyses and tools in the planning process. While the people undertaking tool development or analyses may well not be the decision-makers running the planning process, resources may need to be set aside to enable them to participate in planning processes to a sufficient extent that analyses can be practically integrated into planning.
Regional planning processes tend to be, and should be, on-going and adaptive (Chapter 3). With this in mind there is always something to be learnt from the use of analyses to inform decisions that can contribute to 'doing it better next time'. The definition and measurement of the quality of decisions and of the decision-making process (and, therefore, improvements achieved through decision support) are context-specific, but will include factors such as validity, comprehensiveness and timeliness of analysis, equity of the process and outcome.
Thinking these issues through and exploring their implications for next time is worthy of some investment.
LINKING ANALYSIS WITH PLANNING
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Where to go for more information:
Walker, D.H., S.G. Cowell and A.K.L. Johnson (2001) Integrating research results into decision-making about natural resources management at a catchment scale.
Agricultural Systems 69: 85-98.
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REGIONAL PLANNING AND THE SUGAR INDUSTRY7 Industry planning in the broader institutional context
Chapter 2 introduced a number of internal and external pressures that have seriously challenged the sugar industry's ability to remain viable and to persist. Following this, Chapter 3 introduced the concept of regional planning as a tool the industry can use in responding to these pressures to move the industry into a more desirable position. This chapter explores the broader context in which regional planning sits.
Regional planning by the sugar industry is only part of the broader resource governance picture. This has t w o implications for putting planning into practice. Firstly, it means that regional planning by the industry will interact w i t h institutional arrangements operating at other levels and for other purposes (e.g., plans that define public expectations for the use and management of coastal resources and water resources). Furthermore, regional plans may also need to abide by the requirements contained within legislation (if relevant), such as industry legislation that stipulates operational aspects of g r o w i n g , milling and marketing.
Secondly, some of the external pressures facing the sugar industry are actually the result of ineffective and unsuitable institutional arrangements operating at other scales. For example, arrangements that encourage unsustainable behaviour and impinge on the industry's ability to implement change, such as inconsistent government policies for sugar pricing and environmental management, or regulations that constrain innovation. In this context, the distinction between internal and external pressures for change is important because the former are much more amenable than the latter to resolution through industry planning.
Although it is not likely that regional planning by the industry will be able to resolve institutional problems at state and national levels, the process of undertaking regional planning will assist the industry in identifying the external institutional challenges to change. The next challenge for the industry will be in devising a range of appropriate strategies to use this information to bring about external institutional reforms.
In this chapter we explore external institutional factors and the challenges they pose for industry planning.